web

web
Originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

hereslf saw this when she was having her morning cuppa and off she goes to take a snap! poor spider probably wasn't even dressed...

i knew it...

a former tent
Originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

those of you who saw my last post will know that i had my doubts about the camping trip. well here is the proof that a lurcher can see into the future - and its not always orange.

my peeps and i woke up on a very wet and windy morning and herself spent a happy hour or two pegging things down and swearing colourfully before rousing himself to help. by the time they had eaten their breakfast the rain was horizontal so they went off for a day out to avoid sitting in the tent all day.

when we returned at about 4pm it was quite clear from the top of the hill that something was amiss with the tent but it was not until we got to the bottom that we saw the full extent of the devastation. it was as if it had suffered a mid-life crisis and decided to turn itself inside out. the gazebo and windbreak were beyond repair and the tent had holes where no holes should be.

so a premature end to our holidays. everything including yours truly was bundled unceremoniously into the car or thrown away and off we went homewards...

when i say deja vue...

wet scooter
Originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

those of you who are regular listeners, who i could probably count on one paw, will recall that less than a month ago we went to norfolk and encountered rain of biblical proportions...

before the storm

red car
Originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

unbelievable rain today! herself took this pic in brighton (while at traffic lights before anyone reports her for dangerous driving) and about 10 minutes later it absolutely tipped down.

she came home full of stories about her flooded office and how when she went to court even the judge had got soaked.

wouldn't be so bad if we weren't off camping tomorrow but this has a horrible feeling of deja vue...

magic paws

magic paws
Originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

...and here's one where i managed to part the water with my magic paws!

a romp in the sea

joker at full speed
Originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

had a great time yesterday. herself took me to a local beach for a bit of a stroll. she rolls up her trousers, gets out the inevitable camera and into the sea we go!

well, a chap had to oblige with some antics...

dr evil!

...scourge of hanging baskets!
Originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

interesting day yesterday. went off with the folks to sunny eastbourne. yours truly wouldn't usually be invited but the peeps we were visiting have a lurcher so i was carted along. mind you funny sort of lurcher - called lupin of all things.

anyway, after a rather fraught journey involving an emergency pee-stop for my boy and a full-blown domestic between the "grown-ups" we finally got there.

well i have to admit that there was a bit of argy bargy as i met the be-flowered one but nothing too serious. just had to show him who was boss. somehow things degenerated into a bit of a scuffle and his ear got caught in my teeth. didn't mean to cause quite so much blood but thats lurchers for you.

anyway, as if that wasn't bad enough the wussy creature ran off and in running after him i somehow knocked one of the guests flat on his back with a thud. wine everywhere!

after lunch we went for a walk round the posher part of eastbourne. must have cut a funny old sight really. two lurchers, one on a bit of rope and bleeding profusely through a blood-soaked bandage, our hostess with blood up to her elbows, my boy pretending to be a plane with the young lady of the house, the next door neighbour and his dog (a rather incontinent chap - the dog that is) and our host as well as my peeps. several stops to re-tie the bandage which by then was more blood than bandage. eventually made it back to the house for a nice cuppa which was a bit of a relief.

don't think i'll be invited back there.

oh the photo - in the middle of all the carnage my boy sloped off and came back dressed as dr evil whoever he is. he had invented a chat show called "make me evil". i ask you...

joker on the beach

joker on the beach
Originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

this is yet another picture of me on a beach. so what's so special you may ask. well so did i. but there is a rather nifty little trick with this one. i'll give you a clue. look at the eye...

mirror

mirror
Originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

well this is a very odd picture. herself told us she took this while waiting in a traffic jam. but there's something a bit fishy. if you look in the mirror the sky is blue. but the background behind the mirror is black. so it must have been taken at night, but with some sort of glow in the sky behind her. was there an alien spaceship about to land just out of the shot? and why aren't the street lights on? its all a bit spooky for a lurcher...

even the longest days come to an end

even the longest days come to an end
Originally uploaded by Tsunami Notes.

another beautiful picture from Paolo

squirrels

went off for a walk a couple of days ago with himself and herself. they have a sitter who comes and, well, sits, on my boy once a week. he never looks too flat afterwards so i think she must be very careful.

they generally take me up for a walk on the downs and have a pint at a pub afterwards. so we walked up to a large lump of iron which i am reliably informed is a churchill tank. herself was busy climbing all over it taking photos when a couple of cyclists came past and told them all about the history of it and how it had been used for target practice (which would explain the bullet holes).

then when they had gone an old fella came along and told them the history of it all over again but with more added. how the territorial army had tried to bury it in a field (how mad is that?) but it still caught the ploughs, so they moved it back to where it now is and then they were going to move it to a museum but ran out of money and so it stays where it is. then he got onto politics at which point herself began edging away into the hedge. then he switched to the problems caused by squirrels and how they are a menace to gardeners and to the civilised world generally.

anyway then we walked back to the car but ran into another old fella who started to ask whether, if i wasn't wearing my muzzle, would i catch squirrels! when told i did, he said "we've got a nut tree but we haven't had a bloody nut in 10 years because of the bloody squirrels!"

well i have to say i'm partial to a squirrel, especially in a cheese sauce. can't see what the little critters did to deserve such hatred!

back from afar

back from our hols all rested and full of beans. went to norfolk, which is a long way away from where we live but worth it for the beaches. miles of sand where a chap could run in circles until properly dizzy. weather was a bit nippy though, and the rain was what you could only call biblical. had to wear the dreaded mac.

we camped near a place called cromer and spent many a happy hour watching raindrops running down the porch of the tent or for a change of scene running down the outside of the car windows. herself needless to say stopping the car at all sorts of odd places to take pictures of piles of bricks which must at one time have been buildings. went all the way to a place called california but it didn't look like on the telly... she was also taking photos of things like the blackwall tunnell and a rather grand bridge. himself rather unnerved by this as in these frightening times he felt she (or more likely he given his biblical beard) would be mistaken for a terrorist and arrested.

my boy invented a rather good game to play in the car called sat nav. basically he gives directions and warnings of approching hazards. for example "approaching religious building, please drive respectfully, people may be praying" all delivered in a monotone to sound like a computer. great fun for the first 500 miles... my boy was very happy in spite of the rain as he played with the kids at the campsite without getting in any fights and having to be carried off (a footballing term i believe). certainly wouldn't have been possible last year when he had to have a guard of honour pretty much sitting on his shoulder when other young pups were around.

one very good thing was the fish and chips. the people in norfolk seem to be called the norfolk broads as far as i can tell. not at all surprising given the amount of fish and chip shops and the huge helpings which resulted in yours truly getting to sample some. one could almost envy cats on the fish front...