Reinstated

Homemade 70s style trifle ............................................£5

Carboard box for transporting trifle to
nan's 90th birthday party............................................. £ free from supermarket

Lifting cover, licking trifle and
regaining Champion's title for eating things................ priceless




(PS don't tell the guests. I was caught in time, My lick was removed and angel delight smoothed over, bowl wiped etc etc)

Competition

- by Chips

It seems my campaign for the Eating Things Champion title is not as clear cut as I first thought. Cousin Xaja is pictured here in his bid entitled "I ate the mouldy pitta bread for the birds off the lawn because mummy didn't hurry up with my porridge."

I'm going to have to put my thinking cap on to top that...

Stress reliever

If your owner is stressed because she is running behind for 3 consecutive appointments, relieve your own 2nd hand stress by rolling in a big pile of fox poo. Humans love it and there is plenty of time for a bath. Wait! No don't throw me in the pond! Cruelty alert!

Home Alone 2

Trust Beanz to publish a really boring video of me doing a little bit of counter-surfing.

I am much prouder of my achievement in this film. More ingenuity and dare devilling. I did not use a stunt double. It made my carrot all the more delicious.



Yum yum

Home Alone 1

I don't want to be a tell tale, but you know, when TJam goes out, Chips does not lay quietly on her bed. I want you all to know what I have to put up with.

Love from Beanz the Long Suffering

More sun

It's so good here I need to blog again. IMMEDIATELY! I am cooling my toes

before I run onto the beach where Chips is scavenging.

Like some wild stray beast. Which she is at heart.
There she is, a tiny little speck. I am the slightly bigger speck to the right, running towards her.

At last

We are only wet from the toes to the level of our choice. Dry tops rule!

Rain

Did I mention it has not stopped raining for like 2 days. I mean, I like a bit of water as much as the next dog, and it sure is making the grass grow, but I won't complain when the time comes that I don't have to get towelled off after every sorti. At this rate we'll turn into ducks.

Jessie's Tips

This morning I am mostly playing in the long grass.
Don't worry if you don't get the Fast Show reference.
From Beanz, quite literally in the field

Bready hill walking and bikes

Everything is very beautiful at the moment. Even more beautiful when people drop their picnic food and other unmentionable disgusting stuff. Beanz and I love it but TJam goes hopping mad when she sees it. We are so luck to live near walks like this.

At the weekend, we met up with Bready. We hadn't seen her for a while and she brough TJam some date slices. We did not get any.

We went out for a drive and climbed up a big hill. I never thought it would be possible in England, but we couldn't go to the top of the hill because it was actually too hot and we needed to stay near shade. Here is Bready half way up.

We made it to the pigeon tower on the first ledge.

TJam and Beanz had a little rest. They said they were posing for photos, but you don't need to lie on the ground to pose for a photo.

On Saturday, TJam needed to go and feed Silky's cats, but there was a big cycle race going on, so she had to cycle herself because a) she should cycle, not drive places and b) she couldn't get the car out of the drive because of the 5 deep river of cyclists. She cycled down the hill, against the flow and fed the cats.

She felt like a bit of a fraud coming back because she had to go with the official cyclists. She overtook a few, and even though she was only doing 2 miles and they were doing 55, it still felt good. It was also cool that the road was dominated by bikes, not cars. The motorists didn't see it like that. She could tell from the revving and gesticulation, but there are always at least 2 sides to everything. And TJam liked her side.

And a cat closer to home spent the day in the garden, with her black and white complemented by the flowers that have amazingly managed to grow.

Berries and Walks

There wasn't much time for reporting last week. Chips has spent most of her time nipping out to see if the raspberries are ready. She got lucky a few time. There are no ripe ones below her head height.

If it wasn't raspberries, it was windberries. Or wimberries. Not sure what they are called but they are delicious and just the right height for us to eat.

My week didn't start off to well. I cut my foot and had a bit of a fit. I am fighting fit now though. In the good sense of the word.

By Wednesday, I was grand and we met our friend Nursie. We stayed out til 10pm walking. The humans were chatting and chatting and we chased squirrels and sniffed about. It was fab.

Then on Saturday, we went to the cafe and Chips sneaked up onto the bench to show Nerospal some proper happy birthday appreciation. That dog uses a cute face to get away with murder.

Pythagorus Theorum

I think that's what it is called.

Anyway, apparently, humans have to learn geometry in school. They tend to moan about it and go, "I'll NEVER need to use this!". They sigh a lot and use their rulers to flick small bits of paper across the classroom. They try to get away with drawing a straight line without using a ruler, and see if the teacher will notice.

Well, today, TJam did use a-squared + b-squared = c-squared. She actually did!! to work out the height of her porch roof! She was tempted to write a little note to the application man saying, "this is approximate because I used a-squared + b-squared = c-squared to work it out and the added it to the height of the wall, and I had to kind of dangle the tape measure to estimated the length of the roofy bit. But all in all aren't you thoroughly impressed, I just did geometry. In real life. I should not need planning permission on that fact alone." But she didn't. She just put 2.8m and acted like it wasn't a guestimate at all.

Lunch Time Capers

-by Carlsberg the Hungry

When TJam called home for lunch today, she was rightly suspicious of this tail wagging dog that did not venture out of her box to run to the lunch bucket. It could only mean one thing...

Yes, that in the kitchen, there awaited a chilling (but not that uncommon) sight, of a half eaten bag of animal food on the floor. Problem is, it was MY FOOD!

Beanz had been loyal to her feline friend, and judging by the size of her belly, had not eaten much, if any. Chips's belly region and general posture of malaise told a different story of her part in the caper...

Not one to bear a grudge, I calmed myself from the thought of dogs stealing and eating MY FOOD with a little yoga posture I invented myself. I call it reclined triangle with dog and cat. It promotes harmony. And good digestion.

Photography Tips

On Sunday, we went for a lovely walk on the moors with Huddersfield Town and Pin. Beanz was a bit distracted by the sheep, but all in all, there were no mishaps. I won't mention Saturday when TJam fell off the fence as she was trying to get into the nature reserve to get us out of the used barbeque in the nature reserve... Sadly, no one had a camera running, so that's another £250 that has passed us by. Anyway, back to the roundup. Here we are at the summit.

On Sunday, TJam did quite a bit of admiring of her tomatoes. It is a miracle that she has kept them alive all this time. We are all eyeing them up because we all love tomatoes and they are just my height. Whoever can stand them the greenest will be conquerer!

Now for the photography tip.

If you fanny about setting your camera to macro to take a close up photo of a tomato, be sure to set it back from whence it came, otherwise your beautiful and sunny distance shots will look like this:

Do not adjust your eyes or book yourself in at the optitians.

At best, you will get a close up of the grass and a blurry black face in the background.

Of course there is always the exception to prove the rule. This is the only half decent picture we have from about 20 taken this evening on the most beautiful light and sunny walk. TJam is still learning to get a level horizon. It's getting better, but obviously, room for improvement.

Clouds

We have seen some very interesting clouds. First, there was a poodle, begging...

... and then we saw a teddy riding on a cloud. Can you see him?

There he is.

Wordless Wednesday

Spot the Cat 2009

It's been a while since TJam played Spot the Cat. She couldn't find me anywhere. All that lovely garden and no sunbathing cat...

It's not that our decking has become a junk yard over the winter, but you may just be able to spot me.
TJam was so ashamed after seeing this photo that she has since make big inroads on clearing it up. Now there is plenty of space for me to knock out some Zs.

Sat Nav

It has been so lovely here these last few days that we have to find shady walks.

So we decided to meet up with Starter (that's her spy name)

Well wadda ya know. I just wore my paws down to the bone typing out a long (and hilarious) story in which TJam forgot the map and left her phone in the car and we walked 7km past a sewerage works. I chased a duck and all was well that ended well and the phone was still there and this is the photo, which was supposed to be ironic because it was beautiful scenery but we didn't have a camera and when we did have a camera, this was all there was to see. The irony was subtle in the first version.


Then I pressed publish and accidentally signed out and lost the whole lot. So you have been saved text and I am learning patience and that everything is temporary.

Blogging

TJam is doing our walk this morning, pondering blogging. She observes that our blog is only ever about one of 5 things:
Eating something we shouldn't
Breaking something
Chasing something
Injuring ourselves
Occasionally tips for humans like don't wash a rug with your clothes

There is a disappointingly constant source of material.

Oh and she puts in the occasional photo. Like this one.

Getting Professional

It's been a good couple of days for a professional bin raider. First TJam washed a punnet of cherry tomotoes and forgot to take them off the draining board before she went to work. When she came home, all she saw was this:

One little devil had rolled away from me and I'd missed it behind our water bowl. She put it in the compost heap. Sour grapes I say. She just wailed, "It'll never be clean again!" What a wimp. It was a vain quest for cleanliness that got her into this mess in the first place.

That was the day before yesterday. Did you know, tomatoes make you wee. In the house. You just can't help it. (I haven't googled tomatoes, kidneys or poison because we just don't want to know).

Then today, TJam came home from work, all pleased with herself that I had just taken an empty frozen pea wrapper that was in the "pre-bin" area. She gloated that there was nothing in it.

Then she gave me my tea.

Then she found a couple of mystery crumbs.

It was too late, she had already given me my tea.

I was full of tea, plus 7 moulding garlic and corriander wraps.

Here is my Chips-eye view of my handywork. See? I reached that bag all the way up there!

And here is a closeup for all appreciators of fine artistic interpretation.

It's gonna be a good weekend...

Washing Machine Maths

Washing machine

+

navy blue tracksuit pants

+

=

Pass the lint roller....

Nosy Neighbour? Moi?

I was just minding my own business, looking into next door...

... when I heard the rustle of a camera case...

... but I think it was ok and I got away with it. I just made like I was on my way down anyway and that I had finished admiring the scenery...

Tum tee tum!
It wasn't me :)

Traitor

When TJam came home, I sniffed her and turned away in horror. I could smell that she had been stroking another cat. THREE other cats in fact!

She went to Silky's house to feed Silky's two cats. She put down two bowls of food. Here are two cats eating breakfast.

But they are not Silky's two cats! One is the genuine article, and the second (black one at the front) is the neighbour's comedy cat who can open a locked cat flap. He just popped right in and helped himself to breakfast. Kudos. (The other genuine cat came in later so don't worry, she got her entitlement of food.)

Ta Da!

I am Beanz the wonder dog. Hear me roar. (or see me bark). Less that 72 hours since my life was hanging by a thread (ok, I'm exagerating for dramatic effect, I had a bit of a poorly leg, but go with it...) I am back and fine. Not even limping. Not even any more painkillers. Fine, tra la la, hoppity skippity fine :)

Here I am barking at nothing in particular during my non-walk. We are going to do on lead proper walking tomorrow. Yay. We are all going stir crazy round here.

And here is a photo of Chips, because pictures of her seem to be sorely lacking recently and because TJam says Chips she is the more photogenic of us two. It's just that my sparkling personality is not done justice in the photographic medium.


And thank you to Nern and family and Bryean and family for enquiring into my wellbeing :)

And Chips, you owe me for diverting blogging attention away from that bonio box you chewed up all over the kitchen floor. We have a visitor on Friday and now she will be greeted by chewed up carboard...

Sticks

While Beanz is out of action, I am going to reminisce about our stick games.

I know stick games are not to be encouraged because of risk of injury. True, TJam does not throw them for us, since her old dog once ran onto a stick that had landed like a javelin (say no more).

However, sometimes life just puts a stick there as a gift for you and it would be rude not to accept it, wrestle over it and run along trying to pull it off each other before claiming the stick and reasserting my position of top dog over Beanz.

Ah, happy days.

Hurry up and get your leg better Beanz.

Resting

I am doing a very good job of resting my leg and it is coming on well. I'll be glad of 10 minutes on the green later.

Fly Screen

We had a bit of a problem with flies. What with my food bowl being out and those stinking dogs and all...

So TJam decided that we needed a screen of some description. They don't make those cool screen doors like they have in the States here, so we had to go with one from the Betterware catalogue. It was only a tenner, so it's not all bad.

However. TJam did not consult with me before installation. As you know, cats do not do change. Here is my first attempt at crossing the screen:



I did a little better on my second attempt.



I'll keep practising...