TALES FROM THE RIVERBANK: This morning Elwood rediscovered his love of nesting in the dirty washing!

Wednesday is washday in this household (or should I say 'boathold' - although to my mind the 'hold' is the rather smelly bit under the floorboards - but I digress!) Washday means a trip to the laundrette since we have no washing machine on board. So dirty clothes, sheets and towels are packed into capacious Clas Ohlson bags and off we go. This morning, as is my wont, I threw the towels and tea towels from the forward shower room and galley up the steps into the saloon in preparation for packing into said bags, and went to strip the bed in the aft cabin. In the meantime the mad hound found this pile of towels and decided to rake them out into a nest, carefully positioned right at the top of the forward steps. Anyone who thinks cats have cornered the market in finding the most awkward and inconvenient places to sleep should spend some time with a determined dog.



What, no pillow? How's a dog supposed to sleep?

Seeing Bonzo there reminded me of his previous love of dirty clothes nesting, so I went to find an old photo I remembered. Gosh, I had forgotten how cute he was (for about 2 weeks!) he is still lovely, but you definitely can't call him cute now - he'd never forgive you!

Caught red handed...err...red pawed?

BLUES BROTHERS HEAVEN with obligatory dog photos (ODP)

Oh, joy, just come in from sharing a lovely meal with the in-laws and switched on the TV for an hour's mindless entertainment before bed to find that the Blues Brothers has just started. One of our favourite films and, although we have it on DVD, we have to watch it when it is on the TV (even with the advert breaks!) Why do we do this? I am sure we are not the only ones who do! Not only that, but of course we are now going to have to stay up and watch it to the end. D'oh!

I first saw this film at a late night (very late) showing at what was then 'Wycombe 6'. One of my earliest dates with what is now my long-term partner who, being a couple of years older than me probably saw it the first time round, and was using it as some kind of test situation - if I liked his kind of film, perhaps I was worth sticking with?

Well we did stick, and so did the film. So much so that our first dog was called Jake, and the current one is... you guessed it, Elwood:

Jake (James Belushi)

Elwood (Dan Ackroyd)

I understand that it is fairly 'obligatory' to have photographs of your pets on a blog, so let me introduce you to the most important member of our family:

September 2013: aged 9 weeks

September 2015: aged 2 years 3 months

This is Elwood J. Blues, our lovely - but challenging - Chesapeake Bay Retriever (we very soon found out what the 'J' stands for: it stands for TROUBLE. This has given rise to a new saying in the family - "trouble with a capital 'J'")

Elwood (aka Chesepi Rock Creek, and various other names such as 'oi, you, get off that sofa' and 'what's he done now?') was hand reared. (I am sure I heard a sharp in-take of breath then, from anyone who knows anything about dogs!) Although the breeder, Molly, did a great job, hand reared dogs are always a challenge. Chessie's are a challenge. The combination of the two has been hard work. We were used to docile Labradors not this manic whirlwind. In the early days our one relief was the fact that, like most gundog breeds, he slept, a great deal. The only downside was that having been hand-reared his default comfort position was in a lap - quite sweet at 2 months old. Not so funny now, hence the strained look on my face. Admittedly the lap thing is rare now, and we don't let him do this often, but every now and then he will have a go.

Nearly made it

Puppies will sleep anywhere