The Adventures of Fripp

 Nix has been out without me twice today! This morning I knew she was going out and leaving me on my own. I usually sleep all morning but not if she’s going out. Anyway I got up on the sofa while she was gone, I didn’t need my step and I had my sulky face on when she got home. I don’t think she’ll be doing that again 🙂 We had quite a nice walk at lunchtime which was a little earlier than normal. I didn’t think too much about it and rather annoyingly went straight to bed when we got back. I didn’t wake up for quite a long time and when I did, Jackie and Nix were having a cup of tea and Nix looked very guilty. Because I am super observant I did notice that Nix’s hair was shorter than usual and so I suspected she had been out without me…again! There was talk of Worthing and trying to find a parking space and I know her hairdresser is in Worthing so I rest my case…I was deserted twice in one day!  Nix’s new clematis arrived to replace the one destroyed by the intruder last year. ...

  Humans are quite easy to train aren’t they. I find treats work best with our rather special Beardie ‘look’. So basically, if you pretend you don’t want to do something they give you a treat to encourage you to do it. It’s a win win situation and I am using it quite a lot lately. For example, if Nix doesn’t want to go along the beach late at night because it’s too windy or too dark I put the brakes on and pretend that I really really want to walk along the beach in the cold wind and the dark. Nix gives me a treat to encourage me to walk along the road instead of the beach which is what I wanted to do in the first place 🙂 I’m now using it at every junction we arrive at. If Nix wants to go left I pretend that I want to go straight on and out come the treats. It works every time, you must try it my Beardie friends but stand firm when they try to drag you their way. Other humans will come along and stare and they will be too embarrassed to try and drag you any further. In these situa...

  Well Nix has been quite busy today and I mainly slept. First of all at church we had a visit from archdeacon Martin as it is Good Shepherd Sunday. Nix rather enjoyed his sermon, it was about joining up dots apparently…I slept through it 🙂 Rev Jane had asked Nix to take a photo of archdeacon Martin for our church newsletter. Kay our church warden had already asked him and so after the service he and Nix set off for the Good Shepherd banner at the front of church. As Nix was taking the photo someone from the congregation asked her if she’d like to be in the photo too. Nix was mortified and had to explain to the archdeacon that she is always taking photos for ‘her dog’s’ blog. Anyway he said he was happy to be in the blog so I shall get Nix to post the photo thankfully without her in it.  After church we had our Good Shepherd lunch in the church hall. Nix had a veggie Shepherd’s Pie (of course) and afterwards there was rhubarb and apple crumble with custard made with rhubarb f...

 So we had a rather lovely sunsetting walk last night, I stayed on my lead just in case there were any unruly Labrador owners around. I don’t think it was really late enough though for my final walk as I might have had a bit of an accident in the kitchen. I’m afraid Nix did step in it again but she did have her slippers on this time. Apparently though this means it gets walked all round the house and it takes longer to clean up and entails a mop and bucket which rarely see the light of day. There is a good side to all of this, we now have very clean floors 🙂 We have had a wander down the river this afternoon. They have laid a new path which is much better as we used to get very muddy. I have a favourite spot under the flyover but Nix won’t let me go down there mainly because it’s fairly disgusting. I waited until we were almost at the other side and then when Nix wasn’t looking I quickly popped down there. I found something very yummy to eat and there was no way Nix could get to m...

  We’ve had a bit of a busy day today, well Nix has, I’ve been asleep for most of it. When we got to our Friday morning prayer and meditation there were lots of chairs in our way. We had to squeeze past them and we sat in a different place but it made a nice change. Tomorrow night apparently they have the Shoreham Oratorio Choir and they will be performing Brahms - Ein Deutsches Requiem which isn’t French but I suppose it’s quite close…I don’t think I shall be going 🤔 Today we have been over to Hove to pick up some bamboo canes for Nix’s sweet peas. She is planting them in a big pot this year because apparently there is too much shingle mixed in with the soil for her to plant them in the garden. This is her fault because when the intruder digs the garden up she is too lazy to separate the stones and just chucks it all back and now it’s a mess. It’s a good job that most of the plants are permanent so we don’t have to do much except water in the summer and we didn’t even have to do ...

 The Adventures of Fripp will be taking a break today out of respect for our dear friend Wallace who travelled to the Rainbow Bridge yesterday. We never got to meet him but it was as though we knew him so well. He was the double of Fripp to look at and had been through so much too but the photos of him on Facebook were always so funny, he was amazing. Cheryl was very supportive when Fripp was in hospital and I was panic stricken and I’ll always be grateful for that. I always felt like Cheryl and Wallace were our best friends even though we’d never met them.  Wallace you were amazing, so brave and so funny and I know you will receive a wonderful welcome at the bridge. God bless you 🥰

 Hi Everyone This might have to be quick because Rev Jane is coming round for coffee and a chat soon and then we have home group this evening so Nix has to get the chairs in and tidy up of course 🙂 We wanted to tell you about an incident on the beach this morning. Nix had me on my lead because we were about to leave when this young black Labrador came running towards us. Nix shouted to the owner to ask her if she would please keep him away. We knew he was going to jump on me and my legs really aren’t very strong at the moment and I fall over quite easily. The owner completely ignored Nix and just started to walk very slowly towards us. By this time Nix had grabbed the Labrador by the collar because she didn’t want him jumping on me. He was really full on and I didn’t like it and I tried to tell him off but he wouldn’t take any notice.  When the owner finally arrived she still didn’t get hold of her dog and said she didn’t know what all the fuss was about, he was ‘very friendl...