Moving the family.

While we had been in enemy territory, the land of the porridge wogs, the fourth world shithole, sorry; Britain, the family had been staying with Gabriella, an ultra organised naturalized Irish of Swiss origin. I don’t know of another person who takes the animals they are looking after for a business into their living room…

So while we packed, the babies stayed with Gabriella.

We made our farewell visit to Dennis & Sandra at The Circle of Friends in Inistioge, payed the rent on the cottage up to the year end and packed the cars.

We picked the beasties up about 4:30am. Gabriella was already up.

After a lot of deliberation, we had booked the slow ferry from Dublin to Holyhead in that Albania to out west, the land of sheep shaggers; Wales, on the basis that with some early gales being likely, it would be less bumpy and more reliable than the fast ferry.

Infact, it was the smoothest crossing that I’ve ever had, and the dogs stayed in the car (they screamed when I tried to put them in the ship’s kennels).

After that it was a long drive up to my folks for an overnight stop, then on to Edinburgh.

The long drive gave a chance to catch up with a few friends, especially Julie (the international business woman - formerly known a Geoffry) .

When we got to the folks, there was a barbecue burning fiercely and some friends had taken a collection of old tractors around. so we ended up with a sociable evening, and the dogs getting to know each other.

During the stay, the animal count went up from 11 to 12.

Hobnob, a mis-shapen wormy little cat with a fantastic temperement had a litter of kittens ready to go, so we grabbed the most adventurous one, a little tom with the same colouring as his mother, and stuffed him into Pissy Puss' bed for the journey.

Pissy Pus is about 8 years old, and we got her as a re home from an American family. She is particularly lazy, and normally won't move from under our bed covers. She is also the sort of cat that would happily put up with being dressed in doll's clothes.

Pissy puss decided that the kitten was the work of the devil, and with one well placed bladder full, got four pillows and the quilt on our bed....

statement made...

For the journey up to Edinburgh, we took the back roads to avoid the speed cameras that are placed anywhere that the main roads are straight enough to overtake.

Big mistake, we had arsehole Scottish drivers cutting in front and breaking hard, then doing a constant 40 MPH (even through the 30 limits), and bike boys intent on doing 100 around the tight corners.

Once we got settled in, we got little Wart Hogg out. The kitten climbed up to see and it was love at first sight - for both. The kitten tried to suckle, ended up washing Wart hogg and then falling asleep cuddled up to her.