Mum's 50th birfday

Afternoo all, Waj back again!

I went to the V.E.T last week, went to sleep for a short while and when I woke up Mum and Dad fetched me home. Not too sure what they did while I was asleep but I was a bit stiff for a couple of days but am now back to normal, galloping round and kicking up the grass again! Anyway, glad to get back to blogging again and hear that Phoebe kept you up to speed while I was away. A few weeks ago I did promise you a picture of the wedding hat, so now it's been downloaded from the phone, here it is.........................................................



As you are aware, it was Mum's 50th birthday at the weekend and we had lots of friends come to stay for a big party. Well, the party was going to be held in the marquee, but due to the inclement weather and the gale force winds (which would have bought the marquee down before we'd even started!) at the last minute it was decided to have it in the bottom barn where Gizmo the horse lives.

Well, this barn had not been touched for about 7 years since Mum and Dad moved to the farm and to say it was filthy and full of rubbish was a bit of an understatement. If you'd have seen the cobwebs, they were about 10 foot thick! So off they go clearing the rubbish out. They were there all day Friday had a huge fire and loaded the trailer and the van to go to the tip. Chris (Mr Yeti with the Beastly Beasts) helped out and at the end of the day they were all knackered! Luckily for them, Gill, Chris's partner had cooked them dinner. Thanks Anty Gill!

Saturday was the same, more clearing and shovelling gravel this time assisted by some of Mum's friends, Eddie, Gary, Chris again, Andy and Jason and his girlfriend Carly. The barn was then very ablely decorated by Hilary and Bev so thanks to all who helped. The band was ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT we dogs could hear the festivities from the house and I can tell you they were good!I'm sure you'll want to see some pictures so here they are.

Unwrapping the biggest present from Gill and Chris...... can you see what it is yet?

Can't get in it, so employs a penknife...................................................

Ahhhh, it's a weathervane!

Another present, this time from cousin Pete and Phil. You can tell she hasn't had one before cos she's got it back to front!!

Dad stuffing his face.........................

The highlight of the evening, Uncle Andy suggestively riding the horse to the tune of Mustang Sally, closely followed by Gill and Granny Barbara, with her dodgy hips!!!!

They had a bubble machine.................................

The band were great.................................. and stayed the night!

Kerry and David who travelled all the way from Sheffield for the weekend on a big yellow motorbike in all the wind and rain...............................they must be maaaad!

Mum and Chris.....................................dig the suit and bowtie!

Mum, Chris and Chris, confused? You may recognise Anty Chris from the holiday in Cornwall post when Faith the whippet went to Lands End.

Mum and her friend Anty Sue who has Grace and Paddy whippet having a bump and grind.........

Andy being Andy!!!!!!!!!!!!

So all in all it was a great night as we dogs had a late night run round the paddock as they were up till 3am chatting with the band. Only casualty of the evening was Phoebe who got locked outside the bottom gate when everyone eventually went to bed so had to spend the night in the barn!! My humans are daft!!

Well that's enough for now, I hear we are to be looked after by Uncle Andy next week as Mum and Dad are going on hols. I'm sure we can liven his week up somehow.............hee, hee.

Catch you later, Waj x

Feebee fings!

Allo, Feebs here. I knows I haven't blogged before, but I az been findin my feet as it were since I moved here to me new home. I az been here nearly two years now and I must say I am a lot happyer than when I wuz livin in a kennel. As sum of you know, I first lived in a pound in Eireland and when I wuz about six munfs old, I came to live in sum kennels in Wales. I wuz supposed to be found a home, but I wuz there for over a year. I loiked the lady that looked after me, but I didn't loike the kennels much, as I lived on my own and only had two runs a day so wuz on me own a lot of de time.
Dere were 16 uvver dogs in de kennels and when de lady took ill, we wuz all taken away to find new homes. I wuz very fritened to start wiv and dey had to carry me to de car and put me in a cage, when we got to dis place they carried me out in de cage and put me inside de house and left de door open for me come out when I wanted. I didn't come out for about two hours as I was still fritened but after a whoile I comes out and starts makin friends wiv de uvver dogs.
Now I luv's my new Mum and Dad too and since I came to de farm it az been a roight laff as we get to lie on de beds, chase bunnies in de fields and I got lotz of new doggie friends too. We also get toys and treats and I plays a lot wiv Luce and we opens fings loike these bin liners.................

Dad wuzn't very impressed, so I gave him my best "it wuzn't me" look.............................So's to do somefink to impress him, Luce decided to do a bit of shreddin.....................

but soon gets worn out and drops off to sleep........................................

It's very tirin work you know.................................................

If I cover the face, no one will know it wuz me.....................................

Anyways, I fort I would write this week as Waj is goin to be off de line for a bit, as Uncle Andy says he is goin to be nuked tomorrow, I don't quite know what it means, but it is somefink to do wiv the V.E.T and losin his man bits. Poor Waj! I'm shure you'd all loike to wish him some get well soon forts and hope it isn't long before he's back on de line again.

I'm shure you'd all loike to hear de funny story of de week? Well somtimes when Mum gets home from de work she has a loie down on de bed and Luce and I snuggles up under de doovey wiv her. Now Faith comes to de uvver side of de bed and also want to get in, so Mum bein half asleep just lifts de doovey and Faith sloides in de uvver side. When she wakes up half an hour later, it is to find de whippet az the Channel de fox poo spashed on all over and she hadn't noticed when she let her under de doovey. Hee, hee..........

We iz all very hexcited 'cos in the next two weeks we are havin lots of friends and family down az it is Mummy's 50th birfday, includin our friends the Beastly Beasts who Waj haz menshioned before. Will keep yous all posted and hopefully Waj will be back soon.

Luv from Feebee x

The three hats!

Hello dear readers,

I am about to tell you a tale of three hats. I can guess a lot of you will already see where this is going but patience...... and wait for the whole story! Last year while trawling through TK Max, Mum spots this rather nifty purple hat, suitable for Ascot (as you know they went there last June). Rather than buy the outfit and get the hat to match, Mum decides it is such a bargain, she may as well have it! Well, trying to match it in colour (as it was a sort of aubergine purple) turned out to be rather tricky, so she ended up going to Ascot in a yellow and black outfit, with a yellow hat from the Red Cross shop. Nothing, if not a cheapskate, our mother! So, the purple hat stayed forgotten in a box at Anty Pat's house to keep it safe.

Anyway, Anty Karen (Bonniebird on the Refuge for those internet readers), who also does my coiffure when she comes to stay in the holiday cottages, asked Mum, Dad and Andy, if they would like to go to her wedding which was on 29th August. Well someone had to stay at home and look after us dogs, so Mum went with Andy and left 10 dogs, two ferrets, three cats, five chickens, the ducks and Gizmo the horse for Dad to look after. Hmmm............wonder who got the better deal?

Back to the hat. Mum is now determined to find an outfit to match the hat so asks Anty Pat to bring it out of storage to match it up for colours. The hat now spends a couple of months safely in the car while it is matched with a blouse and some snazzy silk type trousers (from the Red Cross shop again). Outfit all ready and it is all bought into the bedroom to await the big day. The hat is placed securely on top of a chest of drawers inside a plastic bag and inside a cardboard box so it doesn't get squashed. Whilst everyone was out of the house, Lucy and Phoebe take the box off the chest, shred the box then find the prize inside! Inside the carrier bag (which was made short work of), a lovely straw type hat. Well, after a few tug of war games, removing the ribbon and finding out how far it will stretch between two mouths, it didn't much resemble a hat anymore! Well not one that you could wear on your head anyway!

Back to another shop search, this time to find a hat to match the outfit! Again she traversed all the town shops and finally found the right colour, this time in another charity shop. Even better, there was now a choice, as they had a rather nice green colour to match the blouse, as well as another purple one. The nice lady in the charity shop said they rented them out for a donation, so she could take the two and try them to see which she like best. She was very amused when she heard the story of the first hat! So, home again came another two hats.

Not to be caught out by that old trick again, i.e. taking them in the house to be destroyed by the phantom hat eaters, Mum leaves the hats on the back seat of the big yellow car where they will be safe. You're all probably ahead of me now! Every Saturday when the cleaners finish cleaning the cottages they put the dirty laundry in the back of the yellow car ready to take to the launderette on the Monday. Not realising the bag on the back seat contained two hats, the laundry bags were shoved in either side, neatly squashing the hats in the middle! Mum realises that she is probably destined not to wear a hat at all, but luckily there wasn't as much damage as first thought, well anyway nothing that a cool iron and some starch couldn't sort out!

Anyway, the wedding was a big success and Mum would like to thank Karen and Gilbert for inviting them and for such a lovely day. Joe for showing her round the park! Scott for a lovely meal on the Thurday night and a special thank you to Tessa for putting her up! She also adopted a dog while she was away as Tessa had broken her hand and damaged her foot just before the wedding, so Mum had the pleasure of escorting Cameron the Scottish Terrier around the park each day. They are all coming to stay on hols soon, so we will get to meet him too. I'm sure you will want to see some photo's, so here are a couple. At this point can I say my dingbat mother forgot to take the memory card for the camera so she could only take about 7 on the internal memory which is why there are so few and none of the bridegroom.........sorry Gilbert!

Karen and Tessa who Mum stayed with..............................
Uncle Joe with Edie and Bird....................the bridesmaids!
Edie....................

Bird....................

I'm sure you'll all want to see the hat, but Mum took some on her mobile phone and can't download them till young Jason comes home from Germany and shows her how! So sorry, you'll have to wait!

Just to round off the weekend they arrive at Paddington 14.45, train leaving at 15.00. Board says train delayed so Andy gets a magazine while Mum gets a burger. When Andy returns he goes for a burger too. Time now is 14.58 and all of a sudden train delayed disappears off the board. Joe and Mum shout to andy that the train is going, and shoot over to Platform 3. By now the guard is shutting the doors so Mum shoots onto the train shouting to the guard that Andy is coming. He basically replies "tough" as the train starts pulling away while Andy is still at the burger bar! Tickets were flung at the guard as Mum had his seat reservations still and off the train went without him! Now, the best thing was that the tickets they had were for that specific train and were not transferable so Andy had to pay another £61.00 for the privilege of getting as far as Swansea (60 miles from home), then getting someone to fetch him as there were no connections! Expensive burger or what??

Anyway, that's all for now, nearly time for bed methinks.

Catch you later, Waj x

Well, it's finished at last!

Hi all,

Well, its finished! What can I say but what a relief! More so as when Anty Lisa arrived early on 19/7/08, she was told to naf off as they hadn't finished and were still carrying furniture in! Mum and Dad had put soooo many hours in that last week, we dogs had almost forgotten what they looked like! So Lisa and co. took the pack for a run around the fields.

Anyway, after the mad scrabble to put the dining table and chairs in and put the patio table and chairs up in the garden and finish off fastening the garden gate and put the curtains up........ you get the idea, they were ready. There were copious bottles of sparking wine in the fridge and a lovely buffet prepared by Anty Iris to welcome the new guests and a bottle of champagne for our first guests!.

The other holidays guests were invited and a pleasant couple of hours was spent toasting the new cottage. Then they they dragged Anty Lisa outside for a surprise, this was it....

She was very surprised I can tell you, but we all thought it was great as Gap do a lot of good work rescuing dogs from being put to sleep, I'm sure I've mentioned them before in my missives but the web site is www.greyhoundgap.com
Here's Mum and Dad with Lisa enjoying the wine, note Anty Lisa hasn't got any!
The opening gang from left to right, Anty Iris, Andy, Mum, Trish, Jack, Dad, Mark and Carl.

Ok, I'm sure you all want to know what it looks like so here's s few piccies.........

The main bedroom which is ensuite with toilet and shower.

The smaller upstairs bedroom with two single beds.

The second upstairs bathroom.

The upstairs lilac room with two single beds.

and again.

The lounge sunroom area.

Outside enclosed garden and patio.

and again.

The downstairs main bedroom.

and again.

Downstairs bathroom with roll top bath and huge double shower.

Ultra modern kitchen with gas range.

Lounge dining area.

Well, that was that! They didn't know what to do with themselves the Sunday morning and stayed in bed till ten which is unheard of in our household! In case you think we'd been forgotten, Mum did walk us and feed us at just after seven but then we all went back to sleep, worn out!!

A fabulous fortnight followed of nice weather, barbeques, parties in a power cut and Mum went on a visit with the girls to Folly Farm and a good time was had by all!

Anyway, I think that's all that needs to be said for the time being.

Catch you later, Waj x

"The Stick"

Hello dear readers,


Firstly I hear you thinking doesn’t he mean "The Stig?” As you are probably all aware, a new series of Top Gear has started. This means that all the car mad members of our household are glued in front of the screen at 8pm on Sunday, well...actually ....... that’s all of them then!



Just to keep you up to date with our own pimped up rides, here is Mum's new purchase, again off Ebay which looks like this.....................
Mum's MGF Trophy.

Not quite big enough to take the doggie gang out in you may think and you'd be right, as it's only got two seats! However, Lucy managed to get a ride in it, but unfortunately only to the vets! They thought the open top and subsequent fresh air would help her travel sickness, but it didn’t work and luckily they had a towel to catch the vomit in! It turned out to be a scratched eye ball and after a few drops she was as right as rain (though why rain should be right, I don't know, not that keen on it myself actually!).

As you already know from the post hospital drive post, they have another yellow car which looks like this...................

Dad's MGZS 180.

and last week ended with a full complement of yellow as Dad bought a yellow van off Ebay to take us all out in! Here is our new dog mobile.............

and from the rear..................................

Trendy or what? Dig the blacked out windows personally, so that us famous bloggers can go places incognito! What actually happened and the reason we got the van in the first place, was that it was time for the Mitsubishi Pajero to get it’s yearly MOT. The Pajero is ok to go out in, but it is a bit cramped with seven (now we have Phoebe) as it is only a short wheel base.

Dad thought it couldn’t possibly pass the MOT without spending a grand or so on it, so he found this nice van on Ebay and bid for it . He left the Pajero down at the local garage for an estimate on how much it would be to get it through the MOT, within two days it was back with another years MOT total cost £272 a fraction of what they thought it would cost so that was not at all bad! So we are sitting here at the moment with Jason's car, and two vehicles each for Mum and Dad! The yard looks like a car mart!

Anyway, I can hear you all thinking what about this stick? Well here is the stick!

Notice the loosely tied string round it and you can guess from this, that it didn’t start out in life as a stick! Can you tell what it is yet? Loosely may also give you a clue to the chief suspect. Let me give you a clue…………I'll let her tell you herself!

Oooo me?

Ello Lucy ere, I az bin norty and so az Feebs! Mumi bort dis fing home what she wuz goin to get de cobwebs down wiv. It lookid like a chickin so we fort we ad beter av a gude look at it. Feebs fetchid it off de tabel and we ad a bit ofa game wiv it!

it wuz a gude game until Dadi cum in an cawt us, it wuz diffycult to deeny 'cuz we ad fevvers in de bed! In fact dere wer fevvers everiwere!

Anty Bear wuz NOT impresed, aniwun wuld fink shes never dun anythin norty!

I also ad a smak de uver day as Keo was playin on de bed an I wuz sleepin under de doovey. I growels at her cos I is tyred and want to sleep, but she keept boverin me so's I leeps out of de bed groweling an snappin loike a turtel at her and foun it wuz Dad playin wiv me insted, lukily I just missd is nose! Gude job I wuznt in de dawg hawse for long! Nice to tawk to you's all for a chainge, Lucy x

I think that's all we need to hear from that dratted whippet, just about time to have a lay down before tea time.

Catch you later, (the now driven in style) Waljan x

Bears says "fanks" and Jason the racing driver!

Hi All,
Firstly Bear would like to say "Fank you" to all who sent emails and texts to see how she was doing. I am glad to report that the op went well, her x rays were clear so the nasty bits on one side were removed. This was how it looked when she came home. The rubbery thing sticking out is apparently called a drain to let all the gunky bits out. As it happens, it all healed up well.

Unfortunately, she has got to go back and have the other side done as apparently they can only do one mammary strip at a time.

Latest news on the new cottage is that all bathrooms and floors are now done. Waste system is in and that was a palaver I can tell you! Dad had to dig the whole roadway up, while making a trench over to the horses field at the front. It rained, there was mud everywhere and then he had to leave it open four days until the building inspector could get down to inspect it! We dogs just leap frogged the trench, but Uncle Andy was faffing about the horses falling down it, surely they wouldn't be that stupid? They've got eyes haven't they? Just to be on the safe side, they cordoned off the holes, but no one fell down it and it's all filled in now! Work is progressing on the garden which at the moment is quite open plan! The fence is due to be finished off next week along with the patio area.

Bit of news on the Jason front for you, he took part in the Llys y Fran hill climb a few weeks ago in his Subaru. For the uninitiated of you, basically it's a race against the clock from one point in the park, round some squiggly bends, across a bridge, and up the hill to the finish. The winner is the one with the fastest time, with the various categories of car. Mum and Dad went to watch with some trepidation, as this car is Jason's main form of transport and if he mangled it he wouldn't be insured! Luckily he managed to keep it in one piece and did a practice time of 55 seconds which apparently was pretty good. Here's a few pictures of the boy racer and his car!

In the pits...............

Actually racing...........................

Looking pleased with himself..............................

All in all, they said it was a good day out and looks like he'll be taking part again shortly.

Well I think that wraps it up for today, Mum and Dad are back over the cottage, so I think I'll have a lay out in the sun as it's a nice day.

Catch you later, Waj x