Lone Pine Lodge

Today we started early and head up to bedwelty field to allow the youngsters to release enough energy for the trip to Brecon while the old men bumbled along with the humans. Hugo is a very good excercise coach as he heads of into the wild blue yonder like an Exocet from its launch pad followed by Cas, Dylis, Kattie, Saffron and Kandi. When he gets about 100 yards awayu he turns and hares back followed by his Harem. Daily follows them not because he likes to chase Hugo but becvause he is deeply in love with Cas and follows her every where. After about 10 minutes The Shelties are exhausted and Cas is bored so we saunter back to the van and set off. We considered going through Brecon and up in to the mountains for lunch but I spotted the sign post to Llangorse Lake on the way in to Brecon and suggested we go there instead. sallymn you may know the name as Time Team have dug a cranog just off shore there, I think a long way away from the public area we were in but the PTB have built a rpelica of what ti would have looked like. You can see it on the left hand size of this panorama.

Every night when it gets towards bedtime when ever I move in my seat Saffron and Kandi stop what ever they are doing and look at me just in case I'm going to stand up and get them their supper time dog biscuit. Last night Saffron was asleep and Kandi was beginning a stretch. And as I swung my legs down from my foot stool she froze and stayed long enough for me to take a photo.



She actually stayed that way for about 3 minutes . I could have taken my time and not got what ever is blocking the right hand side.

Saffron was a sleep in one of the baskets but the flash must have wakened her because she was staring at me too.
(Thumbnail click to enlarge)

On Monday I took a cousin over to Caerphilly for an interview and while he was in there I took my camera for a walk arounf the out side of the castle.
The first photo shows what tghe castle was like before Cromwell knocked it about a bit. It's difficult to see but there is a very narrow bit of moat going around the outside of the tower on the left as you are looking at it.
Under the cut is what it looks like to day.



( and there is more. )

We had last term's project back on Wednesday so here is the finished article. There is a gap on the right hand side as you are looking at it which I am sure wasn't there when I handed it in but it gets so tangled unless it is hung I suppose one of the charms could have fallen off.

Actually by jewelry creations, I did nothing last term to warrant showing you and what we did this term is sorted into a folder and ready to go and be marked. Yes Adult Education in this neck of the woods involves exams, usually in the form of a portfolio, which are independently marked. But that does mean we get them free of charge.

( cut for photos )

There has been a birthday party going on in a neighbouring street for most of the evening. The music and voices puzzled Saffron and Kandi when I took them out for a walk earlier but they just shrugged it off. Nearly an hour ago I took them for the last walk of the day and the party was still going on but this time they ignored it, until the first firework went off with a god almighty bang. It startled me and terrified them so much pulled their leads out of my hand and ran off towards home as fast as their feet could carry them. By the time I got in sight of my front door there was no sign of them but Saffron scuttled round the uphill corner and had almost made it to the house before two more rockets went off, flashes and whistles this time, and she shot back up and around the corner again. I followed as fast as I could praying that they were huddling at Beth's front door. They weren't they were huddling in side her neighbour's house with said neighbours, who are animal people, trying to comfort them. They had brought their grandchildren out to watch the fireworks and had left the front door open in case the youngest got frightened and wanted to go back in. Brian went next door to Beth's to get her to open her back door and then came back to hand the dogs over the fence to her so that we could stay in familiar, for the dogs, surroundings with out having to come to the front of the house while there was any danger of more fireworks. It took them almost half an hour to get to the point of getting off the settee on which the three of us were sitting leaving almost a third it vacant(they were both huddled as close to me as they could get) to get a biscuit from Beth. Kandi brought hers back to eat on the settee in safety so I decided to try getting them home. It took a lot of soft talk and persuasion and a little brute force to get them round the corner to get them home and now a full hour after the first band that sent them flying they have stopped panting and Saffron is dozing, Kandi is still alert and keeping her eyes on me. I would like to go and shoot my distant neighbour if I could be sure exactly who it was but next time there are sounds of a party we are staying in doors.

Further to my last post. Hugo, Dylis and Daily were the dogs that were running in the competition on Sunday, I managed to get pictures of Hugo and Dylis at a previous event but because of my injuries I was unable to stand long enough to take photos so here are the two previous ones of them in action.


Hugo was ia practice ring here.


And Daily is the Sheltie in the middle of this picture

Sue expected Daily to do well but she gave him the wrong order at one point which he obeyed exactly but that made him out of the running for a place. Sue was as as firewith herself for that as he did well enough to have run in first in every thing else.

Hugo has been resting for few weeks as he ran out lame in a show in July and Sue was not expecting much from him and kept him slower than he wanted to go. He got a clear round but was too slow for a place.

Dylis has also been off for a few months after being spayed so Sue didn't think she would get any where but she ran her little socks off and got a 4th and a lovely rosette.

I have also been doing some retail therapy on line, I had enough money saved at long last to replace my old heavy duty Kodak with it's current replacement.


I bought it on line and it arrived via UPS yesterday afternoon. This morning I have been seeing how it works ( here be more photos )

From the day before I came back to now I have not had a moment to myself to do any art let alone posting, as you might have noticed I haven't even been commenting that's because I haven't even had time to look.
Saturday I rang Beth to tell her I would be coming home Sunday and I would get my bread and milk en route. She told me that Aunty A the 96 year old mother of cousin A was in hospital from Potassium deficiency and she had been sent to Caerphilly Miners Hospital for treatment. That is a half hour journey by car, A doesn't drive. By public transport it's an hour and a half and that is just journey time, the waiting time brings it up about 2.5 hours, and the government wonders why public transport isn't used. SO that it least 2 hours every other day taken up as Beth and I take it in turns.
Monday I went to get Losyn for walkies with my two to find Beth hobbling along on a walking stick, she has had a painful knee for some time and will be seeing a specialist next week bit had gotten worse while I was away and she had to walk the dog every day. She can still drive so at least I don't have to take over cousin A every day but I do have 2 hours of my day taken up with dog walking.
Monday afternoon I visited cousin Liz down the road to be greeted with the information that a mutual neighbour and friend was in A&E having her leg plastered having fallen down some steps coming out of church the previous night. She is in her 30s single and lives alone. She does have a married sister but that family is away on holiday, and her parents are dead. So we are looking after her between Liz'z boys,me and the neighbours between us. The boys take her breakfast, I do Lunchn and the third neighbour gives her dinner. The boys walk her dog Barney in the morning, I do it lunch time and Mike ,one of the third neighbours does him in the evening. As the only at home during the day physically able (Liz has MS and the boys have voluntary work to do as they can't jobs here)neighbour , I pop in and out every couple of hours to see that she is OK. She is also the one that does Liz's running around for her so I have had to take that over too. Liz and family are going to visit mil in Devon tomorrow so that ends. Add to that the 5 short walks a day I have to give Saffron toilet breaks I don't have much time to myself.
That does not take into consideration the fact my fridge/freezer had given up the ghost some time during the time I was at Sue's and until I could get an engineer in to see if repairable until today and have had to shop like my mother did before we got a fridge. That is going out everyday to buy food for that day only, except for things like bread, biscuits and tinned and dried stuff . But I have to be very careful over how much I make as any left over will have to be thrown away. The engineer has just been and the is dead, so that means a few more days, possibly a week before can buy an other one and get it delivered.

All and all I'm not in the mood to be creative even if I had the time. Next week will be better I hope and I will be back.

My little girl has returned to normal as far as her personality is concerned. We went for a sit down to Fourteen locks, a local beauty spot/place of historic interesthttp://www.fourteenlocks.co.uk/()yesterday with Beth and Losyn. They went for a walk and Saffy and I sat in the sun outside the visitor centre/cafe and watched the world go by. She made friends with
A Pyranean Mountain dog
A Westie cross
A Spaniel
a black Lab
and 4 young girls.
She had to be restrained with the smaller dogs, the big ones just touched noses and walked away. Today she was desperate to play tuggie with Losyn, who very sensibly refused to do so. Her scar is nice and clean and pink as her shaved stomach but there is a slight bruising around one end. It pulls on her from time to time as she sudenlly sits down and looks at her belly then gets up and carries on. She sleeps a lot of the time when we are indoors alone and wants to go to bed early and wakes up late but that is only natural, she has had a full hysterectomy. All in all I am happy with her progress.