Time for another Sunday Sevens – the brainchild of Nat at Thread and Bobbins.
After last week’s cake week celebrations, not a single crumb of cake (or drop of alcohol) has passed my lips this week. However, we did have a wee celebratory BBQ on Tuesday to celebrate the birth of our niece’s baby and us becoming Great Aunt and Great Uncle – crikey that sounds old!

Last week’s celebrations were fabulous, but we did miss Lovely Eldest. She was in Ecuador – in the middle of the Amazon with no wifi. She did however send a lovely Lily plant -form M&S not the Amazon 😉 – which flowered this week…
We also received a post card she’d posted four weeks earlier from Hawaii…
Even though it’s the end of the summer, there’s still lots of colour on the moor. The heathers seem particularly abundant this year…
As for the real star of this blog, Hicks really picked up and started wanting proper walks again…
And proper muddy muddles…
And Lovely husband cut the hedge.
Which reminds me, I really need to get on top of the gardening.
Hope you’ve had a great week!
Hicks looks happy.:) I love heather in bloom. Your daughter has wonderful adventures.Is that the daughter who you visited abroad? X
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Thank you, he is a happy little soul, despite all he goes through. Yes, that’s the daughter – she’ now packed in her job in the Neatherlands to go travelling again for six months then home for Christmas 🙂 but off to work in NZ in the new year 😦
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She’s certainly got the wanderlust. I am glad Hicks is happy.Dogs are so resilient. X
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She certainly has!
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Oh happy (and so restrained!) week! And happy, muddy Mr Hicks! The heather is beautiful, as is your back yard. Good job to hubby on the hedge…..(and I’ve got to get on top of the gardening, too, it’s a near jungle out there!)
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Thank you. Although between me and you I didn’t feel too good last week either – which helped with the much needed restraint. Me too – loads to do in the garden still 😦
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Congratulations to your niece 😉 and welcome to the Great Aunt club…I felt ancient when I got the title LOL. Great to see Mr. Hicks enjoying his walks again!! Your daughter is making the most of being young ~ good for her I say 😉
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Oh yes, daughter is definitely living a full life. Very proud of her, although she does give me a lot of great hairs! I keep reminding myself that technically a great aunt can be younger than their great niece/nephew – although clearly I’m nowhere near that 🙂
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Sounds like we both have daughters to be proud of, AND, send us grey with all their adventuring! Great for them, but oh so worrying at times for us ;-/
LOL…Me neither!! 😉
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She’s mailed this morning to say she’s off to Nicaragua now – worry? Moi?
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The world seems so small to the young these days! Hope she has a great time!!
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Absolutely, they see travelling to the other end of the world the same way we saw traveling to the other end of the country. I’m sure she will – just like Hicks, she knows how to have a party wherever she is.
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Epic!! Youngsters flit round the world like hopping on and off busses ~ at least mine do! Your’s too by the sounds of things ;-)…I’m afraid I’d find it more like trawling through thick porridge to get around carrying too much worry in the baggage department LOL!
Great to surmise that Mr. Hicks is still on the up and up!!! 😉
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Yep – mine too – especially the eldest. I’d definitely find it too much hard work, be scared of all the dangerous places and I’m really not that curious about a lot of places. Yes, Mr Hicks good at the moment – just getting old 😦
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Sounds like you and I are on the same page as far as travel adventures go ;-D
Peppy too 😦 it’s so sad when your best furry friend shows their age
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It does – probably because we’re so ancient 😉 Hugs to Peppy.
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Indeed!! Some days I feel more ancient than others LOL 😉
Peppy is always happy to get extra hugs 😀 and sends his thanks too!! Poor dear his hips are not playing fair of late..it’s so sad to keep seeing him drooping so awkwardly in the hind quarters if he stands too long 😦 Though after his booster only 2 days ago, the vet didn’t seem unduly concerned when he did it there??! As long as they aren’t in pain..I always think….
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Aw bless him. The worry is, as I’m sure you’ll agree, that we can’t ask them if they’re in pain. Retrievers are particularly stoical, so I do worry at times what Hicks is putting up with. I’m sure you’re the same with Peppy. Sounds good though that the vet wasn’t concerned 🙂 Sending more hugs to him
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Thanks for the extra hugs…Peppy wonders what’s going on LOL he’s getting used to me saying Mr. Hick’s mum…. and waiting for a cuddle!!…though he’s not at all complaining the extra attention!!
I know what you mean, I had a golden Labrador first and it was only at the very end he couldn’t hold back the pain he was suffering, it was totally heartbreaking! I couldn’t even let him suffer the day out, after 13 years of his devotion, the second trip to the vet the same day…he didn’t come home again….at 18 it was the hardest thing I have ever had to make as a decision ~ My dad was with me, and all he said was, ”He’s always been your dog, You have to know what is right for Him!!”
But I still know it was the right, unselfish choice! 😦 Still miss him though, he was a wonderful gun dog on the shooting trips we had when I was young.
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Oh my goodness, 18 is very young to be making that sort of decision. But your dad was right, you did know best and did do the right thing. Give Peppy a few more cuddles from us, even if it does confuse him a little.
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Thanks Sarah! It is one of those moments that constantly pops randomly into your head over the subsequent years to haunt you ~ as an only child he Was my Best Friend!!
I still vividly remember the day I was taken to chose my own dog by my granddad, he always maintained his children and grandchildren should each have their very own dog to look after and train. In some way (I found out years later) Sandy, became my rescue dog! From the litter of pups which were bred for show, I chose him because he had a black spot of hair on his shoulder (apparently, making him inadequate as a high pedigree show dog) In those days, he would have been ‘scrapped’ for that very reason by the breeder ~ just, we got there too soon for it to happen ~ Thank Goodness!
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I know what you mean about those sort of moments – they’re very natural, but not very easy. Your Grandad sounds wise, although I wonder if it’s a good idea with all children? How awful that a breeder would put him down – at all, let alone for such a trivial reason. You do sound like me on being a rescuer – when we were kids, our parents took us to the pet shop to buy a tortoise. They couldn’t afford two, but the pet shop gave us one with a huge chunk of shell missing over it’s back leg that had got knocked off in transport. They said they weren’t sure it would live, so we could have it. You can guess who claimed that one.
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Not all children would want or look after a dog properly, I agree, but I had been so used to mixing with many in the family, I think he thought it was a natural next step to learn responsibility and have the love of a little furry friend growing up, which I’ll always be so happy I had! To put an animal down these days for such a silly reason would be unheard of, but this was some 45 years ago, but, It’s sad, even given the times, that it would ever have been considered 😦
I think I would be correct in assuming you took over the ownership and welfare of the sadly damaged tortoise ;-D?? I hope it did live to a grand old age?? 🙂 My tortoise, Ollie’ ran off!!….after being allowed a little ramble in the back garden when I was little
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Oh yes, Lightening – named because he was so fast – was a fighter. We kept him in a chicken wire pen, but he kept biting his way through the wire and escaping – although he always eventually returned.. After a while he and Thunder were moved to our small walled front garden, but he could still climb out of it. He left for good one day when I was in my teens about ten years after he first arrived 😦
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It’s good to know that the damaged shell didn’t have any lasting effect to his health!! Though sad that Lightening was as determined at Ollie to escape into the world..never to return..:-(
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It is – but wild creatures are not meant to be caged 🙂
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That’s very true, but can sometimes become a hazy blurred line of…wild domesticated/domesticated wild…the older we get the better we understand the call of the wild.
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Great week. Such lovely weather. It is always fun to receive postcards, even better when from far away places.
Hugs to Mr. H, he is looking chirpy and happy and loving the outdoors.
Take care and enjoy the new week. 🙂
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Thank you. Summer is still a bit intermittent, but does to finally seem to be here. I agree postcards are lovely, but we stopped sending them years ago as they rarely arrived. Mr Hicks says thanks for the hugs and send them back to both of you. The courty air certainly seems to suit him – my friend reckons that’s what kept him so young despite all the opps and illnesses. You have a great week too 🙂
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What a lovely week! Congrats to your niece. I have to chuckle because when I married my husband, due to the huge age difference between him (the youngest) and some of his sibblings, I married into ‘great aunty” status. I was only 25, and I remember thinking, whoa, I am a great aunty now? Ha! Glad that Mr. Hicks is feeling better again. Take care!
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Crikey! Great niece at 25 – that’s making me feel better 😉 Thanks, it’s great to have him feeling better – just wish I could stop him getting any older. Take care my lovely and have a great week xx
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I understand, Bekki – it really is hard to watch a beloved pet age. 🌱🌳🍂 Hope you have a good week.
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Aw! Thank you. It is, but it good to know I can be there and look after him xx
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Our garden is burnt to a crisp – cripsy brown grass, wilting plants and rotting fallen fruits (those the dogs haven’t snaffled and turned into noxious gases at any rate). August is usually the only month the grass doesn’t need cutting and this year has been particularly scorchio so we can have a break from the gardening. I use ‘we’ in the royal sense of the word of course as I don’t even know how to work the mower (at least that’s what I say).
So pleased to see Mr. Hicks in the goldies’ preferred state of ‘wet and muddy’.
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I’m not sure whether to envy your burnt to a crisp or not. A few less misty dank days would be lovely here and less gardening, but I do love how lush everything looks.
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The Amazon? Wow, what a treat! She’s certainly making the most of life before children. That must have been one hell of a puddle – deep enough for my two Yorkies to swim in, judging by how far the mud comes up Hick’s legs. Or is he one of ‘those’ dogs who lies in it….?
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Oh yes, she definitely knows how to make the most of her life 🙂 As for the puddle, you’re right with the second guess, shallow puddle, but hje sure knows how to squish down into it to get as filthy as possible.
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