July 4, 2010: Independence Day
Happy Independence Day! This is an American national holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain were now independent states, and thus no longer a part of the British Empire. The Declaration, written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, holds arguably the best-known phrase in any of America's political documents:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Two hundred and thirty four years on and here I was on the fourth of July running around the Brechfa forest at 6am in the morning with 5 sheepdogs thinking about these words! (Yes, I can be odd!).

Oh, and here's a wee piece of trivia for you. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the only signers of the Declaration of Independence to later serve as President of the United States, died on the same day: July 4, 1826, which was the 50th anniversary of the Declaration. There's more....the fifth President, James Monroe, also died on the 4th of July but 5 years later - in 1831.

Now you're probably wondering why I was running around the forest at 6am? and more importantly, why the heck I was thinking about the 4th of July in America? Well, what precipitated all of this was WIMBLEDON - of course!! Men's final today. (Sorry, no Americans in the final (although American Serena Williams made mincemeat of Russian Vera Zvonareva yesterday)). Today it's a Spaniard (Rafael Nadal) against Czezh Thomas Berdych. All men are created equal - NOT. Rafa is the hot favourite.

My best friend, Ann, from Canada, and our goddaughter, Bianca - or B as we all call her (and after whom Bee was named - you can't call a dog 'B' you know)- are over visiting us, and we are all preparing to watch the final together. We've got the coke, chocolate, roasted almonds and even strawberries and cream at the ready. The fire is on...yes, it's raining here - Yippee! Now we wait for start time. We are all sports nuts and if truth be told, we are all a bit nutty!

So, I was up early to run my dogs. They have a rest day off sheep today...well, except to get some farm work done. It wasn't raining at that time of the morning. The forest was calling...so off we trotted. What a super run! It was the first time I have been running since before I went for my two week trialling sojourn in Scotland.

Ann brought with her these from Canada - for me:

My new pair of running shoes compliments of all the "loot" from the Scotland trials!!! Yahoo!!! This is the first pair of running shoes I've bought in 3 years. Before we left Canada, we bought a few pairs each from our favourite running store in Calgary - Gord's. Ann went shopping for us at Gord's...and we have a brand spanking new pair of shoes each and no excuses not to go running. I can now say I 'christened' my shoes on the 4th of July with their first forest run.

Here's my last pair. I called them my holy, air conditioned, self-deodorising model. They also let in stones and grass seeds, and had absolutely no cushioning left. My news ones are pure luxury!

We LOVE having Ann and B here, and two weeks ago we also had another running friend, Chris Curry and his lovely wife, Dee, here. How nice it is to be amongst our Canadian friends again. I am once again enthused about going running, and my dogs need to get fit!

This week we took a trip over to Arwyn George's place. Arwyn is a prize winning stickmaker (Shepherd's crooks). My competition crook is from Arwyn and I love it. But I also have a fantastic crook that I use for work that was a gift from our Irish friends. Well, a couple of months back, Kelvin borrowed my work stick and returned it with the shaft of the stick split. Not happy! He swears it just shattered (I wonder on what rock or fence post?). I took the stick over for Arwyn to fix and fix it, he did...and cleaned and varnished it, and now the stick is better than ever. Arwyn is the best. Arwyn's wife, Eileen, is a hobby painter and while we were there she took a photo of Bailey. When I went to pick up my stick two days later, she gave me this:

Painting of Bailey (in acrylic)

WOW! What a gift. We have had a painting of Bailey done before but this is miles better! We will be framing this one and putting it pride of place somewhere. Now when we take people over to buy new sticks, they can also get their dog painted and for a reasonable price! It is amazing the talent that one can find hidden away in the backroads of Wales.

No trialling this week. Wimbledon finals weekend is sacred in our household! Bound to be off somewhere next week.