Showing posts with label #bordercollie #adventures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #bordercollie #adventures. Show all posts

Wednesday, 27 June 2018

Hot Summer Days in England

When we were in the snow in the Pyrenees, I remarked to Jason that we weren't really going to get much of a summer on account of us then going to the Alps in Spring, then back to the UK for June then out to monsoon season in Nepal for work.  Oh how wrong I was! Firstly we descended from the Pyrenees into the hot 'spring' of Spain (equivalent to a hot summer in the UK), then we went to the French Alps for more of the same and now we have just had the hottest month in living memory of dry sunny weather in the UK.  Let's face it though, a week of decent weather in Spring and then another sometime in the summer is what we normally get!

Leelu was fine when we were travelling, there were still snow patches about on our walks and he would gleefully jump into them and eat the snow and catch snowballs, no matter how dirty the snow as it melted!  He would also find shade under the truck and, to be honest, inside the camper truck was fairly cool on account of all the heavy weight insulation that it is made from (an ex-prison transport vehicle!).

Back in our corner of England, the sun has been streaming down and dog walks have had to be pushed to first thing in the morning and late on in the evening to save a lot of overheating from us both.  I periodically remove the tennis ball from him so that he can cool down through panting too.  We are lucky in that there is a lot of woodland around us to provide shady walks but we still have to be careful that the tarmac getting to the woods is not too warm - although it is starting to do a fine job of melting on some bits of road!

Leelu sits in various pieces of shade in my parent's garden but his favourite spot is in a tiny corner under the edge of a bush that grows next to the house - the shade of the bush and the coolness of stones combined are what makes it nice.

And so out we go for another, slightly cooler, late evening walk, past the heavily scented air laden with honeysuckle, roses and that wonderful smell of a warm forest.  The air is cooler but occasionally we walk through a much warmer patch of air that is still being heated by the sun.  The paths are all turning dusty, even the ones with a permanent mud patch in, they are all over grown as the rose bay willow herb and ferns grow taller than me and the soft new growth of the gorse brushes my arm as I push through.  And then the bright orange disc of sun slides towards the horizon turning the sky golden and then red to bring a welcome cool relief to us all.

For more of our adventures see https://daysaway.wixsite.com/website

Friday, 21 April 2017

Lost & Found

Some of you may know that husband Jason, Leelu and myself are about to embark on our adventures.  If you would like to know more about what we are up to then here is the link to our new website https://daysaway.wixsite.com/website. As a result we are currently doing some work on our narrowboat that has been outstanding for a few months and also to get her ready for a summer of travelling around the UK canal network.

Last week we decided to replace the floor at the back of the boat.  This means removing everything including our bed, wardrobe, the girl's beds... so we are staying with my parents at the moment, even deeper in the Cheshire countryside.  This means some more varied walks for Leelu, although to be honest, he knows all of the local walks anyway as my Dad often takes him out when we have been at work.  He does pause at every stile that we pass just to see which way we will be going next!

Honestly, this photo was not a set up, he knows that there are lots of good smells through here!

One of our walks takes us through woods.  Recently they have been doing a lot of 'managing' & thinning and so there is now that lovely pine smell and hundreds and hundreds of logs stacked up ready for moving.  The bonus about this is that one of the tennis balls that we lost a couple of months ago at this very point and searched and searched for in the gorse but couldn't find, literally popped out of the gorse when the logs have been stacked...green tennis balls get lost so easy in woodland undergrowth!

We've seen lots of beautiful signs of spring with nature doing her best looking green and everywhere replenishing

Yesterday morning we also found this:
It looks like a buzzards wing I think, there wasn't any other 'bits of bird' lying around!

For the next blog, in 2 weeks time, we will have started our advenutres...before that though, here's what the new floor looks like, now to paint the walls - where's the paintbrush?!







Tuesday, 28 March 2017

Lets Go Boating!

Good morning!
Leelu in the Cairngorms in February doing his best 'snow dog' impression
I realise that it has been 'some time' since my last blog post in November - eek, sorry to all Leelu fans out there! So here's a summary of what has been happening in the life of Leelu... tennis balls, walks, frisbee, sleep, mountains, snow, tennis balls, mountains, tennis balls, sleep,football and in the past couple of days - sunbathing - yes that yellow thing in the sky has made it really warm for the last couple, almost looking like summer!

A new toy for flinging and chasing around the field!

Scotland in December, admiring the view 

Glen Clova, Scotland over the New Year, it was very windy!

From May, Jason, Leelu & I are embarking on a journey around the canal network in England on our narrowboat. We have all of April to do some work on the boat and get her ready for the trip, jobs that you don't tend to do day to day such as replacing the floor in the back cabin!  Leelu is ready, he has his food and he has his lifejacket at the ready!

So if you want to come and visit us on the canals over the summer, follow our new website https://daysaway.wixsite.com/website where you can also access these blogs as well as the adventures of the humans where he resides!  We also have a new facebook page https://www.facebook.com/daysawayadventures/