Another Lovely Dog Walk at Badbury Rings

We took the dogs on a recce to Badbury Rings this morning. Jules goes horse riding nearby one day a week, but she rides alone and wanted to learn her way around a bit on foot. We did some exploring, which I love to do, following the bridleways. Didn't meet any horses and riders - just a few walkers like ourselves.

It's a lovely place. I went there with George in June last year and wrote about it here. Of course it was a little bitter sweet remembering that. This time we went through the gate at the far end and followed little paths until we could see the farm where the horse Jules rides lives.

Then we turned to do a loop that took us back into another entrance to the Badbury Rings enclosure and along the outside of the outer ring of the hill fort to the car park. We walked for nearly an hour which is a bit longer than I've been doing lately, but I really enjoyed it.

The dogs had a great time too. Unfortunately, Jade found an area of sheep droppings to roll in so she had to g in the shower before the indignity of the hair dryer and then getting well wrapped up for her kip.

Water in the House but the Carnival Show Goes on

I've been on my own for three days as the family have all gone to London for the weekend - it's bank holiday and time for the Notting Hill Carnival.

The pic is of one of the amazing floats in last year's carnival and was taken by David Sedlecký

I expect the girls back later today. The weekend has been good for me. I've found out how much more I can do after being spoilt so much following my operation, so they will come back to find all their laundry washed and pressed. I've also driven the dogs out to the start of some great walks, although they are still a bit shorter than I used to do. And it has all been paced with rests in between and decent meals.

I had a shock one night last week though. Woke up at 4 am to hear water dripping. It was coming from a corner of the boiler cupboard which is in my lovely new bedroom in the garage conversion. Fortunately it was dripping into the waste bin and not on the new carpet. I got a bowl underneath it and put a tea towel in to muffle the sound, but lay in bed listening and waiting until morning when I could call the builder to check it out. We'd had some torrential rain in the night but it  did stop in the early hours and eventually so did the drip. When the builder returned my call I told him it was not so urgent and he came this morning to investigate. He found some loose brickwork below the flat roof and a choked gutter, cleared out the gutter and will return later in the week to redo the bricks. Should do the trick, as another £100 bites the dust. (Note to self - check if home insurers will cough up). I'm still luckier than my dog groomer though, whose house was in 10 inches of water after a storm earlier in the year, and is still not properly dried out.