General Witterings -
New Wooflet on Rosy!!!!!

To remind you of the story so far ....

Was the Laird of Strathnaver on the Wednesday evening train from Paris or not?  Now read on ...

Yes he was, PLUS the wooflet Fanny.

It took them four days to get from the far north of Scotland to Briare.

Night one was spent in an hotel in Inverness as the railway lines were flooded - REALLY flooded - water slooshing around on the carriage floors (I know this, as he has told me five times so far).  Then another night was spent in Dover as he was too knackered to continue.

Anyway, in those four days of travelling, the 12-week-old Fanny became convinced that the Laird was her new mummy.

Having met them off the train, we walked back to Rosy, and I made supper for us all, whilst Jess and Fanny got along OKish, except when tiny Fanny nipped Jess on the bum!!!

When Jess and the Laird left (latish) Fanny cried for an half an hour, dropped off to sleep for 15 minutes, woke and cried for another five minutes, and has been a happy wooflet ever since.  The idea of crying on being separated from the Laird of Strathnaver struck me as being particularly curious - perhaps there is more to him than meets the eye.

She now follows me around, and, as she has black hair and brown eyes she is, of course, utterly gorgeous.

This is now day nine of our relationship.  Luckily I have the time to devote to her, so careful timing and training means that she hasn't crapped in Rosy for six days, though there is still the occasional watery whoopsy.  The training regime is to chunter to myself whilst cleaning up inside whoopsies, and give praise and food treats for the outside ones.  Before she arrived she was, apparently, trained to perform on newspaper, but she has abandoned this, taking considerable exception to The Times, and even more to Le Figaro.

She doesn't seem to have read any of the three doggie books which I have - and I'm unsure how do I find out which ones she does know about.

The Laird is a bit cross with me, as I wrote to the breeder, enclosing photos of Rosy and me, and generally trying to be charming.  The Laird doesn't understand why I didn't tell him that I had written.  He hasn't directly ASKED me why I didn't tell him, so I am currently ignoring his snide comments.  If he DOES directly ask me, I'll have to tell him that it's naff all to do with him who I do (or do not) write to.

However, these witterings are meant to be canal orientated - so enough of woofs ...

FOOTBALL:

There is a theory that modern international affairs, especially the Iraq question, revolve around football.  Nearly the whole world plays association football which has eleven lunatics per side, one warder on the pitch to maintain some sort of order, and two guards on the touch-line to make sure no one absconds.  The basic rules of football are:

1.  Only the South Americans and goal-keepers are allowed to handle the ball.

2.  You are only allowed to scrag the person with the ball.

This second rule is also applied to those gentlemen and women who indulge in rugby football.

Unfortunately, there is one country in the world where this rule is not understood, namely the USA, who invented a deviation called American football, where it is permissible to scrag someone, even if they don't have the ball.

Hence the USA is entirely OK about scragging the Iraqis, who are currently (apparently) only planning and supporting dastardly deeds.  Whereas the rest of the world feels that Iraq has to actually be seen to perform a dastardly deed before it can be scragged.

CANALLY BITS:

The grand closure is now over.  Having moved our boats up above the écluse to allow for the draining of the Port de Plaisance, the Port started emptying last Monday week.  By Tuesday morning it was down about half a metre - maybe a touch more.  By Thursday it was full again!!  Nothing interesting came to light - least of all Falcon's funnel.  We have now returned to the Port de Plaisance, and there seems to be no more depth or cleanliness now than there was previously.

However, the other stoppage of the long pound is still in progress, which means that the Pont Canal is drained, displaying its internal structure - it's a iron trough on masonry supports.

The River Loire is pretty high at the moment, though, naturally, the Laird of Strathnaver has seen it tons higher than it is now.

C'est la vie!!

Toodle pip!!

Bill