YnysMon

Pozzick is still not going into his crate at night, even though the last few nights his bed has been in the create. He’s also being fed his meals in the create now, with the door open naturally, so hopefully that might help. Other than that he’s getting on pretty well. Because he can open doors we allow him into the dining room when we have our dinner and he already knows that he just needs to settle down and allow us to eat our meal in peace. I guess it helps that we never feed our dogs titbits from the table. Graham has taken both dogs for walks by himself several times. Both are happy in close proximity to each other and Seren only barks if she thinks we are telling Pozzick off. As he’s being such a good boy, that’s less often now. He’s also fine off the lead in our garden, even though we only have a relatively low temporary fence. What we haven’t done is left the two dogs alone in the house, so we don’t yet know whether he would scratch the doors down. We feel he needs to feel very secure before we try that.

Sorry to hear you are selling Paul. Wish I had a spare £28k or so!!

How lovely! That will make the trip extra special. What memories!

Broads for me too and I agree with every detail the Grace has waxed lyrical about (except maybe the choos, my feet are too old for those). There are wonderful places to visit around the world but I can no longer be hassled with the stress of flying somewhere and going on a big ship cruise just doesn’t appeal to either of us. I like watching some travel vloggers, so do my international travel 2nd hand nowadays. My favourites are: Kara and Nate, who mix things up from roughing it to luxury, recent episodes featuring a luxury cruise to the North Pole to simple backpacking in an American National Park. They spent their first four years of vlogging with a goal of visiting 100 countries and were very fortunate to have achieved that just before Covid struck. Flying the Nest. Australian couple travelling the world with a two year old. (Simply delightful). During lockdown (when their daughter was a baby) they converted a van and travelled around Australia but are currently in Europe. Seeing their daughter develop during their adventures as been so interesting. Travel Beans. English couple who converted a van in the UK during lockdown, spent some time taking it around the UK then Europe and have recently bought a second van in the USA, having worked out that would be cheaper than shipping their UK van to the States. That almost went pear shaped when the first van that they bought in the US burst into flames. They had a narrow escape! Kinging It. Welsh couple who take on some mad adventures like doing the Mongol Rally or driving a Tuk Tuk across India, but do so me normal travel in between. They also converted an old bus (Custard the Bus) and certainly have a ‘British’ sense of humour.

It's ages since we hired, but I have a vague recollection that we were asked to complete a feedback form by either Ferry Marina (when Len still owned it) or NBD (before Len owned it) or both.

With Grendel (obviously) being rather occupied this week, perhaps we'd best all try to avoid being too negative about Herbie Woods - after all, Grendel has pointed out that they've been very responsive. There's probably a fine line between voicing our views on which boatyards we wouldn't consider hiring from and boatyard bashing.

I’ve downloaded various time and distance charts off the internet and mostly find them generous in their cruising times. Mind you, I hate travelling against the tide, so that probably makes a difference. I do use the Aweigh app to check what speed I’m going at though, so I’m pretty sure I haven’t been going faster than I should.

Coo - you almost rival me for detailed plans! I think I'd struggle to take 2 hours from Stracey Arms to Gt Yarmouth though. I'm sure it didn't take us that long on Water Rail, even though we'd realised we'd started off too early and kept our revs down to a minimum.

Yes, we are trying our best to remind Seren that she’s still loved. Graham’s comment this evening after walking both dogs was that it went okay but not to training class standards (as if it would!). Pozzick is getting more confident. He actually raised a paw (gently) to deter Seren this evening and he started playing with one of her tennis toy balls. That threw her, until we nudged another toy in her direction.

A quiet day today. I was out all morning as I played the organ in two churches this morning. Both very welcoming. Anyways…back to Pozzick and Seren. Graham did the sofa stint last night. Mealtimes today were a lot less noisy. Pozzick did vocalise (whine) a bit, but Seren didn’t bark as he was really good and stayed sitting. I did remind Seren that she was supposed to be sitting too. I wonder how things are this evening? Graham has taken both them with him as he is intending taking both of them for a walk whilst Harry is at band practise.

I hope they don’t just go along with the usual pubby menu. I find that boring. Whilst we can’t afford to eat out at places with astronomical prices, generally I would prefer to pay a little more for something a little different than the norm. Unless I’m really lazy (as I frequently am) why pay out for something I can easily replicate on board?

Having had the privilege of partaking, I always think of them as Grendel specials.

We’ll be keeping an eye on his weight! Currently he’s having rather too many snacks, but that will ease off as he settles in and looks less underweight. Pozzick and I accompanied Seren and Graham to the weekly agility class this morning. The classes are held in a field near the Bedfordshire village of Lavenham. It was such a beautiful morning with many of the trees just turning colour and warm sunshine. I left my phone at home to charge, so no photos unfortunately. Pozzick behaved impeccably and watched the other dogs doing their stuff. It’s a fairly advanced class so he couldn’t join in, but we hope to be able to sign him up for beginners classes before too long. Not this month though, as we have had quite a lot of additional expenditure as it is.

Graham has worked out how much food he needs and has posted instructions up on the fridge exactly how many scoops of food each of the dogs have each mealtime (morning and evening). His parents had a collie when he was a child that ended up looking like a barrel, manly because Graham’s dad kept feeding her titbits each meal. So, Graham is very focussed on feeding the right amount.

We think he’s already put on some weight. You should have seen him when we rescued him, which is why the first thing Graham did after we got him onto Water Rail was to feed him. Hes still behaving each mealtime as though he’s desperate for food and unsure if he’ll ever be fed again.

Yum!

This afternoon Pozzick got let out in (our trashed) garden off the lead for the first time and was fine. He was sniffing the air a lot. Some forum members might remember me complaining that the contractors our insurance company sent in cut our hedge also chopped off an acer that I had in a pot (pictured). I'm pleased to say it's started sprouting little shoots. Good thing I didn't give up on it during the dry spell.

The crate thing didn’t go well yesterday evening. After a while, as he obviously wasn’t settling, I took my pillows and a sleeping bag downstairs, let him out of the crate and settled myself on the sofa. This was about 11.30 I think. After some pacing around the lounge and dining room (crates are in the latter, so I left the door open) he settled himself in the dog bed in the lounge that he’s been using during the day and both he and I had a very restful night. We we’re later having our walk this morning, as it’s my non-working day and we first dropped Harry off at work. I have an ‘agile working’ arrangement where I work a 9-day working fortnight. The walk went fine again. Seren is too fixated on chasing her ball to play with other dogs, but Pozzick seems the opposite. He went to say hello to a tiny dog. Photo from this morning to follow. I should have tried to take a photo of them running together, maybe another time.

Probably my inept description!

We’ve mostly hard floors downstairs, so it will be lots of bundles of fluff (tumbleweed?).

Doesn’t he just!

The only really thick bits at the moment are the fur on his head, neck and tail, but he does look like he’s been very undernourished, so maybe that’s affected his coat. Maybe the hot summer had something to do with it too.

A very posh, super modern Porridge! Bet it was echoey.

Hope you are getting on okay.

I’m so sorry Doug. They do become such a huge part of our lives, don’t they. Such a cute little dog, especially when she was a puppy. I feel a bit insensitive posting so much about Pozzick at this time. Do PM me if you find it so.