Boxing day....

Is chilled.

I'm trying to watch a movie, but I can't hear the TV because dad is vacuuming. Annoying. Who vacuums the house on Boxing Day?!

Christmas 2010

Christmas is once again upon us.

Christmas eve was a flurry of wrapping presents, visiting neighbours, cooking pheasant, and christmas traditions of stories and Polar Express.

Christmas day was a day of presents, laughing at the dog helping us unwrap presents, eating, family, relaxing, eating, coffee, walking, snow, movies; and remembering that above all the reason we celebrate Christmas is because Jesus basically was born so that He could die. And die for us to have freedom. Pretty awesome reason to be celebrating if you ask me.

Merry christmas to all, to family and friends near and far - wish I could be with every one of you!

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree

In Stratford with mom and Dylan before Christmas

Winter icicles

Christmas Eve walk with Dylan

Christmas Eve walk

Skye

Christmas Day tea

Opening presents

Christmas dinner - Turkey, Gammon, Duck, and all the other bits and pieces!

Christmas day walk

CaniX

This post is about a week late, I do realise this, but better late than never, right?

CaniX is my new hobby. It's basically cross country running with your dog. You wear a harness, and your dog wears a harness, and you're both connected with a bungee line. Then you run, and your dog pulls, a bit like sledding but without the sled.

It's a growing sport within the UK and certain European countries; and races in the UK are held in different forests around the country. They are beautiful locations, but often involve travelling great distances.

Our first race was at Cannock Chase, a wonderful Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty located in Stafford. Mom and I headed over there with the dog in a world of white, as snow continued to cover the UK.

Once there I was immediately bitten by the CaniX bug and look forward to the next race.

It snowed the whole time we were there, which was such fun I thought.

The race went a lot better than I thought. My dog was an absolute superstar and ran (and pulled) her heart out. I was so proud of her!

Had a good chat with a lady and her daughter, and their little brown Cocker Spaniel after the race as we cooled down and had a coffee. Something that Skye did that made us laugh was that she was sitting in the car with her jumper on drying off and keeping warm, and she refused to get out of the car. She just sat there watching us have coffee in the snow lol.

Looking forward to the next race!

First pheasant day, as told by Skye

Today was the first pheasant day.

I was very excited because mom took with me with her again! It was fun to spend the day with her. She was very proud of me because I wasn't that scared of the other dogs, and I didn't run away from them.

It was very exciting going new places, and sniffing all the new smells. I didn't really like being on the lead, and loved it when she let me off so I could run.

On one of the drives we went through game cover, which was really just a tangle of beans (which mom got in her wellies! I thought it was funny), and it was really hard to get through. So because mom was already walking through it in front of me, I just decided to follow in her footsteps and follow the path she was making.

She told me that she didn't think that's what a gun dog was meant to do, but that she thought I was very smart anyway. I think she was secretly impressed with my cleverness (and to be honest, I think she thought it was cute!)

I'm starting to get the hang of this now, the whole thing about flushing the birds out. It's all so very exciting! And I love watching the birds flying!

On one of the drives, a lot of birds got up right in front of me, but mom wouldn't let me chase them :-( I was a good girl though and listened to the whistle and didn't go running after them. Tony (who has the pointers) told me that if it hadn't been for me, a lot of those birds wouldn't have got up and flown! Everyone kept telling me what a good girl I was and how well behaved I was (even the keeper said I was very good!) I think mom was very proud!

One of the drives went through the woods. I wasn't too keen on the briars in the beginning, but I was a brave girl and tackled the briars just like a good little Spaniel should. I did try and follow mom on this one as well, it made it easier! It was fun though going through the woods with mom.

It was a very exciting day, yet also tiring, and I curled up on the backseat of the car and went to sleep on the way home. I heard mom say something about the final number being 148 birds, which apparently is good. One of the last things I remember is Tony telling me that by the end of the season I was going to be a good little beating dog :-)

More snow pics. Nice heavy snowfall

Dylan & me

Skye & Dylan. She was trying to eat the snowball from his hands

Dylan & Dad, snowball fight

Skye trying to catch snowballs

Dad & Mom having a snowball fight

The playground

Mom & me

Skye in the snow

The field

The church

Our street

New Year's Day walk in the Clent Hills

To the far right of this pic you can see how icy the path was

The above are a few pics of when we went walking in the Clent Hills on New Year's day. It was a great day out. We took puppydog with us, who was such a brilliant little star. There were lots of people and dogs around, but I let her off the lead and she was as good as gold. She made me feel so proud of her!

The Clent Hills are really beautiful. The day was made better by the fact that there was blue sky and sunshine. Yes, it was a weak, winter sunshine, and it was freezing cold (I think it was about -1), but it was good. Oh, and did I mention the treacherous iced paths and hills we had to face? Yep that's right. The paths and hills were completely, dangerously iced over. There was also snow everywhere. It was so beautiful though. And fun, when we weren't falling over or negotiating inches of ice and compacted snow!

We tried sticking to a map and directions, which didn't go too well at first. We ended up doubling back on ourselves a bit, until we eventually got onto the right path. We finished the walk by walking through a woodland (Skye was in her element!) and we were on our own so it was peaceful and quiet, and then we crossed this bridge and began a fairly steep ascent to the top of the woodland ridge.

When we reached the top of the ridge there was a family who wanted to say to Skye, so she put on her best behaviour and happily obliged them.

We then headed back to the car on this really, really icy path; and once back at the car had hot chocolate and laughed at people trying not to fall over (it's quite entertaining if you're not the one falling!), and Skye put her head on my lap and slept the whole way home.

Good day :-)

Photo shoot with Angela

These photos were taken by Angela the week of our DTS debrief, just a couple of days before we graduated. I said I wanted some pics from her, so she agreed and we went off to have a photo shoot. I know they were taken ages ago, but I thought I would just post them to my blog. Ang spent hours editing these pics, so thanks girl!

These three pics are great. The first one, in the background you can see some figures. They were a bunch of schoolboys who appeared to be fascinated with what we were doing and watched us as they walked down the street. The third one is my favourite. I just love the colours, and the way she has taken the pic. It is awesome :-)

This pic of me on the swing was a pretty fun pic to take. Angela and I were walking along some of the back roads in Maz near the base, and she saw this swing hanging from the tree (we'd often watched a little boy swing on it) and she was like 'that would make a great pic, quick go swing on it!' I was a bit more hesitant, but agreed to go swing on it. So while I was swinging and she was snapping away with her camera, we were both on the lookout for anyone who was going to yell at us. We both walked away cracking up with laughter.

These two pics I adore. I just love the colours, and how Angela took them. When we went up the stairs to this place to take the pics, we had this old lady come over and start questioning us, about what we were doing. Angela explained to her, and she carried on glaring suspiciously at us for a while, before eventually walking off and leaving us. Despite her, the pics turned out great :-)

To take this pic we went on a hilarious journey. We both decided that we wanted a picture of me jumping up with the city in the background, and Angela decided that we needed a roof for it. So off we went trying to find the perfect roof. Eventually we found this roof and climbed up to it (the house looked empty. We weren't just jumping on some person's roof). When we started taking the pics (well, Angela started taking the pics. I started jumping!), this man came over and started asking us questions. We found out that it wasn't his house (so not sure why exactly he was questioning us). If I remember rightly, I think he was a fisherman (???). He then started asking us loads of other questions and talking to us, and then he called his friends over, and they sat watching us!!! It was really creepy! As soon as we were done, Angela and I bolted in the other direction! Once we were safely far away we started to see the funny side, and it has provided us with a great memory, haha!

This pic was taken when Angela and I went to visit The Browns' house so we could see their beagle pups. Like the true photographer that she is, Angela immediately noticed the light coming from the land lady's window upstairs, and asked if we could take some pictures. One of the puppies insisted on being in the pic with me, as did Amelia Brown. That little girl holds a very special place in my heart, and I miss her tons. I love this pic.

This pic came about because Angela knows how much I love the old VW bugs that are crawling everywhere in the city. So she made me sit on this one so she could get a pic.