Picking them out for weeks… — A blog from my dog

Many titles could have been used for the title of this post. These may have included

Why does it stop raining … after you are soaked?
If it has been dry for hours, why does it rain the moment you go for a walk?
If Charlie can stand in it he will.
and our favourite. ‘It just does….’

After early morning showers the clouds seem to be lifting around lunchtime and as a result Buster started to paddle. When he gets a thought into his head he is like an expectant father walking the corridors outside the delivery room in a hospital.

He paces up and down the stairs, barks at mum and dad and basically pesters until we go out.

So we get our leads and the humans get their coats and off we go in the car. Within minutes, drops of water a visible on the windscreen but we go on in the belief that the clouds are ‘going the other way’ or’ it may only be a shower’.

Just less than half an hour, and after working out our way through the Saturday shopping traffic we arrive at our destination of Dalston. This village is holding it’s annual summer fair this week and today it was the turn of the scarecrows to be on parade.

Bright sunshine heralds our arrival and we lead out of the car eager for an adventure and dad can take some photos for the blog along the way.

How many steps did we get, was it 10 or 20 before the rain started once again. A ‘passing cloud’ says dad and with camera under his jacket to keep the water off it, we press on.

Our progress on our walk could be tracked using the recently installed marker boards every 100m or so along the path.

This new walk is called The Redspear Circuit and starts and finishes by the Caldew School in Dalston.

Redspearlands Footpath Group and Cumbria County Council have secured funding from a number of local businesses.

The marker posts are decorated with artwork created by pupils at St Michael’s and Raughton Head schools.

Marker sign 4 - A bright interesting sign

The images are at eye level for youngsters in buggies and are designed to try and get them out and walking, even if just a few hundred meters.

For us the marker posts indicated the strength of the rain. Marker one, light rain as we started and by marker five we had to shelter under a big tree to avoid getting totally soaked.

It was around the third marker that Charlie decided that a rummage in the hedgerows was what was required

Oh dear… He came back all covered in those sticky plant seeds, thousands of them.

All mum could do was laugh and try and work out how she was going to remove them.

The update to this post is that after a bath and a clip and a brush and about an hour spent just picking out the sticky burrs most of them have been removed from Charlies legs and undercarriage.

We now have to get them off his nose area because just when mum thought she had him tidy he sniffed into the pot where mum was putting the removed seeds.. and you know what happened.

Oh Charlie!

Thats all for tonight

Buster and Charlie.