Just to explain, as some of you will know, I have four
dogruns a day. Some of the lesser favoured (as in
nortiness) only get three!
The first one, always with Mum, is our morning dogrun at about 7am, where we go down the public path and round the front field past the pond and back through the gate. We then have breakfast.
Our second and main dogrun is between 2pm and 4pm (dependant on what Dad is up to during the day) as this is normally his duty. However over the last seven weeks this walk was put back to after 4pm as Dad was working at the Oil Refinery, so this meant Mum had to do this walk as well!
Our third dogrun is just a quick one before we have our dinner at about 7pm, round the back field by the caravan and back through the yard where “that man” used to be, which is another one of Mother’s jobs too!
The last walk is about 11pm which only I, Bear, Poppy and Faith are allowed to go on as the
norty younger ones go looking for wild life and if they
weren’t wild before, they certainly are after Luce and Phoebe have found them!
Anyway, I digress, as the point of the story is that while Dad was working a ten hour day, six days a week on the refinery, Mum was doing everything else including three out of the four
dogrun’s.
Soooo, at the end of his contract, they decided to have a weekend away and went to
Bluestone again for a bit of R and R (whatever that is!). They went twice to the Well Spa, had a couple of “treatments” obviously not beauty ones ‘cos Mum still looks the same!
They had dinner in the
Kookaba restaurant with Carley and Jason on the Friday night (30
th April) which was their 16
th Wedding anniversary . This is an
Australian themed restaurant which has great food, including
Kangaroo and Ostrich! Carley tried the Ostrich which was very nice and Mum had a
Wagga Wagga which was basically a surf and turf with steak and spicy prawns. Saturday and Sunday they ate in the
Bluestone restaurant called
Carreg Las which was excellent too and Mum had only the third lobster she had ever had in her life, cooked to perfection by Duncan the Chef.
Anyway, back to the story of my cruel mother! As Mum had been doing the three walks a day and was now back to doing the two short ones, she thought to keep fit, she would extend the 7pm one by going right round the valley again, after we had only been round there a couple of hours ago with Dad! Well she might have said!
We got over to the yard, where we normally turn in to go back for dinner and she walks right past. I stop, Faith stops, but the younger
whippities are keen to carry on. We get to the first corner and Faith decides to go home on her own, as by now we are heading down the valley! I dawdle, stop, look back, stop again, and she is STILL not getting the hint that we should be getting back for dinner. By now, she is at the bottom of the valley, I am about half the field behind and it’s a BIG field! I then realise she
isn’t going to stop, so have to make an effort to catch up. I then drag behind again, giving her very reproachful looks from under me eyebrows, but to no avail. Finally we are going up the other side on the way home, so I leg it out in front to be first back for tea! Thankfully the next few nights they were going out, so she
couldn’t do the full walk.
Luckily, they are now back to cycling every night, so we have a reprieve for a while!
An update for you on Bear, talking about
dogrun’s, is that she does not do any of the longer walks now, as the cancer has spread all along her chest. Although she is still walking, she is very slow, but she is still eating and
doesn’t seem to be in too much pain as she is on painkillers. We are taking each day as it comes and hope she will let Mum and Dad know when the time is right.
On a holiday front this week it appears to be Collie Week! We have collies in the farmhouse, collies in Wyn’s Cottage, collies in the caravan, collie crosses in Four Acres and spaniels in Swallow’s Dance! Well it would have been too much of a coincidence to have a collie full house!
Apologies for no piccies as the internet has been down for a week and I am sitting here twiddling my paws.
Anyway, it’s time to shoot off now for the hopefully shorter style
pre dinner walk!
Catch you later,
Waj x
The favourite sofa............................................
Mum told me that Bear, or Beryl as she is properly called, was always a star! She was born at home, her Mum was a 7/8 blue greyhound called Tally and Dad was the lurcher on the farm next door, of whom Bear was the dead spit! She was always the adventurous one and being the first one out of the whelping box, was nicknamed Beryl the Peril! She always had a pack around to play with, was never norty like Luce and one of her highlights was starring as Horrid, King Pellinor's questing hound, in Camelot at the Torch Theatre.
.............with the Pages! Anyone spot a young looking Jason second from left?
sorry about the picture quality but I'm not much good at this scanning malarky with me paws! Anyhow, I'm off to lie in the sun a bit, Dad is out in the boiling sun tiling the sides of the swimming pool, rather him than me I can tell you!
