Big Stick Day

Today I had the shortest of walks ever in the morning, didn’t even deserve to be called a walk… but mum had to go out and she didn’t get back until after lunch time. [I was absolutely starving and looking forward to lunch until she reminded me that I don’t get lunch. What? No lunch? Ah well, it was a nice dream while it lasted.] Anyway, after she got back we went out for a walk on the heath, it was lovely and sunny and there was still ice on the puddles.

Here I am at the beginning of our walk… lagging behind, as usual, checking all the p-mail. The first 50 yards are always the slowest as there’s such a lot of it. Now, if you can just tilt your head slightly to the right, you won’t notice that this picture is wonky.

A bit further along the track and the puddles get really big… the water’s really cold so I don’t think I’ll be doing any swimming today.

The sun was getting low in the sky and our shadows made us look like giants!!

The low sun also made it difficult to take pictures.. mum finds it a challenge at the best of times, but you can just about see me checking out another interesting smell.

And in this one it looks like my head is missing altogether, but I’ve just got my nose to the ground again. Actually I think I spend most of my time with my nose at ground level, that’s the best place to catch a whiff of any birds. Not that I find many pheasants up here on the heath, but today I did manage to flush one out!

We had over an hour until it was going to start getting dark so we were going to walk right down to Gate 37, or is it 36… I don’t suppose it matters really, but it’s a nice walk… so we set off down this gravel path down to the track which leads to the road. From here we can see Bournemouth and on a clear day the Isle of Wight!

This is the bottom of the path and you can just see the little unmade road that leads to the proper road.

Oh dear, it all looks a bit dark doesn’t it, the pesky sun was sneaking down behind the hills and we were walking in the shadows.

On the other side of the road we walked down to the stream at Gate No 37, or 36, but I decided not to have a swim because it was a bit chilly. I decided to look for a stick instead and guess what, I found one! Isn’t it lovely?

It was a goodly size and not too heavy so I thought I’d take it with me.

I reckon I’ve got this ‘balance’ thing just right…

One has to carry it just at the right spot otherwise it drags on the ground… like it was starting to do here.

If a stick is causing me too much trouble then sometimes I go off and hide it. But if I get spotted by a human then I have to go and pick it up again. Darn… I was spotted hiding it behind this tuft of grass.

The clouds were all pinky tonight.

Well, that was about it for this afternoon’s walk… here I am back at the car and nomming on some lovely dried tripe. Yes, I’d brought the stick back to the car and got it into the back with me, but it was so big I managed to trade it for THREE bits of tripe! BOL the reward has to match the size of the stick… if I don’t get offered enough treats then I don’t give up the stick. And if I don’t give up the stick then by the time we get home the back of the car is full of chewed up stick. I’m good at bargaining!