My holiday weekend

I have been a busy Pippadog.

At the holiday weekend we went back to Spain. It is a holiday here in Gibraltar although not for the same reason as in America. It is the late Spring Bank Holiday and was originally linked with Whitsuntide. Whatever that is.

So off we went in my Landy.



When we got to the Guardia Civil customs post to go into Spain, master slowed down and mistress held out our passports.

They didn't look at our passports, but they obviously thought I was such an interesting dog that they wanted to have a poke around my Landy.

I should explain that cigarettes and spirits are much cheaper in Gibraltar than they are in Spain, but you can only take 200 cigarettes and one litre of spirits per person across the border (I think). Us dogs don't get an allowance. Anyway as master and mistress don't smoke and they drink beer and wine - which are cheaper in Spain - they never take anything across.

The Guardia Civil officers have stopped to sticky-beak through the windows before but we have never been pulled over and had to open the doors and things so I was very excited. Mistress wasn't. She was very nervous.

The nice man came over and asked if I bite. Of course I don't. So he stuck his hand through the window and ruffled my fur nicely. See, I knew it was all just a ploy to make friends with me. He looked on the floors at the front and then lifted the lid on master's little box between the seats, but there was nothing of interest in there.

He asked master to open the back door and show him what was inside. Meanwhile mistress was holding onto me and I was trying to do boundaround. He told master to open a box and asked what was inside. Master said "Una máquina para comer," in his basic Spanish. The officer looked a bit surprised as master had just told him it was a machine to eat. I was so laughing. I think master meant to say "Una máquina para preparar comida."



Then he asked to look in master's tool boxes. Master has lots of tools in case my Landy breaks down and we need to fix it. Well master would need to fix it while mistress and I supervised. He was impressed with master's tools and asked if he was a mechanic. Master said no, but he needed to be able to repair my Landy, and that actually he was a painter.

I have to say I think at this point that the officer decided master was a crazy Englishman who ate machines and had more tools than a mobile mechanic. So he told us we could go.

An hour later mistress stopped shaking. Master and I thought she was stupid, master because he wasn't carrying anything he shouldn't have been, and me because I know it was all an excuse to spend some time admiring ME, Pippadog.

Then a bit later on we stopped for a break. At a nice bar. Here is a pic of me and master.



One of just me.



And then we arrived home at our finca. And I went back to my favourite spot at the gate.



And I lay on my sofa too.



I have lots of other things to write about (yummy cheese toasties today for example) and some tags that I am sooooo late with. But mistress tells me I am almost out of space.

So I want to finish with this. I have something nice to say about mistress. Earlier this year when Tasha and Eva sent me some yummy treats for my Gotcha Day, they sent me a photo of each of them. And now mistress has scanned them in so that I can put them on my blog.

I would have put the pic of Tasha on my last post but I wrote it from Spain and I don't have a scanner there.

Here is Eva. In the last few days she has changed her behaviour, and you can read about it here on their blog - Tasha will be proud of you, Eva.



And here is lovely Tasha. Watching over all of us, especially Eva.

Tasha

Tasha.

My sweet and lovely Tasha has gone to the Rainbow Bridge.

I didn't know whether to post a serious picture of me or a fun one, so I decided on one of each. After all, we did share lots of virtual fun together.

When I go out tonight, I will look for you in the sky.

Miss you Tasha. Lots. And sending lots of love your way, Eva, because you must be so missing her right now.

Pippa

Thanks - and brunch

Oh look. Mistress has finally remembered I have a blog. And responsibilities to keep up to it and visit my friends.

Naturally she has a rubbish excuse. The latest one is that she has lost a contact lens and doesn't have any spares in the flat.

Well that might sound like a reasonable excuse, but she happens to be short-sighted so there is nothing to stop her writing my blog. The computer screen is one of the few things she can see as it is just in front of her nose.

But she says she feels generally disorientated, and has been seen to do very little since she lost it apart from crawl around on the floor. Moaning about the amount of dog fur and dirt.

I have obviously told her she could clean it up if she doesn't like it but she is still deluding herself that she will find the missing lens. Anyway, she is going to the optician's today, that's if she can successfully negotiate her way there without bumping into things.

Now, first of all a big thank you to everypup who left nice comments about my friend on the last post who is now at the Bridge.



At the weekend we all went for a walk to my favourite marina - even Mistress-Who-Can-Hardly-See - and sat there in the afternoon sun looking at the boats. Well, master and I looked at the boats. Mistress looked at some blurry image and tried to focus on not knocking her drink over by mis-judging the position of her glass.

Misery had to go and get the drunks - edited to add I meant drinks - because master was holding onto me. Naturally she couldn't see behind the bar so she had to ask the barwoman what drinks there were (Misery is picky about what she drinks as you can imagine). Barwoman obviously thought Misery was pretty stupid - although didn't say so - as the drinks were clearly visible. But not to mistress of course.

Then she lurches back out into the sunshine with a drink for her and a beer for master - pausing at the step - which of course she can't see properly, as she tries to gauge the depth of it and avoid going headlong with two drinks.

Suddenly master spotted Ian, and called him over. Mistress agreed to stagger back home and collect some pages from my blog that she had printed out for them with the pictures of their dog. And she also printed out all your comments too. Later on Penny turned up and was very pleased to read them all - so thanks for all your sympathy and kind thoughts.

Just before I go, I should say that I am training mistress to do tasty brunch. As I have my breakfast and then share master's, it seemed a bit silly for mistress to have one shortly afterwards, so we are currently eating brunch mid-morning to lunchtime. We have nice (veggie) sausages or burgers or rashers. Sometimes we have potatoes and tomatoes and sometimes we have salad. I have also made it clear that I want bread or toast too.

What I do not want to do, is eat the miserable crumbs that unseeing mistress knocks on the floor. Am I a vacuum cleaner? No. Well not for crumbs anyway. If they were large pieces of buttered toast or bread that would be different. But a big paws down to boring old crumbs.

I was at my most pathetic today. I looked so starving, hungry, deprived, and just so sad and pathetic. Well, I thought I did. It was a pawsome act. I licked my lips and tried to include some of the nearby bits of food. The plate got moved further away. Then I chomped my teeth together in the hopes I could catch something while it was on the way to her mouth. Perhaps she couldn't see what I was doing?

A poor haul today. Any tips welcome. Off to visit some pals now.

Beds and boats

Mistress says she has been busy.

I don't know what that means except she has not done Pippadogblog.

Master and mistress have swapped sides of the bed ie the floor that they sleep on because mistress still hasn't bothered to buy a bed.

Hardworking-master found it hard to walk over mistress in the morning to get to the door.

Myself, I didn't find it a problem. Hey, if mistress is in the way I just walk on her legs, or whack her on the chest, or just do a few bows to master generally on top of her.

But master decided he wanted to move sides.

So now, I am very careful because naturally I don't want to walk on master. I tippy toe round the side to do my good morning bow down greetings.

Mistress of course has lost the picture to go with this. Perhaps it is on my other computer. But she has found some others that she had forgotten about.

So first here is a picture of my friend who went to the Rainbow Bridge a few weeks ago. He was a GSD and he lived with Penny and Ian. Master told Penny and Ian that we would put a piccy up to remember him.



You can see what a friendly dog he was and he was quite old too, I think he was 15.



When Penny and Ian went away for a little holiday, he became poorly, so they cancelled their holiday and went straight back home to look after him, but it must have been time for him to go to the bridge.



Pooh. Sad Pippadog.



Mistress also found a couple of cruise ships.

Here is one.



And here is another.



I think I would like some close-ups please mistress to decide whether or not they would be suitable for my film project.

I have also had lots of ace suggestions from you all so I will put those up next time, so that everypup can see how things are developing.

While on the subjects of ships and boats, master and I went for a nice long walk down to the marina without Misery.

Master got himself a beer and we sat outside in the sunshine for ages. Lots of people came to talk to me. All the people I had met before remembered my name and walked over to speak to me.

"Look, there's Pippa," said one group and dashed across. Master couldn't for the life of him remember seeing them before. Silly master. Of course we had seen them before because they knew me.

It just goes to show how important us dogs are when people remember our names and want to speak to us.

Here is a shot of the marina. You can't see me on this but it is a nice picture so I will allow mistress to put it up and it shows where we sit on the opposite side where the buildings are.



And here I am sniffing the flower beds and looking.







Making sure Misery isn't sneaking up.