Molly goes south and finds the sea

I’m back! Have you missed me? A whole week or more has gone by since we last met. After my last blog post, we went out to post a birthday card, then we went on an abortive trip to do some ‘activism’, but the Wordsmith got the time wrong and her phone stopped working (there were swear words in the car; I kept my head down) and she left before it was even due to begin, then we went to Auntie Vanessa’s where I had a widdle on her kitchen floor (again), had a run in the park and met some lovely dogs and got my paws wet in the river. Then we came home and I took up my usual dictating position at the Wordsmith’s feet under the desk like some canine Barbara Cartland (only with less pink) and started woofing about what I wanted to say next about my adventures Down South. It's just that lots of other things have happened since then which I'll have to come back to in another doggie bloggie (I can be a poetic little pooch when I want to be).

There were some small chicks on the lake in our local park the other day - the Wordsmith called them coots. I thought they looked quite fun!

So, back to my first proper staycation. It was a bank holiday Friday and the Wordsmith decided to take me in the posh car on a Very Long Journey. (This keeper of mine proclaims to be a proofreader, but she insists on capitalising certain phrases. I can only assume she want to Draw Attention to Them. Trust me, I never told her to do any of that nonsense.) Even I have heard what bank holidays can be like on the motorways, so I helped out by getting up early and doing my busy to order so we could leave by 8.30 on the dot. The journey south was a breeze – I don’t know what all the fuss had been about, although I did learn when we came to do the journey in reverse. But I'm jumping ahead of myself. I had the back seat all to myself and it was such a treat to stop at Grandma Betty’s in Northampton on the way so I could have a run in the garden and do some spending (I suppose I should join in with the humans and call it that). Apart from a bit of a hold up (traffic, that is. Not guns) getting on to the M3, we reached Auntie Leanne’s by early afternoon and that’s when I got to meet Bess. Now, I’d been told Bess could be a bit standoffish and to be prepared for either rejection or aggression, so the Wordsmith and Auntie Leanne were very cautious and put me on my leather strap to keep me under control, and they introduced us in the garden first of all. They needn’t have worried. I loved Bess from the moment I sniffed her, and I think she liked me ‘cos she wagged her tail. It wasn’t long before we were running around together off our leads and Bess was even sharing her sticks with me. She keeps a whole stash of sticks under the gooseberry bush (where she hides herself sometimes when she wants to get away from the humans; I found her there a few times over the next few days and once she growled at me, so I think she went in there to get away from me too!).

Me and Bess, chilling in the garden and (right) waiting for our carrot from Auntie Leanne. I also discovered mud, glorious mud!

I really loved having a four-legged friend around. It made such a nice change from having to listen to human language, even though Bess wasn’t very communicative a lot of the time. She put up with me bouncing around trying to get her to play, but I didn’t like it when she got attention and I didn’t and I would always muscle in to make sure I didn’t miss out on any cuddles.

The following morning was another early start, another car journey and another first. This time we went to a place called Dorset and had to set off early to avoid the ‘grockles’ with their caravans and motorhomes and jet skis on trailers on the back of their 4x4s, all heading for Poole and Bournemouth and other seaside destinations. We went to visit Auntie Laura, Uncle Grant and Max, George and Izzy. It was a lovely hot day and I got to spend most of it in the garden playing. At one point we went to the village pub where they all stuffed their faces with lovely smelling food, and the Wordsmith beat everyone at a game of ‘keepy uppy’ with a bat and ball (she did over 200; I was quite proud of her, but I bet if Max hadn't gone to see his friend, he might have given her a run for her money). A bit later, we went for a walk where I managed to scoff some horse pooh (or should that be ‘spend'?) and I then watched George and Izzy in the playground on the swings. Auntie Leanne and the Wordsmith stayed late, eating lasagne and playing football in the garden, mainly to avoid the grockles going home. I think Auntie Laura, who apparently is one of these weird humans who doesn’t like dogs, secretly quite liked me because I didn’t do any spending on her lovely carpet.

On Sunday, we went in the car again, this time to meet Auntie Brenda and Uncle David. It was so exciting having another house and garden to explore although I got a bit carried away and dug quite a big hole in the garden and tried to bury my chewy. (I got told off for that when I was caught dirty-pawed, but I’ve got a taste for it now and have repeated this activity in the Wordsmith’s lawn, even though as a guide dog puppy I’m not really allowed to dig.) The Wordsmith walked me down to the seafront to meet a lady she’s been working with on a book the lady has been writing about early adult education, whatever education is. They had a coffee and I lay down like a very good girl while they talked shop, but I didn’t get to go in the sea that day because there wasn’t time. I did like the Wordsmith's sister and brother-in-law a lot, and I was very good not to get under Auntie Brenda's wheels when she took her rollator out to the kitchen. Auntie Leanne and the Wordsmith wanted to take Auntie Brenda and Uncle David out in their wheelchairs and I was so excited because I might have got to go the beach, but they all decided it was too hot, which apparently is very unusual for a bank holiday, and so when we got back from meeting the nice lady, we all just sat around while they chatted and watched the snooker semi final, drinking tea, until it was time to go back to Auntie Leanne’s.

This is me chillaxing at Auntie Brenda's; I found this picture of the Wordsmith when she was a baby. Seems she was cute once!

Auntie Leanne then took Bess out without me for a free run, while the Wordsmith cooked some food and they started drinking what looked like water, but apparently was something called gin. (I didn’t get to try it.) Then Uncle Smokes came home from his Vibrant Forest Brewery place where he makes nice beer and I got even more love and attention.

The next day the Wordsmith and I went on our own to see Auntie Brenda and Uncle David and this time I got to meet the sea when the Wordsmith took me for a walk to the beach. I saw the Isle of Wight and a great big cruise ship go sailing along the Solent, but I was more interested in what these wave things were up to. First they come up the stones, then they go away again, then they come back closer and take you by surprise. I didn’t really know what to make of them, but eventually I gave up trying to keep my precious paws dry and let myself paddle about a bit, though the water tasted weird. I found a fantastic pool of standing, stinking water on the way home, much better than that moving sea, and the fermenting grass clippings I found in there were delicious, although the Wordsmith didn’t seem too keen. I can’t think why.

On our last day, the Wordsmith and Auntie Leanne took me to a place called the New Forest, although they never did tell me what had happened to the old one. Uncle Smokes had left very early to catch an aeroplane to a place called Italy where they eat pizza, apparently, and drink red wine by the gallon (sorry, the litre; they’re metric over there), so it was just the two humans and me and Bess. Well, all I can say it’s a good job they took towels, because Bess introduced me to a thing called mud and I LOVED IT!

I even changed colour from my tummy downwards after I waded through a lovely deep, squidgy, black patch of it. Bess ran off for miles, though, but I stayed near the Wordsmith and met New Forest ponies and cows and learned to run back to the Wordsmith when I was called like the good girl I’ve got to learn how to be.

I didn’t know at the time however that the worst of the day was to come. The Wordsmith had left it until the day after the bank holiday to do the journey Up North because she said there’d be less grockles, but she didn’t reckon on an accident on some road or other called the A34 somewhere near Newbury. We kept slowing down, then stop starting then remained stationary for AGES until the Wordsmith turned her engine off because it was so hot. After opening her door for a while, she put my lead on and we got out of the car and walked around on the carriageway and got chatting to the lovely lady in the car ahead of us. A big lorry driver man (well, his lorry was big; he was kind of average by my canine reckoning) offered me some water, but the Wordsmith had already made sure I had plenty to drink and I managed to keep my cool until we resumed our journey and we had a break at the Wordsmith’s usual stopping point at The Old Flight House. She was just in time for them to give her some cake with her cup of tea – I think she needed it – and I had some more water and a busy before we completed our six hour journey back to Sheffield. What a day that was to round off a really busy weekend.

The following day Auntie Wendy came round to look after me while the Wordsmith went off for the day without me, but that’s the start of another set of tales. I’m getting hoarse from so much wooftation. I need to go and slurp some water from my bowl all over the kitchen floor then make a pest of myself which is my day job, so I can just manage a weak woof for now, until next time.