Cracking day at Sherwood Pines

Grandma cuckoo and Nard came over first thing to look after Hugo while the rest of us were to head out to Sherwood Pines with the bikes and the Drewett’s and the Box’s.

Gracie  had stayed overnight last night so she came with us as well and despite our best intentions, we still only managed to get on the road at 10:25 although isn’t was foggy – thankfully the sun came out not long before we arrive πŸ™‚

We actually made good time and pulled into Sherwood Pines at 11:30 right behind Ed and Sharon.

We all got straight out on the bikes and cycled the family route (green) which lasts about 4K or so – pretty straightforward and neither of the boys complained once – happy days.

Then back to the cars and we setup our camp in a quiet corner – the disposable BBQ’s were lit and the kids  started playing football and rugby. 

We had a lovely BBQ in the sunshine and played rounders, cricket, football, rugby as well as the kids sneaking around the skills park on their bikes.

All in all a funtastic day in the sunshine in late September with a BBQ to boot – all happy πŸ™‚

We should absolutely do this more often – great fun day in sunshine with great friends – can’t ask for more 

Days 3 and 4

So we are well into our relationship now and certain things are easing and others are straining πŸ™‚ Like all relationships right?

The last couple of nights have actually been pretty good, with Sunday night only entailing about 20 minutes of yowling as we left him downstairs but last night was a wonder – no complaining at all and we think straight to sleep πŸ˜€

Hugo is clearly getting more and more comfortable with us so it more than prepared to try to jump up onto the couch to get a cuddle, but similarly is more than happy to pull up the strands in the carpet in the office πŸ™

Simon spent his first full day in the home office with Hugo yesterday and thankfully most of the morning Hugo slept, coming alive at lunchtime for a mad hour or so (when the damage to the carpet was done) returning to sleep again until the boys came back from school.

Today has been similar with the sleeping and madness although got off to a bad start because the little monkey number 2’d in the car on the way to school, proceeding to stand in it and hence spread it throughout the portable crate we have him in when in the car. That has now been cleaned out / disinfected and the bedding is presently going through the washing machine πŸ™

We live and learn – always try to force an empty before going out in the car…

In honesty however we are next to nowhere with the house training with the exception of the fact that it would appear that he has declared his cage a non emptying area – which is definitely good news as far as we are concerned.

Now, in fairness, there were no accidents overnight last night but I think that is more luck than anything else..

Day 2

Feels like a post from the Big Brother house but we have now been a full two days with out pr little Hugo and it feels like he is beginning to trust us some more πŸ™‚

We only had just over 30 minutes of yowling last night as we all went to bed – it was more like 2.5 to 3 hours on Friday night so that has been categorised as a win πŸ™‚

However, a small mistake was made and the washing machine was left on delayed start and so promptly woke our new little friend at 5:15am this morning πŸ™ the almost immediate howling meant that somebody needed to get up with him – given daddy had some work to do from last week, he jumped up for the job πŸ™‚

A small we had been lot for the little guy and when he went out, he had another and then promptly went to sleep in daddy’s lap while daddy reviewed a work video, so he was popped straight back into his ‘cab’ and daddy laid next to him on the office floor from around 6:30am for a 49 minute kip πŸ™‚

The change between yesterday and today is very stark – today Hugo is more than amiable regarding settling into his cab – yesterday he had little interest in using the cab (crate).

  
We have ordered a 1m high octagonal metal framed run to attach to the under stair den for Hugo so that it can be considered more permanent than the bike box cardboard setup that we presently have – he will deffo soon figure out how to body swipe it and leave us in shit street and chew the damned carpet on the bull nose…. (He keeps trying…)

All the books tell us that we have a long journey ahead of us regarding training Hugo, although we do feel good about our progress thus far. We have endured many ‘accidents’ so far, we do feel that we are having in a positive direction – time is the only teller on this journey however.

This week will be fun as we have our first school run with Hugo and we have a chap coming round to hopefully fix up the en-suite – so we might have a functioning en-suite by the end of the week – Gary reckons two days will nail it – we all hope he is right πŸ™‚