Last post for a few weeks

My  last sit before my summer break. A St Bernard, who I have looked after a couple of times before. The thing that strikes you about him is his size. He is huge. He also doesn’t like to walk, as I have said before. But as I saw a couple of times during this sit, if he wants to, he has a turn of speed. He is a lovely dog, and his owners also. Leaving me some treats and a bottle of red wine also. I let him come into my bedroom and he slept by my bed, he did not wake me early as the chocolate Labrador does, but he came to me about the right time. 

Here he is sitting in his field at the bottom of his garden. The setting sun on his fluffy coat, which he loves being brushed. He just loves cuddles, like your favourite teddy bear. Unfortunately when he sees food or is ready for his meal, he drools badly. When he wants to be close to you,  he sits on the sofa just like a human does!

Soon the sit was over, but no rest, as I headed to Oxford in the heavy rain to stay over night and during the day at the most beautiful dog I have ever known. She is even cuddlier than the St Bernard, and I get an amazing welcome when I see her. She used to live around here, I remember waking up hearing the news that Russia had invaded Ukraine with her in my single bed. The plan was to get to know the second dog in the house, a German Shepherd who doesn’t know me. I think when I came in, he was puzzled, why is my dog sister giving all this affection to this odd person I have never seen before? The owners have trained both of them to do the food on the nose trick that the dog on Sifnos does.

The other trick the Shepherd does is when it’s time for dinner, is to pick up the dog bowls and hand them to the owners. Now that is useful, I am not into dog tricks, like the food on the nose thing. The following day, as the owners were both out for a few hours, I took them both on a walk. They are right on the edge of open countryside. There are loads of paths and tracks. We did a lovely walk, plenty of water gushing about in ditches and dykes. We ended up in an offshoot of Oxford Brooks university and then walked back along a couple of roads. About six kilometres. Here is the black Labrador herself.

After I got back from Oxford I iced the ginger cake that  I made before going. I wanted to make it a few days before consumption, so the cake becomes sticky inside. I iced it with icing sugar and orange juice; interesting the  oranges were blood oranges, so the icing had a nice colour to it. I also cut small pieces of stem ginger and sprinkled them on top. The guy who runs the Cosy Nook with his wife,  it was going to  be his 40th birthday so I gave him a slice of it today. 

Today, I have also been on a trip with TRHA to RHS Hyde Hall, it was a trip organised by them and one of my friends did came along with me. It’s an interesting garden for me as it’s in a dry part of the country and with global warming, I was hoping  a few planting ideas might come from how they manage to grow things in arid soil that I can try in our garden. The journey was good and we had a great day at the garden. I bought myself a new Salvia very similar to the hot lips/pink/purple ones we already have here. 

They are quite drought  tolerant. The vegetable gardens are always my favourite at these places, they had some huge pumpkins, strange shaped beans, like large mange tout peas, and very peculiar vegetables in a greenhouse.

 Also in the greenhouse were some amazing tomatoes, 

Also on show were wonderful perennials , like Dahlias the heads of which were massive. No sign of slug damage here! Of course these places have a team of gardeners keeping everything in tip top condition. The cafe and other buildings had no downpipes from the guttering, but rain chains, that my friend who came with me had seen before. The rain held off until the last few minutes we were there, so we did see the chains in action! 

I am going to have a holiday from writing web logs for a few weeks, a blogging holiday, if you wish. When I come back in November it will be autumn for sure.