Category: dog

It’s good to be back on the coast, and after a lengthy spell of warm and sunny days, rain and mist has returned, most welcome after an unusually dry early spring.

We’ve been doing our usual rain dance, that is, aiming to get out and about in between the showers, and for the most part we’ve been pretty lucky. We haven’t escaped all the rain – for a while, the Jeep was strangely dog odour free, but it only took a couple of damp days out for the reassuring smell of wet dog to permeate the back seat once again. We drive with the windows down, enough to get a flow of cool fresh air, and low enough that the tip of Scout’s nose sticks out. I’m told it looks very amusing.

The cool days have been rather soothing, and lend a sense of normality and calm after our mad dash about Britain, and after all the pleasantly warm sunshine we’ve been having since returning home. The sun was lovely, but all a bit too soon or too much compared with what is expected. Give it a lengthy rainy period, and we’ll be wishing for warm sun soon enough.

Scout has had fun, reacquainting herself with her familiar haunts, nose down and tail wagging along the trails. Her quick walks usually include a visit to the inner and outer harbours, and these wooden docks are amongst her favourite places. I like the sights, and can stomach the fish and crab aromas, but Scout cannot get enough of the smell-soaked boards. It’s good that there’s something for everyone.

Earlier today we startled a harbour seal and it splashed in alarm just beneath our feet, and away from the dock, heading backwards almost doing a backstroke, and looking a touch aggrieved before it slipped under the surface. Sorry, seal, we honestly didn’t know you were there.

So normal service has been resumed, equilibrium re-established, and there’s a lot to be said for that! The photographs for this post were taken over the last two weeks, and were chosen to reflect normal service, or what passes for that out here.

Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful weekend!

Sounds like a coffee order – Mrs. PC does like a good cappuccino…

A super short and heavily caffeinated shot of a post this week. We were stretching our legs last weekend, an exercise in dodging rain showers by getting the timing right. It was a cold couple of days, with drizzle, hail, rain, glimpses of sun, and a couple of rainbows to raise a smile.

Usually, we check the tide tables to ensure there’s enough beach to walk on and head out accordingly, but last weekend we had to go whenever it looked least rainy. On Sunday afternoon, there was a narrow ribbon of beach growing a little wider as the tide fell. It was pretty windy, and the waves had whipped up quite a froth on along the shore.

Scout had a fine old time nosing in the foam and chasing blobs down the beach. Ravens hopped and skipped ahead of us, scavenging at the tide mark, and looking aggrieved that their raucous display didn’t scare us off. We spied three bald eagles and any number of gulls battling the wind. Some gulls were bobbing in the water just beyond the surf. Our guess was the heavy weather had churned up some good stuff.

Further out to sea, menacing clouds marched along the horizon, and the sun made only brief appearances – very welcome periods of relative warmth in the stiff breeze. So the froth wasn’t from a cappuccino, but we did have a good strong French roast in the flask, and Sunday was the day for it. Sometimes you get lucky with the timing – we huddled in the dunes out of the wind and were delighted when a patch of blue sky appeared, big enough to let some sunshine through for as long as it took to finish our coffee.

The caffeine jolt (and a cube or three of chocolate) was just the thing to set us up for the return leg to the car. It started to rain heavily moments after Scout jumped into the back of the Jeep. More rain? Hey ho. Might as well head home for that all important second cup…

Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful weekend!