Canal walks, Camping and Mountains

We’ve been on a few walking adventures over the past few months – with varied rates of success.  It’s been an exercise in pushing myself and trying to get some walking fitness back into my life, plus seeing how Leelu copes with the different types of walking …oh hang on…dog…walk….!

The first decent sized walk we did was Long Mynd in Shropshire – 11 miles of up, along, down, then up then down again (the last down hurt!!).  It was a beautiful hot and sunny day but I made the mistake of letting Leelu  have the ball to carry and to be fair to him he did – the whole way!!  He was also brave enough to get into some small streams to drink, not into fast flowing ones though, but I felt like it was some kind of breakthrough as he generally doesn’t drink much water, let alone go near any moving water.

We then went to the Lake District for my second mountain since my back op.  We were aiming to go up Bowfell  through Eskdale.  It was the first time we had been camping in the Yellow Bus of Fun (ex-AA VW T4 camper / multipurpose van).  Oh Leelu thought it was great that he was so close to us and he could sit up and put his head on the bed in the morning ‘Are we going out yet…?’  The disadvantage to The Lake District in April is lambing season.  Having been non-dog owners for a while and therefore able to go where we want, the lambing season hadn’t affected us before.  So on the lead he went although husband cunningly secured him via a karabiner to his rucksack so he could still go a little way on the retractable lead. 

All in all it wasn’t the most successful day ever.  Despite lots of flat walking, you need different muscles for mountains and mine had deserted me that day.  On top of that, higher up was rain, then sleet.  The dog was also not having the best time either – cold, wet, sleet, wind, on the lead - so we bailed…to the pub for restorative tea and nachos.  We then went and parked ourselves in the Old Dungeon Ghyll carpark and had a fine evening of great food, beer and chatting (with much admiring of dog by fellow pub goers) and retired to the campervan and listened to the beat of the rain on the roof.  As predicted the next day was a complete washout – Leelu’s face was a picture when we opened the door in the morning and we were in one enormous puddle of water.  We went home.

Two weekends ago, whilst husband was on a course in Audlem, Leelu and I did an 11.5 mile walk down the towpath and back from Audlem to just short of Market Drayton.  Another flat walk but good to get the miles in.  We had a bonus on the way too as we bumped into a volunteer lock keeper that we know and he bought me cake (it’s ok I had treats with me for Leelu, he didn’t miss out!).

Last week was half term so we had a few days in Wales based out of Llanberis.  Unfortunately our plans went awry a little when husband got very poorly sick so I took Leelu and Step-daughter no. 2 , who was staying with us for the week, up to the top of Snowdon via the Llanberis path as neither of them had done it before. 

They were both excellent, despite the steepness (s/d), the boring path, the people and the other dogs (Leelu) and slept lots afterwards.  Actually both s/d and I slept lots because we then went to Bounce Below as a half term treat – its’ a series of big nets in a huge cave that you bound around on and climb up and slide down, great fun and completely exhausting – like a human size version of a snakes and ladders board!  Thursday was a more gentle day.  Fortunately husband got better and took daughter climbing on Idwal Slabs whilst I introduced Leelu to the concept of steep steps with a bit of scrambling.  He didn’t like it.  To make it up to him I then had to stand and play ball with him for ages!

Next on the list of Leelu’s adventures – spending the weekend away at my parents (He won’t like the drive to Wiltshire!). 

A new dog

We have a 'new to us' dog! Its great and has been a wonderful first week with him.

My parents had dogs when I was growing up, including a succession of German Shepherd dogs from rescue homes.  My husband also used to have dogs and coincidentally, the last dog we both had was a collie cross shepherd. 

We have both wanted a dog of our own for a few years but working patterns and living on a boat wasn't really conducive to it.  However, now that J works more locally more of the time and has a lot of part time work, most of which is based from home, suddenly the conversation of getting a new dog came up again...  So we started looking at the dog rescue sites...what sort of dog did we want?? 

Not a small dog as we didn't want to trip over it or lose it amongst the rocks or tufts of grass that are found on mountains,  nor did we want to carry it home when its little legs got tired!

Not a large dog either.  We live on a NARROW boat!

So medium sized mountain loving dog....ooh look, a friend has reposted another friend's photo on good old Facebook.  A 7 year old male border collie that needed rehoming due to a change in circumstances of his owners. SOLD!!

So here he is, learning to be with us 2 crazies and completely putting us under his spell! 'Umlilo,' Zulu for 'Fire.'  His previous owners were South African.  So his name is Lilo but for the sake of getting the correct pronunciation we have changed the spelling to be more literal.

This is LEELU our lovely new border collie who is doing fantastically, is good as gold and loves the mountains - hooray!! Periodic adventures of our 'woolly dog' will be posted here. Enjoy.