STACK NEWS ISSUE THIRTEEN December 2009
Welcome to the THIRTEENTH edition of Stack News!
Roger was born on the thirteenth – so we’ve no problems with the number, but we do have to report some bad luck. As Stack News goes to press, Roger’s mum is in hospital recovering from a broken hip sustained after a series of falls – not much fun, especially when you’re eighty-eight.
Casey, our cover star, has had quite a busy year with training and agility sessions at various locations including a barn near Helston, fields at St Just and Pool, and a hall in Camborne. He also attended Greyhound Rescue events in St Agnes and Truro.
Due to an old racing injury (yes he even won a couple when he was known as HesTheRegis during his short career at Peterborough track) Casey does need to relax sometimes so insists that we take him on a short holiday each year.
We didn’t even venture out of Cornwall this year as Jayne had designed a website for dog friendly holiday cottages in a converted fish ‘palace’ at Port Gaverne in north Cornwall and it seemed ideal. Luckily there was no fishy pong, and the TV location seekers searching for Doc Martin’s house in the next village, Port Isaac, didn’t stray too far in our direction. The cottage even had broadband Internet so Jayne could keep an eye on her websites including the recently launched Cornwall Arts and Crafts Directory that is an on-line directory designed to promote art, craft, music and performance art in Cornwall. Have a look at: www.cornwall-arts-and-crafts.co.uk
We did venture ‘out of county’ to visit Jayne’s mum for her birthday and Xmas, with Casey enjoying meeting up with Xena and Charlie when we stayed at Les and Carol’s. We also attended a friend’s wake – complete with coffin – in Penzance. We’re pleased to report that Ginny, the ‘deceased’, had a great time as she is very much alive and was delighted to join in the celebrations on her 70th birthday.
As mentioned above, Jayne continues with her web design activities and is currently doing a PHP programming course (technical web stuff). She also completed a sugarcraft course and several other computer ones, and even ventured all the way to Birmingham in January for a moth conference.
Roger has had a quieter time, although he did join Jayne for a maths test one evening (we both passed!), and the switchover to digital TV provided some interesting puzzles to entertain him.
Jayne’s Vauxhall Astra, ‘Meaf’, did finally retire this year and Jayne now has two new(ish) vehicles. First to arrive was ‘Marchant’, who fans of Robert Rankin’s Brentford Trilogy books may have guessed, is a bike. Re-homed from a cottage in Mousehole, Marchant is peacefully rusting under the carport next to newest arrival ‘Erika’. For those of you that remember Eric the Landrover, it may come as little surprise that Erika is yellow. She is a Renault Kangoo – very dog friendly with loads of room to stretch out in the back and nice low access for those times when jumping seems like so much effort (quite often for a lazy greyhound).
The long awaited new front porch is complete at last. The major delay was in finding a builder, but we were lucky that Arthur who did our ‘link building’ had a delay due to a change of plans on a job he was doing that enabled him to ‘fit us in’ whilst listed building consent was being obtained. A combination of recycled stone from our patio and ‘new’ granite quoins from a local company but quarried in Portugal, together with recycled slates, some patio doors, some timber and loads of sand and cement have produced a good result. The final touch was entrance steps made of granite kerbstones (whose history will remain a mystery), plus a dressing of bonded gravel for the concrete sections of the driveway.
There are some pictures of the porch, plus various others including our Port Gaverne holiday, in Roger’s on-line photo albums at: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Roger.Ding.Dong Or just follow the link from the photo’s page at: www.dingdong.me.uk
So there we have it – another year and our thirteenth edition comes to a close. We seem to have been really busy doing not very much.
Watch your letterbox in twelve months time for the next edition of Stack News!
Best wishes for the festive season from:
Roger and Jayne
