The Adventures of Fripp

 Have to say it’s been a very wet day today. We did have a quick walk up the beach this morning as Nix wanted to get back to clear up after the home group social evening last night. I think the evening went very well, there seemed to be plenty to eat and drink and I hung around while there was still pizza on offer but then I took myself off to bed. We all ate out in the garden as it was still warm and then everyone came indoors once it started to cool down. All in all it was a very nice evening and I got an extra walk round the block when everyone had gone. Nix’s eyes are getting fixed on Saturday morning so we won’t be able to go round the labyrinth walk. I shall be in Jackie’s house with Indie while Nix is at the hospital. There’s a Sand Dance in the evening which I hope we shall be able to attend. It’s organised by the Shoreham Beach Residents Association but the Church of the Good Shepherd will be serving Pimms in the church hall. I hope we shall be able to go to that. Nix won’...

We went out a bit later last night for our last walk with a view to having a lay in this morning. Nix woke up at 5am and couldn’t get back to sleep again so we ended up going to the beach quite early.  We bumped into the very mad sheepadoodle with an owner who doesn’t really know what he’s doing. You may remember he broke his lead the other day and ran across the road to see me. I think those extending leads are not very safe. Nix got me one when I had to stay on the lead for a while and I didn’t like the noise it made, it scared me. I think the man looked like he was going to have a nervous breakdown 🫢 Remember the lady who walked 20 miles to raise money for lobular breast cancer…Dr Susan. Well when the paper wrote about her walk guess whose photo they printed… moi of course 😇 You can see me in the link but Nix said I shouldn’t forget that it’s not all about moi for once🙄   https://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/people/woman-with-stage-4-metastatic-breast-cancer-walks-20-mil...

 Well we’ve had a bit of a Churchy day today. We started off doing the café this morning which was very nice probably…I slept for most of it. Jenny turned up with Milo and I was able to ignore him for most of the time. Then he got into my bed so  I got his toy and everyone was happy. Gracie turned up too for a while, that was very nice.  Rev’d Jane was there too preparing her display for creationtide. Some members of the congregation have made models of all the local wading birds with lots of help from Rev’d Jess. They are being displayed at the front of Church so Rev’d Jane made a little beach this morning to put them on…she stole the pebbles from our beach.  Well she didn’t really steal them, she will take them back when we’ve finished with them so that’s just borrowing 😇 This afternoon we drove Trish back down to church so she could collect the prayers from the prayer book and then when we got home, I really didn’t want to go in so we went for a walk over the fo...

 Well Nix is being very lazy this afternoon. She’s cleaned the oven and is very pleased with herself. Having said that it’s the first time in the five years we’ve lived here so it’s about time. She has discovered that a pumice stone gets all the burnt food off, even if it has been there for five years. You heard it here first ny friends, pumice stone and water, Nix says it’s like a miracle 🙂  We had our usual walk up the beach this morning. There’s a yacht moored out there at the moment, apparently it’s broken down and they are waiting for someone to fix it. Nix couldn’t see it of course 🫢 Later on this morning we took a trip to Buckingham Park and had a look at the really old sweet chestnut tree. It’s at least a hundred years old but some say it’s nearer two hundred. That’s very old, even older than Nix 🤣 This afternoon we had another walk down the beach and I persuaded Nix to take me over the footbridge to the churchyard where my favourite snack grows. To do this I just p...

I enjoyed meeting and greeting our guests yesterday evening. Dr Susan and her friends walked 20 miles from Horsham to the Church of the Good Shepherd to bring awareness of lobular cancer. Susan herself has the disease and it has spread to her spine but she still did the walk…I think she is amazing.  If you’d like to know more Nix will give you a link… https://www.lobularmoonshot.org This morning is very sad, our lovely Rev’d Steve is leaving us. He has been a curate at our church for four years and now he is moving on to have his own church in Worthing. We shall miss him a lot but we wish him all the best in his new church and he won’t be too far away…we’ll still see him kayaking on the river Adur 🙂 After church everyone had a slice of a special cake made by Lesley for Steve to give him a good send off…I’m not sure why I wasn’t woken up to receive some. We had a little wander when we came out of church and now I am asleep again. I like sleeping…😴

We had a very bad night last night. The skies were flashing and it woke me up. I was very scared and I was shaking…I don’t like those flashing lights and I wish they would stop. Eventually they did stop and we went back to sleep but we are both very tired today…we didn’t wake up until gone 8am this morning 😴 We walked down by the houseboats and over to Adur Rec where there was a car boot sale. Nix was just thinking that it was getting too hot and was it a good idea to walk so far when the heavens opened and we got soaking wet. We’re only just getting dry but my tail is a mess. I shall need to get smartened up because this afternoon we are going to our church to serve refreshments to some walkers. Nix will put the link up so you can read about it but it’s about a Dr Susan Michaelis who has been diagnosed with lobular breast cancer. There is no specific treatment for it and it generally does not show up on mammograms so Dr Susan is walking from her home 20 miles away with some friends t...

 I am at this precise moment in time trying to get a walk. Nix is dallying because she knows if we go out now we shall have to go out again this evening. She tried to get a photo of me just now doing my staring routine but as soon as she got the phone out I lay down and went to sleep. I shall need to stay alert because she will try again.  We had our prayer and meditation this morning. Yes they do a bit of meditation but to be honest the morning mainly revolves round someone going to get croissants and they all sit around having coffee. Nix says this isn’t true and they aren’t just chatting about any old thing but they talk about what they read earlier. To be honest I’m asleep anyway and deaf as a post so makes no odds to me what they talk about 🙂 Sheila took some photos of me by the pellitory-of-the-wall plant which I like to eat. It grows in the churchyard and we discovered it’s good for kidney stones. Sheila is going to write about me for the church magazine and she wanted...

 Guess what, Nix says the skies have been very noisy today but I didn’t hear a thing and Nix said I was very brave. I did see the lights in the sky and I didn’t like them but I had a bit of a dig…that made me feel better.  Rita has been round today and she brought Nix a lovely bunch of sunflowers. She and Nix play their worship songs very loud and sing at the tops of their voices. It’s at times like this that I am glad I don’t hear too well 🫢 We walked back with Rita over the bridge and I got a wander around the churchyard and was able to sample a little pellitory-of-the-wall. It’s a plant that grows up the wall of the church and I rather like it. It’s good for kidney stones apparently so Nix let’s me eat it.  Did I tell you I have been getting a lot of compliments just lately, I’d say in fact that I have been stopping people in their tracks. They all want to stroke me and I don’t mind too much in fact I quite like it.  Nix has prayer and mediation in the morning so...

  I stayed on my own for a bit this morning. Rita came round and she and Nix headed to the beach. It would have been far too hot for me so I was happy laying in the shade in the garden. They had a very good time in the sea because it was very warm apparently. I shall be testing it out tomorrow except that I think it might be raining. When they came back we all sat in the garden and they had tea and I had my smoked mackerel and it’s been a very nice day.  Just now we all walked over the footbridge into town and we sat outside a café and Nix and Rita had a coffee, I had a bowl of water. Nix found me a lovely shady spot and there was a  man playing a saxophone which I enjoyed. There was a time when I would’ve been very scared of it, but to tell you the truth I didn’t really hear it that well.  Rita‘s husband Terry turned up and had a coffee with us, and then we all walked back across the churchyard. I should warn you that there will probably be more pics of Nix than the...

 So the café was quite busy this morning so I’m told, I slept through it 😴 Nix now knows the trick of getting lots of visitors. First of all you make sure you don’t have enough biscuits and when one of the volunteers offers to go out and get some you tell them not to bother as they probably won’t be needed. Then you have a long discussion as to whether it’s worth carrying on with the café. Last time this happened we had a family of three generations turn up and today we had a really nice man who’s been homeless and was now getting his life together in Brighton and a lady who had been walking and needed refreshment. It was a really nice morning, Jenny visited with Milo her Cocker puppy who is really well behaved now. Oh yes, the chap who’d been homeless taught Nix some self defence moves, let’s hope she won’t need them.  We were quite late leaving the café so we only just made it home in time for my smoked mackerel delivery. Nix isn’t sure what Sainsbury’s is up to but we got ...

  Well Nix is well cheered up so thank you for all your lovely messages. She’s been made even happier by the fact that she is now in proud possession of a two seater sofa for our new lounge. Peter and Maureen our neighbours were getting rid of it and were looking for a new home. It’s quite faded but Nix really likes it like that, she calls it shabby chic but actually it’s just faded. Jackie’s daughter Catherine and Peter carried it all the way down our road while Nix and Maureen carried the cushions…I stayed home.   Nix is sitting on it now typing my blog and she loves looking out onto the garden. She says she will be able to catch the intruder in the act now which she’s very pleased about.   Nix’s home group is coming to our house on Wednesday evening and it is going to be very hot and sunny so it will be nice to have drinks in the garden. Now she won’t have to march them through a bedroom to get to the garden so all in all things are definitely looking up.  We had ...

 I didn’t have a very good time in church this morning. It all started really well with me sneaking into the row in front of where we usually sit where I was warmly greeted by Doris, Jackie and Penny. It was decided we would sit there today and so my bed was brought forward and I settled down to sleep. As you know I don’t hear very much these days but there are some sounds that I can still hear. They are usually things that frighten me like when Nix sneezes. I definitely hear that and I have to run out of the room. The other thing that really scares me is the crackling microphone at church. It hasn’t been too bad recently so I couldn’t hear it but this morning it was really bad and it really frightened me and I really needed to get out of the church. It was right in the middle of prayers when it’s very quiet and my claws make a noise so Nix persuaded me to wait until the prayers were finished. My eyes were wide and I was trying to pull her out and eventually thank goodness we were ...