Summer Solstice 2014

One of the people I follow on Twitter is Gerard Baker, he also writes a blog when he is out and about in the world http://www.gerardbaker.com/

This year he is down in Antarctica with the British Survey over-wintering at the Halley Research Station. They are having mid-winter celebrations and he asked his Facebook followers to post photos of their mid-summer celebrations.

I wasn't really planning a party or anything special to celebrate the day but as it is a Saturday I thought I would do a short photo-documentary of the day's activities. A Penguin has been included for the mid-winter in the middle of summer. I am not sure what breed he is, he came from Grandways supermarket in Cottingham. Their Christmas 1991 promotion was to earn tokens as you shopped and then exchange them for Penguins. There was probably more penguins than students in the Halls of Residence that Christmas!

As I was studying Chemistry I thought he should have a chemical theme to his name, so I stuck a pin in the Periodic Table of Elements, it landed on Rh so he has been known as Rhodium ever since.

One year I will get up or stay up and watch the sun rise somewhere in the hills and dales on mid-summers day, but this was not the year.

After the usual Saturday morning routine of green grocery shopping and breakfast Holly was impatient to set off for the walk, as he only has little legs Rhodium hitched a ride in the bag of walking essentials (water, dog treats, waterproofs, maps etc)

 

It was a lovely walk along an old railway line, this was the view down the valley

Holly and Rhodium stopped to admire the view too

The Walk was over in Lancashire, but the drive there and back was over the tops and as it was a clear day there were some stunning views, so we stopped to admire them.

If you look over Rhodium's wing on the above picture you can just make out a small mast, that is Emly Moor Transmiter known locally as Emly Moor Mast. It is always an indication to me that I am not too far from home, I live about 15 miles away from it. Here is a zoomed in picture from the same spot. The power stations you can see to the left and right are the ones by the A1, we could see for miles and miles!

When we got home there were chores to do, Holly had a good laugh as Rhodium had a close encounter or two with the pegs and the washing.

This evening the sun and the blue skys vanished, the sky over my house looked more like Autumn than mid-summer!

But it was still warm and dry so we lit the barbecue and dined al-fresco.

I hope your mid-summer was as fun as ours was
Hannah, Holly & Rhodium.

The Stubbornness Shines Through

After a small delay caused by neighbours, ambulances, cats, houses for sale and watering Grandma's veg patch we set off for our evening constitutional around the park.

Only Holly had other ideas which led me to post the following on Facebook

"Does anyone want a stubborn, determined, wheeled Holly-dog? She is currently driving me bonkers as she goes through a "I've forgotten that I am not as young and energetic as I used to be" phase.

She thinks we should be hiking the hills and dales tonight and keeps trying to go down paths that the wheels don't fit down, she looks most put out when I insist we revert to the walk round the park."

It kept everyone else amused as I had to keep back-tracking and extracting Holly from ginnels, snickets and paths that she was attempting to go down. Poor old dog really wanted to go on some of her old walking routes, but they are just not possible any more. We are going off to meet friends as normal on Saturday, a lovely walk is planned along an old railway line at the edge of the Pennines, hopefully that will keep her walking in the hills desire sated for a while.

Being Worshipped and Adored

Over the weekend it was the local Street Fair. Two days of craft stalls, tombola's, raffles, second hand books, cakes, plants and live entertainment.

On the Saturday Holly and I walked round it and won a few things on various charity tombola's, bought a few books and plants and did a lot of talking about the wheels. Quite a few people remembered Holly and her wheels from last year and were very pleased to see her there again this year. There were quite a lot of people who had not met her before and stopped to talk and Holly soaked up all the attention and ear-scritches, and ran over quite a few toes as well!

When we got back home Holly slept for most of the rest of the weekend, it must be exhausting being worshipped and adored by so many people. I think she enjoyed herself though as she was dreaming and in her dreams she wasn't running but did a lot of sniffing and lip-smacking as if she were re-living all the ends of hot-dogs and burgers that she was given.

I think there were two reasons for the exhaustion. Although we probably only walked around 3 miles in total it was all on roads and pavements which wears her out much faster than 3 miles on footpaths and grassy fields. The other reason is that Holly is starting to loose muscle tone and condition in her front legs. I've noticed for little while now that she is not as strong as she used to be and more recently this has taken a bit bigger dip than the usual gradual decline. Even my Mum has noticed that she is loosing muscle condition. But as Mum and everyone who met her at the Street Fair said, she is still bright-eyed and alert (especially where food is concerned!) and looks to be very happy and content.

So for now we continue to take it one day and one step/wheel at a time and enjoy ourselves along the way.

Blackbirds II

Sadly the poor little baby blackbird on the lawn yesterday didn't survive. I think it left the nest too early and then just got too wet and too cold.

This morning there was a second one, this one looks to have more adult feathers than the first one had and this one was not sat on the lawn not moving, it was in one of the bushes and after giving me a "what are you looking at?" glare it fluttered off in that still learning to fly way into a different bush.

I did get one quick photo of it, complete with the two little tufts of down sticking out of the top of it's head like horns!

Baby Blackbird II

Blackbirds

Last night when I took Holly out into the garden just before we went to bed the Blackbirds alarm called at us! This is very unusual because they usually just sit on top of the garage waiting for us to either go inside or settle down at one end of the garden so they can get on with whatever they want to do at the other end.

I talked to them and told them it was only me and Holly and they did stop alarming but remained very alert and perched on vantage points.

As we went round the garden I soon spotted the reason for the alarm calls, there was a baby blackbird sitting on the lawn. I diverted Holly away from it and we went back inside as soon as possible.

This morning the baby bird was still sitting in the same place on the lawn, I thought that it had probably perished overnight so we went over for a closer look. Holly's big wet nose got there first and gave it a big SNIFF. Poor little thing must have been asleep because it's eyes popped open, it's head came up, the beak opened and it made "feed me" noises. I forced Holly to beat a retreat - she was fascinated with this thing on the lawn and wanted to investigate it some more.

As I was preparing my lunch in the kitchen I got a fright, a pair of magpies went hurtling past the window at great speed, one of them even hitting it as it went past. They were being driven out of the garden by Mr & Mrs Blackbird who were out and about protecting their baby.

I looked out a little while later and Mrs Blackbird was busy attacking snails, I assume this was going to be breakfast.

At Holly's last trip round the garden before I left for work baby bird was still there and still doing it's best to look like a dead leaf, the parents were both around but neither of them alarm called or went into any higher level of surveillance mode. I hope they have realised that neither Holly or I am a threat and have gone back to ignoring us as normal.

Baby Blackbird pretending to be a dead leaf.

Clean bill of health & donkeys

Over the weekend Holly went to the vets for her 6-monthly check-up. I had been a little concerned about her breathing and also her ever decreasing bark.

After a good long listen to her lungs and heart and a good going over Holly was declared, discounting the wobbles, a very fit and healthy dog. There is nothing wrong with her lungs that the vet could detect and he thinks that the occasional breathing issues I have heard may have been due to how she was positioned at the time. The decreasing bark is apparently something that does happen to some dogs as they get older, their voice gets hoarser as time goes on.

On Sunday we had a trip out to a fun dog show at a nearby donkey sanctuary. We caught up with friends and sat and chatted as well as watching the various classes and the always-entertaining terrier racing. I didn't enter Holly into any classes as she doesn't really do standing still (unless it's her choice or we are waiting to cross the road) but we did win a cuddly donkey in the raffle.

Everyone commented on how well she looked as she busily and industriously scoured the ground checking for dropped food items and eating them all up.

Looking back at earlier blog entries I thought that Holly was on a decline in the run up to Easter, however she seems to have bounced back and appears to be all set for a Summer of walks, camping and barbecues. Or if the weather continues as it has been a Summer of rain, mud and soggy strolls.