It is terribly exciting living on a boat, particularly as I like to sit on deck and watch the comings and goings in the marina. We have a duck that comes to visit and swans that make a big flapping noise when they try to take off. Despite my small legs I can now manage the gaps between the pontoons and love to scare the seagulls. In their haste to get out of my way, they drop the mussels and I get to run off with them. Dad has put netting around the boat so that I can not fall into the water, and to stop Patch jumping off. He is such a naughty boy!

We are still in Ipswich due to gale after gale and the fact that the wind is against us for the next few day. We were hoping to set off this weekend, but Dad says that he doesn’t want to put me off sailing, so we will wait for calmer weather. I am quite happy about this as Ipswich is very exciting for a number of reasons.

Firstly, my first baby tooth fell out whilst eating a dentastick. I was gutted as I thought it would affect my eating ability, but I have found that I can gummy things just as easily. When I woke up the next morning, the tooth fairy had been in the night and there was a two pound coin in my basket. Mom and I went straight to the Lithuanian shop and selected 12 sausages and two packets of condensed milk biscuits! I do hope they open one of these shops in Yorkshire, you can get all sorts of sausages, the ones with runny cheese inside are my favourites.

Another reason I like Ipswich is because it has a lovely fish market. Mom went and got fish heads and tails for a bouillabaisse fish stew. She boiled up the bones with tomatoes, saffron, carrots, leeks and garlic. Once cooked, Mom drained and kept the liquid ready to add prawns, halibut and lots of fresh mussels. She then mashed up all the fishy bits and vegetables for me and Patch. I was told that Scrappy loved nothing more than fish eyes and vegetables mashed up for his tea, and we agreed that it really was delicious and gobbled it down. It was even tastier than the sausage! However, it was too rich for our little tummies and we spent the rest of the evening having the squits (mom doesn’t like me using that word) all round Ipswich town centre!!!! I think it put one or two people off their beer and definitely put mom off her fish soup!

I love the people we meet. Most evenings we walk around the marina and sometimes stop at a little pop up cafe called CULT. Mom says it is straight off the set of ‘It’s a sin’. We think Dad and I are the only straight men who go there. Even Patch stands with his paws out turned and has started to hump every male dog he sees. The bar man wears an ‘off the shoulder’ number, with his very big Afro hair flying everywhere, and he dances rather than walks round the tables. Everyone he serves is a ‘lovvey’ and the other day, when Dad had forgotten his hat, he offered to cut a bit off his hair and glue it onto Dad’s head. Mom thought this was very funny, but Dad wasn’t as amused! We sit and watch people going up and down on their roller skates. There are a lot of Freddie Mercury looking men, in tight white trousers, string vests and fake tans. There is one very strange man who walks around pushing a shopping trolley, and wears a skirt and a false pregnancy belly. He often stops and rubs his tummy as if he was really pregnant. I don’t know why but he gives mom the giggles.

I love the cafe lifestyle in Ipswich. Quite a few mornings it is just me, Patch and Mom who go out for a walk around the marina complex whilst Dad does jobs. We like these mornings as we often stop for a healthy breakfast. Dad, sometimes goes out to fetch something in the van which usually contain wrappers from somewhere called “Greggs” on his return. We think he is secretly stopping for a bacon sandwich! Our favourite is a little Catalan cafe where everyone is friendly and they all think I am gorgeous. On our walks we meet Telula. She is a little French bull dog who wears a pink lead which matches her owner’s trainers. He wears Elvis style sun glasses, the tightest shorts imaginable and a tiny body warmer revealing his waxed chest. Dad wishes Mom would stop meeting Telula and her owner as she always comes back and says how well presented gay men are. She looks at Dad with his hairy ears, greasy oil stained top and dirty hands from the engine room and just shakes her head.

Last week Mom and Dad finally sold their van on eBay, but not before we had a few lovely days out. We went to Aldebrough on the coast and enjoyed walking along the pebbly beach. There were lots of small fishing boats, and smokehouses and we enjoyed crevettes still warm from the smoke house and later a portion of fish and chips sitting in the rain on the beach. Then we went to Southwold which was really pretty with lots of little shops and plenty of fish restaurants down by the river. We walked back through the salt marches and poor Patch went running through one and was covered in mud.

Mom is on a health drive and has started with a liver detox. The day starts with a kale smoothie, artichoke and black radish supplements and milk thistle tea. Later in the day she has some dandelion tea and wheatgrass juice. Dad, not realising what it entailed, has offered to join her. Farmer Frank gave him a nice bottle of whisky when we left Yorkshire. You can imagine Dad’s dismay when he realised it might be a long while before he gets to taste a drop, and I have seen him looking longingly at my sausages. Last night she broke the news that tonight is the Epsom salt flush.... let’s hope the holding tank is working well!!!