P&O Ferries

I managed to get up for a change today and was up and out of bed by 9.30am – that must be the earliest I have been up since I finished work! Once I had got some breakfast and a coffee down me I took Roman out for a nice, leisurely 5 mile walk. The weather wasn’t too bad this morning for a change – a little overcast but fairly warm when the wind wasn’t blowing.

Again, Roman showed no signs of discomfort and there is not even a hint of his limp coming back so it looks like whatever the problem was seems to be much better now – the rest must have done him the world of good, although he was bouncing around like Tigger for a couple of days! Hopefully that will be the end of his limp and it will never appear again.

Today has been fairly unproductive unfortunately – I managed to do all of the things on my list but didn’t get the results I wanted. First on my list was to get in touch with Simon and find out what is happening with the newspapers. I have tried calling a couple of times today and have left a message on his answer machine but have not actually managed to speak to him as of yet.

Second on the list was to get in touch with Jennie at the Rottweiler Welfare Association. Again, this proved to be unfruitful. I have tried ringing three times today and have again left a message on her answer machine but have not heard anything back. I hope she gets in touch soon and, hopefully, it will be with positive news and we can start raising money for all those poor, neglected Rottweilers out there!

The third thing I wanted to do today was to speak to either John or Richard at Swetenham’s to find out what has happened with the property since I last reduced the price. It must be almost a month ago now since I lowered it again and there have still been no viewings. It’s very frustrating! I managed to get hold of John this afternoon and, unfortunately, the stats aren’t looking too good. Only about 3% of searches pulling my property up are actually getting clicked through to.

John suggested changing the cover picture on the website to be an interior shot – it’s not like my house is particularly ugly but the inside definitely looks nicer than the outside. Hopefully, by making this small change, we can entice more people to actually look at the property details and maybe even entice someone to book an appointment to view.

I was speaking to my brother’s fiancée, Ant, earlier on Facebook and she reminded me about my quest to get some form of sponsorship to get Roman and I across from Dover to Calais free of charge. I promptly got on the phone to the various companies to see which ones would be able to accommodate Roman. It’s not as straightforward as I was hoping but there is a way.

They will allow foot passengers to take dogs onboard so long as they are secured in a carry case. This presents a bit of a problem as, firstly, I have never seen a carry case big enough for a 9 stone Rottweiler and, secondly, I think I may struggle to actually carry it! There is a way around this though. P&O ferries will allow dogs to travel as long as they are secured away from the passenger deck in your vehicle.

The downside of this is that I now need to actually find somebody willing to drive us onto the ferry, onto French soil and then return on the ferry a little later in the day. Still, I’m sure that there will be somebody out there willing to help but it does add another thing to my to do list! Once I had established the most flexible and accommodating company I set about finding details for their PR department.

Luckily, this was a much easier process than I have previously experienced with other companies. I was able to find a phone number very quickly and, within minutes, was speaking to a nice lady called Natalie. She advised me to send over the details of what I was doing and what I needed from them and she would take a look at the request for me. Within an hour or so I had a reply that basically said she can’t see it being a problem at all but needs to speak with a colleague so will be back in touch with me!

Roman and I have just got back from our second 5 mile walk of the day and, again, there has been no sign of discomfort and no sign of the dreaded limp either! I am now about to get myself bathed and freshened up and am off to see an old friend for something to eat and a few drinks, hence the earlier than usual update!