Saturday 27 June 2009

The Barbecue

I’m really loving the long summer days here in Rotterdam.


Only yesterday, I was sitting in the garden, enjoying nature and day-dreaming about my favourite subject...



Suddenly, my dreams came true. The sweet smell of a barbecue came wafting through the air. Although my humans had the cheek to cook some food for themselves, there was still plenty of space for my favourite: barbecued chicken.




Grandma volunteered to be the chef for the evening.




I couldn’t wait to get stuck in...




...finally, the first course of many. What a wonderful evening!

Tuesday 23 June 2009

Grandma is Back!

Remember when I was staying in China and my grandma from England came over to visit me? Well, recently she came over to the Netherlands to see me, Missus and Dad. We had some great times together...

This is me with my Grandma.


Here we are during one of our many walks together.


Grandma thought it would be a good idea for us to go and feed the birds...


...here she is. Just like Dad (remember his pal, Wally?), she was very popular with the geese.


Soon grandma was explaining to me everything I needed to know about geese.


Pretty soon, she’d forgotten about me altogether just to be with those pesky birds. Hmmph!


Anyway, Grandma didn’t just spend all of her time with me. While she was visiting, she went on a few excursions with my humans...

This is Grandma wearing traditional Dutch clogs. (I think they’re too big for her!).


And here she is on a boat cruise down the river Maas in Rotterdam.



Here she is in Delft...


...and finally, this is Missus, Grandma and Dad in Bruges, Belgium.

Thursday 11 June 2009

The Fantastic Five

A couple of weeks ago, Missus’ friend Shanni came to visit us in Rotterdam...


This is Shanni with me at our place.




When Missus told me that Shanni lives with her two dogs, I just had to meet them. So, I immediately started to plan my journey to Shanni’s place.


Shanni lives in a place called Boxtel, near to Den Bosch in the southern Netherlands. Here’s a map showing my one hour journey from Rotterdam to Boxtel.




And here I am, waiting for the train.





I was travelling first class of course. Tsk! (Somebody told me that there’s more leg room in first class. As I have more legs than humans, I thought that this was the place for me!)




We finally reached Boxtel where I met Shanni’s boys...

Let me introduce you to Kingsley, the Border Collie. Kingsley spent a long period in a Singapore dog shelter before being rescued by Shanni. Despite his troubled past, he is a very good looking boy who has turned out to be a bit of a celebrity. If you don’t believe me, check out the links here and here.





This is Kingsley’s brother, Robin. He’s a ten year old Irish Terrier. He may be getting on in years but he still has endless energy and he plays around like a puppy.





Missus with Kingsley and Robin.




After my brief introductions to Kingsley and Robin, we all decided to meet up with some of their regular friends...

This is Boelie, a four year old female Labrador...





...and here’s Mokka.




She’s a one and half years old Labrador.Our meeting place was the ‘Magic Forest’. Rumour has it that humans mysteriously disappear from this place.


Sure enough, within minutes there wasn’t a human in sight. So, the ‘Fantastic Five’ made a pact and vowed to seek them out...





Kingsley, being so smart, was the obvious leader for our mission.





I was the intrepid adverturer in the group. Don’t I look swashbuckling? (And dirty!)





Off we set on our adventure with ‘Smarty Pants’ Kingsley leading the way and swashbuckling ‘Me’ taking up the rear.





After a while, we lost the humans’ trail.





“Where the heck did they go?”





Pretty soon we’d lost the plot altogether. Instead we just decided to have a sniffing ‘free for all’.




Anyway, we eventually tracked down the humans (or did they track us down?) and it was time to leave the ‘Magic Forest’.


Boelie has problems with her hind legs, so she gets to travel in style.





Doesn’t she look pleased with herself?





As for me, although I didn’t have my own personal carriage, at least I did get to travel back home first class. When Missus wasn’t looking, I even managed to sneak onto a seat for a while.



It was a great day out and I can’t wait for my next adventure with the ‘Fantastic Five’.