Colonel Rocky, Commanding Officer

Hello my friends. As some of you know, we lost our dear beloved Marley last year and we have been a house of one terrier since then. This week we became a house of two terriers again! Marley and Lola's daddy has been to stay for a short holiday. His name is Rocky...

...Miss Lola was enjoying a quiet day at home when the bell rang.....runrun....

...its Miss Islay and Mr Rocky come to see us...hurray!

Miss Islay (@issiebissy) is Lola's sister....and she has a few things to add to the family dynamic...

...when she had gone we took Mr Rocky for his first walk....he was not too sure about what to do or where to go or who all these people were....

....he was a bit camera shy and who can blame him....

....he gave the Typist his full "back off mister" face.....

.....and who can blame him as there was an awful lot of peemail to check in the back garden....getting to know the foxes and the cats....

...Miss Lola tried to show him what terriers are all about at Border Terrier HQ....

...and Mr Rocky was soon willing to try a few of these new things....

....and even to show Lola a few style tips of his own.....showing he knows a thing or two about being a terrier

....and actually set a new house record for distance from the log stove....

....we wondered if he might be a bit blue and missing his family....

.....but he was soon in full terrier mode and taking on Headley Heath with his beard and eyebrows.....we have nicknamed him the Colonel as he has such a military bearing....

.....poor Miss Lola had to run to keep up....he's very sprightly for a 9-year old....

....and he had the Typist firmly under control....and was soon tweeting to his friends....

....running the hosuehold from his bed just like Marley used to do.....

....by the end of Day 2 he had taken over the beanbag from Miss Lola....

...T'ennnnnHUT...Colonel on duty......

....he's adept at finding a sun puddle and keeping typist busy at the same time.....

....and has been more than good company for Miss Lola....

...T is for Terrier....

.....he's making the most of the end of summer and letting no puddle go un-investigated for warmth......

...he even showed Miss Lola how to find the last of the warmth from the oven....

....and he's become quite the life and soul of the party..."and so the barman said "Why the long face?"...wahahahahahah"

......i tried some of Typist's jokes on him....they did not gone down quite so well....

.....i havent dared ask him what this was about but I did whisper that Marley used to enjoy lying on the Typist if he could get him to sit still....

.....maybe not quite so close Colonel....

....see...it can be quite comfy!....

....I believe he may be feeling quite at home now....

...and best of all he and Miss Lola are now firm friends.....it's the magic of one little terrier...!

*salutes* Private Clapton reporting from Border Terrier Command Centre....woof

Where on earth has Clapton been?

As many of you who follow me on twitter know already, I have been an extremely busy doggie these last few weeks helping the Typist with a big project at work....we have been trapped in the salt mines for almost a month now with no time for much of anything....well, this week the project was supposed to be coming to a close but we had to do a tour of six countries in a week to make sure that happened.....

...a Sunday morning departure on the Eurostar train from London...i made sure I had my ID with me.....we went through the big tunnel under the sea and emerged in France....typist was bashing away at his iPad trying to answer 100s of emails....I was watching out for the lady with the coffee.....

.....we went through Belgium and I disembarked in Brussels...only to have to get onto the big ICE train heading for Frankfurt in Germany.....we waved to our European friends as we went along....

...a nice German lady brought me some sweets for the journey......

....after 6 long hours we arrived at Frankfurt airport...they have a train station there too....it was quite late but we were staying at a hotel at the airport so we did not have far to go to find out bed.....are you counting? That's four different countries in one day!!

...and comfy beds they were too....

...in the morning I made sure the typist had a nutritious breakfast so that he was fuelled for the day.....

.....we waited to be joined by the rest of the team....I did manage to catch up for a few minutes with friends on Twitter whilst the typist talked on the phone....that's the last you will be seeing of the Mac Book though...later in the day there was an accident and it now has a broken screen and can't be used any more.Luckily we had the iPad with us so all was not lost....

....i was sorry that the world famous German efficiency let us down a bit...try as I might I could not get the coffee machine to make any coffee .........when the rest of the team arrived we took a long taxi ride to a small town in Germany....

....there was a long meeting but thankfully there were provisions on hand to keep us going....i hid under the table so that i was not in the way...

...in the evening we stayed in a very funny old hotel....this was our desk for the evening....100s of e-mails had been piling up during the day so we had to work until the bats were flying around outside....

..i made sure that vitamins and minerals were in plentiful supply for the evening session....

......after another day of meetings i found myself back at Frankfurt airport.....we only had a very short flight....just 45 minutes...

.....i was vey impressed that they caught us on the way in....i wonder what Instagram filter they used?....

.....there was just time to catch up on more e-mails before heading off for our naps.....

....we got a little look at Prague from the window of the hotel in the morning...the Czechs said it was cold but it felt warm to me........

...and after breakfast I had to walk across the famous Wenceslas Square....he's on his horse at the top of the square in front of the museum...

...when there was a break in proceedings I tried to tidy up a bit......

...a kind lady showed us how to get around on the trams....Prague is a very beautiful city indeed...

...and at the end of a long hard day the Czechs certainly know how to unwind....this is their number one export...

....and I found the hotel had some extremely useful signs......

....we had a few brief moments of humour along the way...this little meeting made our meeting come to a grinding halt....

....we made conference calls...

...and we read contracts......

.....and we worked hard and tried to relax at the end of each day with a nice warm shower.....will this make my fur sticky?....

.....and by Friday afternoon our work was done, a deal was sealed and a Blue Moon rose over Prague....

I hope that explains why you have not seen much of me this week. Did you count the countries? We missed one out...on the first day we also wooshed through the Netherlands on the train but I think i was asleep and forgot to take a picture...

Clapton...back at BT HQ...

It's a holiday they tell me...

Hello my friends....today was a bank holiday in the UK....that's right a H O L I D A Y!!! That's a day off isn't it? From work? No work...all day....

...Miss Lola certainly has the right idea....a day off...begun with a nap...maybe I should wake her before mum wakes up...

....but...oh dear...look where I am...can you guess? Yes, that's right....I'm with the typist on the way to *whisper* WORK....

....they have a very poor Tv in the office....i watched it for ages...but there was nothing on....

....i tried to keep the typist's spirits up and kept him fuelled with coffee.....now, how does this work?

....well, that seems to be ok....

....we did a few important conference calls...

.....we ploughed our way through hundreds of e-mails.....

...I watched the people enjoying the sun on their holiday....stuck in the world's tallest prison....

....by mid afternoon I was starting to lose the plot a bit...."Giddy Up!!"

....is it time to go home yet?...hmmm?....



....er.....If anyone asks, I was never here....

Clapton, No Fixed Abode...