A walk on the far side
We couldn’t decide this morning what walk to do. We were torn between a visit to the local town – Friday is market day and it’s always an enjoyable couple of hours, busy and bustling, lots of noise, smells and people – or staying put with a quieter ramble through the woods. We decided the latter for Susie-Belle as we did a town walk yesterday and thought the market may be too freakily hectic for her, we’ll do it in the summer when she’s a bit further on with feeling at ease in busy places. Last summer we used a couple of local markets to maintain Renae’s training and were pleased with how well she coped and how good it was to see her nosing around, enjoying the stimulation. With Susie-Belle the issues are different but we hope she’ll be up to a little challenge here and there in the summer markets.
As it wasn’t a warm morning, we opted for the long version of the “Chateau walk” – the local Chateau is an impressive place, visible from just about everywhere we walk from our house. The short walk we do often and it takes us past a small lake and across fields lying at the foot of its grounds and through the woods back to our place, it’s a good circular 4k walk. If its a hot morning, this is about the limits of an enjoyable walk as the sun can beat down on us in when away from the protctive shade of the woods.
Today we did the longer 7k walk that takes us all around the perimeter of the Chateau grounds, round the far side of the hill, up a couple of steepish tracks and down back through the woods and walnut farm to our tiny house, which doesn’t feel tiny till you’ve walked the perimeter of a truly large abode. From a distance we could see clouds of dust blowing around the entrance to the Chateau and what sounded like a powerful leaf blowing machine – strange sound for this time of year. As we approached the Chateau the source of the noise and dust became clear, a man with a large leaf blowing machine was blasting the rough, pot-holed, chalky lane outside the gates of the Chateau. Very weird, the leaves would have been a better sight than the newly exposed pot-holes. At least Susie-Belle and Renae didn’t seem perturbed by the noise and nonsense.
