Beyond Adolescence - part 2

[SpanielsGalore]

No point banning coffee, as it didn't work last time. 🙄
Haven't had any cake updates from a while. @VanGoSunflowers Have you stopped baking already? You still had 8 cakes to go to make it economical.

Booths is the better and posher northern equivalent to Waitrose @SpanielsGalore It started in Lancashire where all good things originate from 😁 Disappointingly, our only local supermarket is a Morrisons. Thankfully there is also a Sainsbury not far away.

Awww, you must be chuffed to bits about P deciding to share your crisps, that sounds like a little victory.

I hope all goes well with the carpet fitting tomorrow.

@CoubousAndTourmaIet At first I thought DMum meant that DWS had waddled under him and he was just weeing, but then she kept texting 'HE PEED ON HER!!!!' and I realised what she must have meant😩He's done accidental tiddles on puppies before, but deliberate!? Thankfully, DMum is a saint and said she shoved DWS in the bath and she's nice and de-wee'd, but still.

Whoever it is from Tonbridge (your DP?) will understand my pain of Tonbridge High Street then! It has taken upwards of an hour on a Saturday to get from Tonbridge School to the Vauxhall roundabout by the A21 before. It's 2 miles!!!!!😐

The two Waitrose are great though as whatever one doesn't have, you can guarantee the other will have!

@SpanielsGalore the Tesco near us is terrible, but the one further away in T-Wells is absolutely brilliant. Their strawberries have never let me down. But 30 minutes for strawberries is a bit ridiculous...

She has been washed. But she doesn't come to me for pats anyway. DDs are her 'people' now. So now 2/5 of my dogs don't even like me 🙄But at least I can count on his Royal Twatness to always love me.

That's brilliant news about P!!!! You must be so pleased. ❤ I'm looking forward to seeing photos of your completed kitchen (muddy carpet and all)

@tizwozlizYou'd jump in after them though, wouldn't you?

Ohh the yellow bargains are amazing! They had some crackers after Christmas this year - Turkeys for £12 reduced from £69, apparently. I don't even like Turkey but I'd have got it rather than lose out on a bargain.😳If it makes you feel better, they changed coffee beans recently and the coffee isn't as good anymore. I think it was Nero coffee before, and it's much weaker now

Awww, poor Eris, I'm sure she didn't really deserve to be pissed upon, despite her habit of attacking boy bits @TheHungryHungryLandsharks Good of your mum to bath her though.

Oh, by the way my partner is from Lancashire, and our cat is from Cumbria, it's the other family member who comes from your neck of the woods 😏

@CoubousAndTourmaIet ohhhhhhhhh 😀Should have known the other one was a southerner! 😂

I was quite surprised she was bathed! I half expected her to hand the little sod over with a wet head. I'm just counting myself lucky it wasn't Satan who was tiddled on. I'd hate to think of how Satan would react...

Let's face it @TheHungryHungryLandsharks she's the only one in our house who's posh enough to be a southerner. The rest of us are northern peasant stock 😉

I'm sorry to report that it's raining here 😭

Another Tonbridge connection here. One of my dc went to school there!

@CoubousAndTourmaIetit rained here as well! All the snow and ice is gone.
Which is lovely. The only downside is the fields and woods are going to be horribly boggy and impossible to walk through. But the plus side of not breaking my neck when I walk down the road is quite a big one.

@Silverbirchleaf then you also feel the pain of that awful highstreet!!! I don't think there is a more poorly designed high-street in the whole of Britain.

Hope everyone has some lovely dog walks this morning!😊

@SpanielsGalore hope you're ready for thread three...

@CoubousAndTourmaIet Ahhh. I don't feel so bad for never having heard of it now. I moved from the Midlands to Scotland and missed out the North.

It shows how sad my life is when a dog eating a crisp is the highlight of my day. 😂

Brie will finally be able to wear her new coat. ☔️

@TheHungryHungryLandsharks P still doesn't like me. She was only after food. She's currently on her own in the living room, because I sneezed. And she's definitely decided having a double bed to herself is better than a dog bed in with the rest of us.

I am indeed ready for thread three. I shall start it with disappointing photos of my kitchen. 😂

Talking of which, I need to rip the lino up this morning before the carpet fitters get here. I'll have to wipe the cupboards down too, to remove traces of muddy paw prints. 🙄

It has warmed up here too. Still lots of snow and ice around, but my street looks almost drivable this morning.

For us, the Booths in Penrith is a handy spot to stop for lunch if we're going up to Scotland. I think the pups had their lunch in an undercover trolley park as it was peeing it down 😂

Raining here, but cold ground and left over frost and snow mean some parts were like an ice rink first thing. Should be fine by the time we venture to the woods at lunch

We had a smattering of snow overnight, and everything is icy and frozen, worse than yesterday. Hate these conditions. However, managed to walk to woods without falling over and gingerly went for a one mile circular walk. In these conditions, that’s a big achievement for me.

Having a new kitchen sounds exciting, but not the process of getting it.

Stopping at Booths sounds a lot more dignified and refined then stopping at a motorway service station. May suggest it to dh when we go up to Scotland in the Spring. (I’m a southerner, and have heard of it, but never been).

As you can see, these two 'working' labs are desperate to get out 😂 They've had a busy morning of breakfast and sleeping.

I love Penrith. It was my local town for about 17 years, when I lived at Appleby. I'd love to move back up to that area at some point; it might be more realistic for me than the north of Scotland.

Not ventured out yet. Feeling really low this morning.

@Silverbirchleaf Which part of Scotland are you heading to?

I am almost wishing for the snow to return. It's melting here, so the garden is wet, slushy and muddy. It is not boding well for my new carpet. 🙈
Doesn't help that P keeps digging pissing holes!

@SpanielsGalore P does love you - she just shows it in her own very odd duck way! But if she's the only one digging holes...you're welcome to send her to me, she'd fit right in.

I bet the photos won't be disappointing!! I do love the little paw prints on the photo you just posted though! 😂

@Silverbirchleaf Service Stations are way the joy of holiday and/or the enjoyment you earnt on holiday goes to die.

I love how all the labs on this thread (including yours @tizwozliz) are so lovely and thin! So many near me are so chunky and it makes me sad.

@CoubousAndTourmaIet sorry you're not feeling 100%. Hope you feel a bit better soon and/or Brie gives you some love.

@CoubousAndTourmaIet sending hugs . Hope you feel better soon.

@SpanielsGalore Edinburgh, to visit dc, and to go to House of Bruar. Not been there before, but dc has bought me nice birthday and Christmas from there, so it’s a must visit.

@tizwozliz
@TheHungryHungryLandsharks
I’m afraid Dog is egging towards chunky at the moment, as he now weighs just over 30kg. Around 29kg is about right for him. We’ll find out on Friday whether our efforts to reduce his weight over the last month has paid over. I’m blaming his weight gain on the transition from one doctor another, and he was probably having too much.

i didn’t realise until I got a lab, that there are two sorts. The English/show lab which you see at Crufts, and has a squarer head and bigger stature, and the American/working lab, which is the slighter one.

My working lab wondering why I’m taking another picture of him!

I've actually upped little pup's food slightly as I noticed you could see a few too many ribs on photos I took the other day.

@Silverbirchleaf My DS is in Edinburgh too. Beautiful city. We often use House of Bruar as a stop off point on the journey down. They have some lovely things there. Unfortunately most of it is out of my budget. The foods tasty though.

I think it's the show labs that tend to be overweight. There's one near me that is obese. She told me the vet had said he needed to lose weight. No shit Sherlock! He can barely walk.

I have to admit that I have only really learned about the differences in show/working with cockers and Labradors, since I came here to The Doghouse. I've learned so much from you all! It's interesting with the Labs & cockers I can now tell the difference and most here (we're relatively rural) are working types in good, lean condition.

With LGD there isn't the same distinction between show and work, outside of the Russian/Asian breeds at least. With Pyreneans there is loosely the French type (taller, leggier) and the American type (more chunky), but either can be work, show or pet.

@Silverbirchleaf DDog definitely does not look chunky! I think @SpanielsGalore is right that it is the show lines that tend to be overweight - it's definitely the case with Goldies. My skinny (half-starved, they claim) dogs seem to be the exception.

@CoubousAndTourmaIet With the French/American types, is it only the build that's different? Nothing else? Not even how the coat feels etc?

So this is what my kitchen looked like before. These are the EA photos. I ripped out the end 'table' and cupboards when I moved in, and my fridge and freezers went along that wall. Washing machine in the space. No dishwasher.

And this is it now.

@CoubousAndTourmaIet - I was thinking about the videos I sometimes see on twitter/youtube of PMDs in the US and how poofy their coat looks when I asked you!

I hadn't realised it was a show clip...when I think 'showclip' I always think of Poodle type clips, which all things considered I really should know better than to do. In my mind 'proper working dogs' (as DH would call Brie) don't ever have show clips. So I guess the show clip (and fluffyness of it) combined with the heavier build made me think more of there being two types, even though you've said before there isn't!

Technically Brie might be a bit 'big' for showing, but to my novice eye she is particularly beautiful.

I must say, if I was ever to get another breed it would probably be a PMD (you're slowly converting me...) or a Cocker Spaniel. But I fear if I got a Cocker I'd end up with Satan No.2, and I'm not mentally strong enough to cope with such a feisty dog.😂Two weeks in Satan's presence made me fear for my life. I do love my long energetic walks and I'm not sure a PMD would quite be up for a 5 mile hike every Saturday morning and another 3-4miles in the afternoon...but if we could find one who was, who knows? DH Probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a PMD and a Golden so it could work.

@SpanielsGalore it looks so different to before! That shade of blue is lovely with the crisp white cupboards. I imagine when the sun shines you must get so much natural light through the window by the sink!? It's huge.

I love the dog bed that we know won't be used and the pig kitchen-roll holder (where did you buy that?!)

@TheHungryHungryLandsharks Thank you. 😊 The window is the length of the wall and has a sea view. It was too dark to show that by the time I took the photographs.

I think the pig was from Next. DS2 bought it for me years ago with his first week's wages. Which is why it has stayed despite not 'going' with the kitchen any more.

The dog bed is used. But it will be replaced by a blue one on Saturday. 🙈 (I had no choice. The chip shop doesn't open until the 15th.)