Return

The hoped-for fair wind didn’t happen. It was inevitable I think that R found more and more things that hadn’t been packed, or even sorted out in some cases. We were flat-tack for another full day of sorting, packing, and oodles of cleaning.

N stayed at their new house because he has exhausted himself over the last couple of weeks and needed to stop doing stuff. So R and I boxed on and got almost everything done by the time I headed home. I felt bad leaving but she insisted I’d done enough. I suspect she’ll be still there finishing thing off well after dark. The new owners move in tomorrow.

Bean and I had a final walk across the farm after her third successive boring day in the back of the car. To our great excitement a hare got up right in front of her nose as we ambled along the bottom of a deep valley. It shot off up the valley side with Bean close on its heels. She paced it until they were about 3/4 of the way up the incredibly steep slope when she ran out of legs and / or breath, and she let it lope off over the brow.

Then she spotted a harrier standing over a kill just along from where she’d given up on the hare, so she charged and set it off in a great flurry of wings. I think she snaffled up whatever the bird meal was, but it can’t have been much because it seemed to go down in one gulp. I was way to far away to see the detail of what was going on.

She then decided to tell me all about it, so she heading straight down the hillside, front legs going like the clappers, back legs akimbo and doing a strange modern jazz beat to keep her upright. I could barely watch, expecting her to go head over heels any moment. Of course she didn’t falter and she arrived at my feet happy, waggy and very full of herself indeed.

If you look very carefully at the blip, you can see her mid-headlong hurtle back down to the valley bottom.

What a dog!

It was a cracker day: wall to wall blue sky and 21C. It’s the start of winter tomorrow…we should be basking in 12C or 13C. This heat will be messing up all kinds of systems.