It was the Bank Holiday weekend; we had spent Saturday exploring the area and so decided that today we would stay at the cottage and just have a ‘chilled out’ day!
In the afternoon we decided to go out for a walk and took Billy the Boxer dog out with us. It had been a typical day for weather in Wales, one minute overcast and dull and the next sunny and bright. For the first part of the walk we were shaded by the tall, pre-historic trees which formed a canopy over the road, on one side of us was the river and Billy had already enjoyed a splash and a paddle in its clear water. As we watched the water rush and foam over the rocks we joked about panning for gold and wondered if we should bring the kitchen sieve along later to try our luck!! This led to a discussion of how gold is formed; we knew diamonds were made from compacted coal but were ashamed to admit we had no clue about gold……….later when I researched this I was amazed to read about supernova’s and meteorites and volcanoes taking place on earth billions of years ago!
Billy was a delight to walk, his happy nature and enthusiasm lifted my daily, solitary stroll to an altogether more enjoyable experience. As we followed little tracks up out of the valley the landscape became more open and we found ourselves in high hedged, sun trapped lanes. I started to become anxious about Billy, his tongue was hanging out and his breathing had turned into heavy and noisy panting. He kept turning to look at us, as if to ask how much longer we were going to be out in this heat. Because we didn’t really know where we were, or, if we were heading in the right direction for home my anxiety levels shot up (not difficult for me, I worry about most things!!). Thankfully we soon reached some shade and with it the recognition of where we were, walking a little way past the cottage, again, with looks from Billy as if to say ‘really, we’re walking some more’, we found a place where we could walk into the stream and Billy paddled and drank his fill. On our return I researched the boxer breed and the first sentence I read about these lovely dogs was, ‘ these dogs should not become overheated’.
Daisy Hunnybun 