October 30 2011: Pea Soup

The weather has been wicked in Wales. Wet, cold, windy, a touch of frost, and even some 'pea soupers.' Friday, however, dawned sunny and without even a hint of wind. I took the dogs for a run in the forest - wonderful. They did the running and I did the puffing, wheezing and plodding. Even Bailey and Jamie, the two dawdlers in the pack, were looking back at me in mock amusement...or perhaps they were ever ready to rescue me in the event of cardiac arrest.

After an 'injection' of caffeine and a change of footweat, off up the hill I went again...this time for some training...time to start extending the outruns of my youngsters, Kobe, Keeper and Penny. My friend Pete came with me with his dog, Glen. It was their first time training on the hill...and of course, I took Pete up the short route just to make sure his cardiac muscle got a workout before he made Glen do likewise. It was an absolutely stunning day for hill training. It was so still that I am in no doubt the neighbours had an entertaining morning listening to us making sure the dogs cast properly. Later in the morning Sharron joined Pete and I with her bitch, Nellie....their first time on the hill too. I think we all came down from the hill with great big smiles. That evening Pete made a spectacular Pea Soup (with a sprinkling of ham) for dinner...I think this was a premonition for the weather that was in store for us on Saturday!!

Saturday we went off trialling. Kelvin got to run Blade in the Carmarthenshire team qualifying trial for the Three Counties event to be held in November. I took my 'brothers and sister' team of Kobe (for the Nursery Trial), Keeper and Penny (the latter two for the Open trial). The weather was...rubbish! Wet, windy, and cool. Our dogs all had decent runs and most pleasing of all for me was the way in which the three youngsters outran. Penny had a class run and while we got pipped at the post for the win (the judge having to go to drive points to separate first and second placings), I was absolutely thrilled with the way she lifted her sheep, and how she set up the shed. She reminded me so much of how Meg works a shed. Keeper had a good run too on quite difficult sheep, and Kobe ran well save for a miscommunication between him and I in the shed...and I have to say Kobe was right, and I was wrong! We still eeked out a second placing in the nursery and it's looking promising for Kobe to make the South Wales Nursery Final. Fingers crossed.

Sunday morning we got a reprieve from the rain and were treated to surprisingly mild temperatures. I decided it was time to don the running shoes again and brave the forest puddles...a 'wee' run I said to Kelvin and he decided to join me. This is the first time we have run together in goodness only knows how long, as Kelvin is still struggling to recover from the bout of meningitis he had last year. We walked up the hill and once in the forest, started on our merry way. It was pointless trying to keep feet dry so after we turned onto a smaller trail, I took to running right through the middle of the puddles instead of trying to skirt around the outsides. "Let's go this way" said Kelvin gleefully, "It loops back to the forestry road by the field at the top of the hill." He seemed to know the way so I blindly plodded on behind with only Jamie for company. It was when we started bushwhacking our way through blackberry vines, dense heather and gorse, that I knew Kelvin was not sure where we were except that we were nowhere near the field at the top of the hill. After wading through a knee deep river and running, or in my case grovelling, up a hill, Kelvin got his bearings. We were quite close to the road from our place to Brechfa...only a couple of miles from home. That's when I started walking! Kelvin kept on running ahead taking Kobe, the never tiring dog, and Blade with him, while the rest of the pack and I dragged our sorry asses home. After a while we started to run (cough, cough...grovel) our way home because walking is just so slow! Over two hours after we left for a 'wee' run, I had my butt planted on the couch in front of the fire. And there I would stay for several hours, and a few cups of hot sweet tea later... Funny how quiet the kennel was.

By early afternoon we had recovered enough to go do some gardening. We removed a hugely overgrown willow tree and pruned back a completely out of control rose. Kelvin got to do the pruning while the dogs and I moved all the prunings to the burn pit. We have now removed most of the trees that died last winter. Unfortunately some of my rhododendrons did not make it through last winter...almost all my dwarf varieties died! Boo hoo! I've been slowly clearing a new area for a small puppy training field. Bless Kelvin's heart for buying a bow saw. The darned chainsaw is so hard to start on my own but the bow saw is keeping me happy as I can remove overgrown branches on my own and to my heart's content! Never short of things to do...