Bluebells

I set off early on Friday morning to visit some friends in Kent. Since it was the start of the Easter Weekend I was worried about traffic on the roads, so I started at 6 am. By 8 am I was about half an hour away from my destination, and decided to stop at a picnic area and give myself and Hooli a break. As I sat at a picnic table drinking coffee from my flask, I noticed a path going into a wooded area, followed it, and got a very pleasant surprise.

A bluebell wood!

Bath and Breakfast

Good Grief! We've all heard of people reading in the bath, having a snooze, or unwinding with a nice glass of wine surrounded by the flickering light of scented candles. But eating breakfast in the bath? Perhaps it's a timesaving trick for people who have to rush in the mornings? Someone trying to save on washing up?

It's none of the above. These are soaps that one of my daughters gave me a couple of years ago.

They were so cute and quirky that I kept them on display in the bathroom still wrapped in their see-through wrapping. Today I decided that it's time to put them to their proper use.

When I'm given a present like this I find it really hard to let go. Using a soap ultimately destroys it, and so I tend to hang on to something like this bacon, eggs and waffle soap as long as possible.

I decided that if I can't keep the soap forever, at least I can record it for posterity in a post. So here it is.

And as I delay our daily walk, because it's raining and I hope it will let up, Hooli says: "Let Me Out!"

Hooli Gets Scrubbed Up......

.... and he smells so nice.

Hooli got a visit from the lady in the Mobile Dog Grooming van today.

As you can see from this first picture, he was a muddy mess by the end of our walk earlier on this morning. He'd been smelling pretty ripe for a while, and no matter how much I wiped him down and brushed his coat, he was still dropping hair all over the house and there were underlying matted areas in his coat that I just couldn't cope with.

So that was Hooli before his Grooming Session.

He disappeared into the van for about an hour, and then came out looking like this:
I reckon he scrubbed up quite well.

Hooli's back

He's such a clever dog, but just a bit camera shy.

Hooli again and a walk in the woods

Following on from yesterday's post about Hooli finding the rubber squeeky santa turkey, he was so pleased with himself that he slept with it by his side all night, and picked it up again first thing in the morning. So the house was filled with thumps interspersed with squeeks from the turkey as Hooli charged around with it in his mouth.

When I was getting ready to take him for a walk, everything went silent. Next time I checked, the turkey was gone. It's nowhere to be found. When I ask him where it is, he looks at me as if to say: "Turkey? What turkey?". I think he may have buried it again.

We went for a walk in the woods....

A field full of buttercups.

A rather elegant bug.

A molehill?

The path in the wood was almost overrun by wildflowers.

Like a low cloud.

And leaving the woods, I couldn't see the path out.

Till Hooli came back and showed me the way.

When we first came into the wood, there were three muntjac deer on the path ahead.

Two ran away before I could get my camera out.

If you click on the picture above you should be able to see the remaining deer a bit more clearly.

As we walked up the path we could hear loud barking sounds, which seemed to echo through the woods.

It was a little eerie.

When I got home I looked up the deer online.

They're the smallest deer in the UK and are known as the barking deer.

Click on this link to hear what it sounded like.

Gorgeous Day

It's been a gorgeous day here with wall to wall sunshine. In between washing and hanging out laundry, I read for a bit in the garden, and then I started to do some gardening.

Last year was a bit of a disaster in my vegetable patch, because even though I'd covered my vegetables with fleece or netting, I woke up one morning to find that all my salad plants had been decimated overnight by marauding slugs and snails.

I read recently that coffee grounds left around the salad patch are a good barrier for slugs, so I've been saving them up, and today I planted some lettuce seeds in a square area and surrounded it with coffee grounds. Unfortunately I ran out before the square was closed, but I think I have enough time, before the seedlings come up, to drink enough coffee to complete the square.

I've outlined the shape of the square, you can just barely see the coffee grounds, and the green line shows where I started and the red arrow shows where I ran out.

I hope this works, because I got very annoyed last year when I lost my whole crop.

I'm looking after Hooli this weekend and I got quite cross with him because he was digging near the boundary fence. I told him to stop, he'd pause, then start digging again, and just when I was ready to really yell at him, he pulled out a squeeky rubber turkey dressed in a santa costume.


He was so pleased with himself, he kept making it squeek.

I once read that squirrels bury nuts all through the summer and autumn, for use in the winter, and then can't remember where they buried them. Well I reckon Hooli must have buried that turkey at Christmas time, and remembered it all these months later. Does that make him smarter than a squirrel?

A treat for Hooli

Here's a picture of Hooli getting ready to catch and swallow a treat. You can just see the treat in the top right hand corner of the picture. It looks like a little brown nut flying towards his waiting mouth.

He's so easy to please.

This little lamb was lost and crying for its mother.

Mothers Day Walk and Twittering

My daughters + 1 boyfriend came to visit for the Mothers Day Weekend.

Hooli came too......

And we all went for a walk before Sunday lunch.

The sheep were in the fields...

And although there wasn't hint of rain, some cows were lying down anyway.

I've joined Twitter. I'm still not quite sure how it works, but learning something new is always interesting.

Hooli the Draught Excluder

My daughter's been visiting this weekend, and Hooli came along too. Last night I found Hooli fast asleep across the front door. How thoughtful of him to act as a draught excluder on such a chilly night.

Hooli's leaving tomorrow

All good things must come to an end. My daughter is arriving tonight and will take Hooli back to London with her tomorrow morning. He's been here for two weeks, and he's all better from the dose of Kennel Cough he had when he arrived. We've had some fun, and I've had loads of exercise taking him on walks. I think I might even miss him a bit when he's gone.

He's going to move into a new house and make friends with a new canine housemate called Pepper.

The grass is as high as an elephant's eye...

......well, maybe a baby elephant... or the tips of Hooli's ears.

Hooli and I went for a walk across the fields and into the woods today. We did that yesterday too, but I didn't have my camera with me then. After coming off a narrow footpath, we walked across three fields this big:

Then down another footpath and into the wood: Across a stream where Hooli found a dam:
The undergrowth consisted of mostly waist high stinging nettles (ouch):
And then out of the wood and a field to cross (with grass as high as an elephant's eye):

And Hooli found something:

News from the Quarantine Zone

Hooli's come to stay with me for two weeks. He was originally supposed to just come for one week while my daughter moves house, but he's developed Kennel Cough and so needs to be kept away from other dogs. Meaning he can't go for walks at the moment, and really should be kept as quiet as possible, so he's stuck here with me, poor little guy. Any exertion, and he's coughing and wheezing poor thing.

At least he can go out in the garden here, but he still looks fed up, doesn't he?
Actually, he just ain't his usually bouncy self at the moment.
He's taking antibiotics and anti-inflammatory tablets, which I'm supposed to sneak to him in a piece of cheese. Last time I tried that he sussed me out, and wouldn't eat anything I gave him without checking it out first and then he'd only eat it if I wasn't looking at him. It's taken months to regain his trust, so I hope I'll be able to fool him this time.

He's such a sweetie.

Stile Demonstration

My daughter and I took Hooli for a walk this afternoon......

And now for the weather......

Hooli at Crufts Dog Show

Hooli was manning a stand at Crufts yesterday. He was on the Discover Australian Shepherds stand. I asked my daughter to supply more information, and this is what she wrote:













Hooli took part in Discover Dogs, which is basically an exhibit within Crufts. There is a breed stand for every breed recognised by the Kennel Club. Each breed stand contains information on the breed, and breeders/owners and dogs so that the public can meet the breeds and talk to owners about what it is like to own that particular breed. It is important that the dogs are confident and friendly because they are cuddled, kissed and photographed all day.

Hooli was on the breed stand for Saturday afternoon from 1pm to 5:30pm, which is probably one of the busiest times at the show. He took it in his stride and behaved impeccably. He was friendly, outgoing and gentle with children who came and literally threw themselves at him. He performed lots of tricks, the favourite of the crowd was holding a biscuit in his teeth until I said to eat it.

Hooli was a particularly good example because he has a tail, unlike most aussies. But because of the docking ban, most puppies that will be bought in the future will have tails, so people who are considering the breed really got a chance to see what their potential future puppy might look like. The docking ban came in last year, and so more and more aussies with tails are now popping up, but they are still fairly rare in the show ring. No aussies being imported from other countries can be shown if they were docked after the docking ban came into effect in the UK, which will have implications for exhibitors coming over from the States and Europe, of which there are more and more since the Pet Passport Scheme expanded to include the US. Let me know if you need any more info! Or go to www.crufts.org.uk

Isn't he gorgeous!

Good Morning Hooli

Hooli says: Can I eat them now?



Wait, wait, wait, that's all I ever do!