Three dogs not in a boat

So three new dogs to me, ironically owned by a lady who walks dogs! Even dog walkers need sitters.  They live in a lovely old house in Waltham St Lawrence. One dog is very old now and has on occasion toilet accidents. But he is happy, can walk about, his quality of life is good. I slept in the spare bedroom, in a single bed, the two younger dogs, took turns to sleep in my bed. The kind lady owner, has asked me to leave a couple of hen eggs for the fox cubs she has seen on her webcam. I put two out the other night, I should ask her who sniffled them away!

It was super hot for the first few days on this sit, in fact the first morning walk we had a short shower, and then the sun beat down on us. The two younger dogs play a lot in the garden. On one of the walks a bit of jealousy crept in, one of the dogs, sort of tried to hump my leg, the other dog in no uncertain terms told him off and that was the end of that. 

One game they do play is throw the ball. If I am sitting outside there are steps up  to the grass, usually the same dog will drop the ball and it will drop down to my level so I can conveniently pick it up and throw it on the grass and the two dogs will chase after it. Sometimes the other dog ruins it, by running down and scooping it up before I get to it…  If anyone remembers Hercule Poirot the episode called  Dumb Witness where the victim had a dog who did this, but he dropped his ball down the stairs. Here is the ball going down the steps and the little rascal grabbing it before I can retrieve it and throw it.

We had friends around for a light Sunday lunch, I made another one of those courgette cakes with home made lemon curd. It turned out quite well, it’s more like a pudding type dish than a cake, but it’s not super stodgy like jam roll poly. I used courgettes from the allotment. 

I have started work on the next release of the TRHA website. There are a few odds and ends of things I would like to do, a lot of tidying up items. The main thing we want to do is work out if we are being viewed on a mobile phone and use that real estate that is wasted for now. It might be the user experience is different from a landscape orientation than portrait. It’s kind of nice because I can make a lot of these decisions myself. 

I have watched the excellent series The Game but I think it was released in 2014, so I missed that first time around. Everyone is really good in it and you can follow what’s going on, unlike a lot of these spy stories.

Back to the dogs, the one who warmed to me straight away and is a bit naughty, likes to drink out of the hose like the chocolate lab does. Trouble is, his mouth is not as big as hers and his chest gets covered in water when he tries. I brought my free guitar here, in the hope I would get into it again, it seemed like a good idea, until I practised a couple of chords and the naughty one barked at me. It’s wasn’t that bad! The same dog, loves empty toilet rolls. Somehow he got in with the loo with me and the toilet roll was about to run out. He kept looking at it as each piece was ripped off. So that told me, he gets to play with them when they are empty. But he doesn’t destroy them as I thought he would. But I had to take a cover off him the other night which he was making small holes in. The same dog doesn’t like my new exercises, where I am meant to jump and land gently on my feet. For bonus points, I have to do that on the leg that was broken. It’s very hard barefoot, easier with shoes on. 

Don’t let anyone tell you the country is peaceful place. There might not be loads of houses, and it’s greener, but last night a really loud vehicle went past the house. It nearly shook the foundations. It was a combine harvester going back to the farm after it did its thing yesterday. I am sure when I was young, they finished with these machines much earlier than when this one trundled through the village. What is good is the different birds I hear. I don’t recognise them all, but one I do is a parakeet. We used to have them in our garden, they are quite a striking bird, I haven’t seen them here, but just heard their call.

I noticed a small green plastic frog stick on the lid of a dog poo bin on one of the walk I did with the dogs. Then when passing the local allotments one of the taps had another one stuck on its supporting stake. Finally when entering the allotments by a gate, its post had a similarly sized yellow duck stick on it. No one seems to know what is going on! On another post is a frog and duck!

I wanted to  give you an idea of how old the house is, but no photos as I want to preserve the owners anonymity. So I asked owners about its history. 

Their reply to my question was “Front part is 1500’s with an addition in the 1600’s-1700’s. Back part was added on around 1994.” On the last full day, we all had a treat and we went to the local pub, The Bell where I had one of their famous sausage sandwiches and skinny chips. The old dog, he did really well, as he had already had his morning walk, and the younger ones just had to be patient. Several locals recognised the dogs, knew who the owners were. In the afternoon a friend dropped by and we did the circular walk around the village, that I have done countless times. It had been raining but luckily stopped when we started the walk. Here are the boys in the pub.