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The online diary
started life as a blog of my strange 'other life' with the dog. I
wanted to record some of the experiences that I had as a first-time dog
owner. To access the archive, click on the appropriate month.
The most recent articles are listed
separately.
You are most
welcome to send comments about any of the articles. Record your
comments via the Contact Me page.
UPDATE
Fri 05 Jun 2009
It’s been a month since
my last post! Life has been pretty hectic with two trips to the Lake
District and sandwiched in between, a very busy week of meetings.
Beattie and I drove up to the
Lakes for
The Wainwright Society’s 214 Challenge event. This was timed to
coincide with the
Keswick Mountain Festival. The challenge this year was for Society
members to climb all 214 Lakeland fells (known as The Wainwrights). I
signed up for Ullock Pike, which is a fell on a ridge leading up to the
summit of Skiddaw in the northern fells.
We climbed
Ullock Pike on a bright but windy day with
Je & Ke, friends from The
Wainwright Society, who were also ‘bagging’ two fells on our walk, Carl Side
and Skiddaw Little Man. It was a beautiful walk up the ridge to Carl Side,
but climbing up on to Skiddaw we were faced with a gale blowing across the
flat summit ridge and it was very hard to stand. Beattie was cowering in
the lee of any minor protuberances such as cairns, wind shelters and even
the trig point on High Man at 3053’! It was a relief to eat our lunch on
Little Man where we dropped down a few feet out of the teeth of the
strongest winds. The sun shone as we enjoyed the views from one of the
finest viewpoints in the Lake District.
Other highlights of the
week included climbing three more fells of my own 214 Challenge. The total
now stands at 209 fells. Beattie also advanced her total of fells climbed
to 145! One of these fells, Base Brown, is famous for the
Hanging Stone, which I was particularly keen to see. Wainwright writes
in The Western Fells, ‘People with bad coughs should keep out of the
line of fall.’ Base Brown p. 4
Another of my target
fells was Great Borne with an ascent via Rake Beck with its
‘goose bield’ an ingenious method of trapping foxes. It worked by
hanging a dead goose over a circular pit to entice the hungry fox, which was
caught when it fell into the trap!
At the end of our week
we joined other members of the Society with assorted canines and volunteers
from SARDA
(Search and Rescue Dogs Association) and walked a circular route over
Outerside and Barrow, two of the north-western fells. We began in wet
conditions, but the skies cleared just before the final ascent of Outerside
and the remainder of the walk was fine and dry. It was fascinating to learn
about the training of these wonderful dogs, which find lost or injured
walkers on the fells, usually after dark!
After the walk we all
drove into Keswick for the presentation of a cheque for £4000 to SARDA,
which was raised by the members of The Wainwright Society.
What an enjoyable week
we had!
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Comment from Tracey Lilly
Great to see you
on Thurs. Yes,
enjoyed our lunch. Pity I had to rush off, though!
Only a few more fells to go for the full set.
Getting there!
Comment from
Gary
Welcome back
Derek, nice to see you posting again, saying that I've not updated
my blog much in the last month been to busy myself! Sorry we didn't
get chance to meet up with up and Alison while you were in Keswick
for the WS challenge. But we only had time for a flying visit on our
way back from Scotland.
Gary .... Thanks, Gary.
I must catch up with your Scottish adventures!
TOO RICH
Tue 16 Jun 2009
We were all away this
last weekend at Happisburgh on the north Norfolk coast.
Beattie always enjoys her early
morning runs on the beach. This Saturday was no exception. After waking me
up at 3.30 in the wee small hours, I took her out briefly before a longer
walk at 7.30.
Not only is this a
lovely sandy beach, it contains hidden delights for a small dog. The
possibilities for scavenging are endless, it seems and Beattie found a wide
variety of disgusting things to chew and lick including crab legs and
something that looked like the remains of a cup of vegetable soup.
I have written before
about her sensitive tummy and she managed to disturb the equilibrium of her
digestive system again! Something she ate definitely upset her as she
widdled not once, but twice on the caravan carpet during the morning! It’s
bad enough having to clear up one mess, but two …
That was the end of her
walks on the beach for that weekend. We kept to the cliff top for the rest
of Saturday and Sunday, much to Beattie’s displeasure.
Well, I didn’t want to
risk any more little accidents!
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Comment from AT
Hope Beattie is OK, you want to try feeding her then she might not
scavenge......HA HA
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Photographs taken with a Fuji MX-2900
Zoom or a Canon EOS 20D
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