Walkies Part II

Hollys initial diagnosis had been at the start of October, it had taken us nearly two months to adjust our getting up time so we were getting up and walking between 5 and 6am on work day mornings.

It was now late November getting into early December and at that time of the day it is dark and cold. We kept moving at a brisk pace so the cold wasnt too much of a problem, especially when I dug out and remembered to wear scarf, hat and gloves.

I loved walking in the dark, Holly just loves walking regardless of time of day or weather. As we walked through the various parks, fields and paths we learnt a lot about the dark side of where we live.

At that time of day there are not very many other people out and about, certainly not very many people walking dogs so one day I was very surprised to see a large dog trotting across the park and looked round to see if I could see it's owner. As we got a bit closer it paused under a street lamp and I was amazed to see that it wasn't a dog at all, but a rather magnificent fox taking a short-cut through the park It spotted us and moved on. We see it occasionally, it always stops to look at us and then moves off.

We were also quite amazed at how many owls there are out and about at that time of the day, we usually heard them calling to one another and on a few rare occasions we have seen them silhouetted against the moon or a street lamp as they glide silently around.

When we started early morning walks I had recently got a new mobile phone and had joined the modern world and got a smart phone. A moon phase app and a night sky app were soon installed and on clear mornings we would keep a look out for the moon and try to identify the stars and not walk into too many things while walking around looking at the sky. On the subject of star-spotting, the moving ones that flicker and have red and green bits are aeroplanes, the fast moving one is the international space station and the one that hovers and occasionally floods the ground below with a beam of light is not a UFO, it's the local police helicopter.

Observations were also made on a slightly more urban theme, we learnt where the ambulance rapid responder cars would park up, that the window washer came to clean the windows of the local shops at 6.30am. We saw newspapers being delivered to the newsagents and could often smell tantalising, mouth watering odours from the local bakery.

We also got soaked in the rain, covered in snow and battered by the winds, but the early morning walks in the dark were thoroughly enjoyable and well worth getting out of bed for.