Gone to the Dogs

My lovely has been away from home for six months. It doesn't feel that long but then it does. I have the odd teary episode like last Tuesday because I hadn't heard from her for four days and she was making a rendezvous with a soon-to-be-divorced woman in Dorking Surrey (yes we think the name's funny too). I had no idea where she was going, who this woman was . . .all I knew was that she would receive free food and board with a single parent family, two kids about 8 and 10, five dogs and about 15 ponies as long as she was prepared to babysit, cook, muck out and be a companion to the lady of the house. Then the doubts began and images of some Miss Marple murder mystery set in . . . sometimes I'm so paranoid. All I knew was that she was entrusting herself to some woman in the countryside who'd had an Aussie nanny for 12 months until Eliza had to return to Australia for University . . .I needn't have worried . . . after Caymans,. pyrana, death road, and Inca trails, Americans and Canucks, cocaine snorting cousins and laundry tossing girlfriends (the most obnoxious companions of all her travels) and the perils of London, she seems to have found pony paradise.

We have always been horse lovers, dog lovers . . . While her own Welsh Mountain embraces retirement and steals his Arab cousin's geriatric food (which some would see as karma). . she is amid show ponies, precocious yet delightful kids and is actually 'cooking' for the family (they must like chocolate and tuna is all I can say, not necessarily in that order).

She's a good girl and knows her mother goes into a spin if we don't talk once a week, so tonight, she began a conversation on Skype only to have Drummerboy iron (yes I said iron) a shirt and trip the circuit breaker which was overloaded with heaters. Poof! she's gone but not before showing me her current bedmate a lanky greyhound who loves a tickle. Just what the kid needed before her next spate of travel. She shares a house what can only be described as a menagarie and she's happy as a pig in poo. Just goes to show that some sort of stability no matter how mad is somehow necessary for your sanity when away from home. Apparently her new family are almost as mad as her own so she's feeling very comfortable although busy doing strange English things like 'harrowing' (pasture improvement), 'hacking' (trail riding) and well cooking . .I'm quite amazed and I haven't been asked for a single recipe!

So while the perfect couple head out for a night on the town:

This one's for you Hairy Maclary by Donaldson's Dairy. .

Lara the lazy Lurch, sleeps with Clare . . .


Monarch the Dartmoor Cobb, doesn't mind the camera . .

Sally, Expecting puppies and not happy about being photographed in her third trimester . . .

Jimmy the OCD Jack Russell - "show me the ball, have you got a ball, I can find he ball, where is the ball . . oh balls just let me eat the BALL!


Snooty Welshy with the gay name "Divine" . .Aussie kids smell funny . . .


In her element, a mad house, loads of animals . . .the allergies are holding out here with snuggly Sam
Aww, brown Bertie, someone who shares Chippy's hair . . No wonder she likes him


Miss you baby but happy that you're happy . . now get that pitch fork and shovel some shite.
Why doesn't she do this at home?