Saturday 15 August 2009

walking through clouds

So, you look at the weather forecast, it says "rain", what do you do? Well, any sensible person might get a paper and some nice food (!) and plan for a nice relaxing day on the sofa. The STAFF, as you know, do not fall into this wonderful category and in THEIR wisdom planned a 6 mile hike through the Goyt Valley in the Peak District. And I had no choice but to tag along.
At first, I was having fun. The sun was sort of shining and I could scamp about to my heart's content. STAFF were looking at some ruins. How dull. I was looking for food - how exciting!
I am smiling away in the sunshine. At this point no one had taken the trouble to apprise me of the length of this jaunt. I am smiling the smile of all innocent dogs anywhere who can't read maps...
And you see so many great things out in the country. Like walking snacks! Yum! I was going for a sort of Wild West impression.... This path is too small for all of us. Leave now and I shall hunt you. Stay there and I shall hunt you! A clear win-win situation, apart from the fact that STAFF had clipped me into a harness which makes running at speed quite difficult. THEY always do that when there are nice big wooly snacks around. It is most frustrating!

Still, I enjoyed scampering through the long grass. Long grass has the advantage that it hides from view all exciting things, but not from the nostrils. In other words, I can find things that STAFF don't even dream about. And what THEY don't know about, THEY cannot stop you from snacking on.

As you can see, I am rather pleased with my efforts. I had me a good number of interesting things. Trouble with scampering through long grass is that you get grass seeds in your ears. Those are particularly tricky to remove when you lack a small finger and the kind of elbows that allow you to put the little finger in your ear and wiggle. That, and the ability to open cupboards and food containers, has to be the only advantage of bi-ped anatomy.Teehee! STAFF were trying to take a picture - pretty annoying. And there is always that point where THEY are not entirely sure where you are and the lens is going all over the place. So, I kept low, snuck up and at the right moment BOO! Haha. STAFF nearly dropped that camera. I was chuckling to myself for ages after that.

And I seized the opportunity to clamber up some hills to show STAFF who is King of these hills! It was also so windy. STAFF, who don't have 4PawDrive, nearly got blown off the path a couple of times. It was very funny. THEY looked like THEY walked when THEY have partaken in the imbibing of a whole half pint of weak ale.
With hindsight I should have been more worried about the pretty clouds building up in the background. And then with the wind and whatnot and all, suddenly the clouds were not above us, or behind us or anything but all around us and we were walking through the driving rain inside a cloud. I hate getting wet. Unless I am swimming. There's no pictures of the torrential downpour, because we don't have an underwater camera.But here you can see the path we've just come up and the white stuff lying on it, which is a rain cloud. Eeeugh!

I was trying to encourage STAFF to hurry. I could see the clouds were closing in on us again! Thankfully, I had packed my Kagool, otherwise I should have been drenched. Now, correct me if I am wrong, but I am sure when I was a puppy the summers were warmer and longer, well, you know, more than just one day.

Back in the car, I crashed down on my blanket immediately. As you can see my accommodation is very basic. The STAFF totally make me rough it. After 6 miles up and down hills and through torrential rain and all I slept quite nicely on the way back.

And you know, I actually enjoyed myself. I wonder where we are going next weekend? I'd say adventures are totally back on the menu!

1 comment:

Chantelle said...

Looks like an awful lot of fun. Am almost tempted to go rambling myself (but am fully aware that after about half an hour, i'd have eaten all my lunch and collapsed with fatigue) :P