We found our first piece of asparagus yesterday. It was only one, but might mean that asparagussing won’t be far away now.
The weather has been fantastic for the last few weeks, with long warm days and only a couple of nights now when it has gone below freezing. However last year was a bumper year for asparagus and we’d had a very wet winter, so I wonder if the warm weather will mean that there isn’t so much asparagus.
Rosie has changed shape quite dramatically over the last couple of weeks. Her legs have grown and she no longer looks like a barrel. For a couple of days she looked quite good – however her legs kept on growing and now she looks gangly. She no longer falls over quite so much, as she used to tumble over a lot, but she does get her legs tangled up. She seems to have been quite good to going outside to spend a penny this week, with only one unidentified puddle in the hall and that was the day when Wilbur started wearing his lampshade and she found that a bit scary.
We’ve noticed that she has webbed toes. I think this is a Griffon thing. She does seem fascinated by water and can’t walk past the pillar without ‘fighting’ the water, which is quite funny. She also seems quite happy running through streams, which none of the others do.
Poor Wilbur. He had to wear a lampshade as he was pulling at his stitches, however it meant that having got to know his way around, he’s had to relearn to take account of the extended head room he requires. He walks with his head down, so this hasn’t helped either. He’s inclined to ricochet off things and at night we hear him ricocheting up and down the hall. Hopefully it will come off today, however he’s then have to relearn all over again.
Wilbs has been left on his own for a few times now and he’s been fine. He was really pleased when we came home and waggled his whole rear end, which, with his exceptionally long tail was a sight to see.
We’ve taken Wilbs out for a couple of walks, and he’s been good. He follows nicely and the important thing is for Ian and I to remember that he’s with us and make sure that we help him where necessary, We’ve needed to push Wilbur out the front door, and then he’s disorientated, however once he gets going he is really good. Probably a rival for Bob on the steady walker front.
We’ve also been taking Rosie out for extended walks. We’ve been looking for Davy, and also been trying to make sure that Rosie gets exhausted as she hasn’t had Wilbur to play with (had to be careful that she didn’t pull at his stitches). She is good at walking off the lead and the other day we had Bob, Sam and Rosie off the lead together and they were all well behaved.
Going out with Rosie would be great fun, if it wasn’t for her habit of collecting rubbish. She has started carrying things when she walks. This should look quite cute, and with all the work going on with the olive trees at the moment, she could carry a small olive branch and look like the puppy of peace. However she is much more interested in rubbish, and the other day came back into the village carrying a rusty beer can, cigarette packet and tissue paper. I felt like I was out walking with Steptoe.