Addicted? Moi?

Oh it's been a while again since I shared my thoughts with you. What a l-o-n-g winter it's been and today, no blooming let up as it rained and snowed and did nasty things so I had to get togged up in my cosy onesie when I went out.

Not that I wanted to go - please tell me there are other Norfolks out there who dig their paws in when they see what the weather's like? And then behave like a bag of heavy wet washing when we're out instead of walking properly with the human.

On the whole, my humans are pretty good when it comes to taking me for walks and they know what I like:

Park! Yes, country park with deer. It's good

Car! Yes again, that means we're not going on pavements near home but somewhere a bit more interesting.

Horses! Oh yes - that means we're are going on some pavements to a lane which leads to a field where there are 3 horses, and I'm very happy to watch them and sniff them when they come over to the fence to say hello. 

Cows! Yes - had forgotten we sometimes go on a longish walk which takes us to a farm where there are big cows and baby cows, which are the nicest to watch.

Of course, it's been such a wet winter with masses of soggy ground and it's not always been good to walk far, so the humans keep me happy with a few fetch games in the house (fetching badger and squeaky squirrel) and watching a bit of Dog TV in the evening before they watch their programmes (not very interesting those).

But yes to Dog TV, birds, squirrels and - nearly forgot - Winterwatch! I loved that, Better than Dog TV and what's more, the humans like it too.

You could say I'm a bit of an addict (not sure what that means but one of my humans uses that word when I want to look at her tablet screen). I like it best when she lets me have the screen to myself, but I don't complain if she lets me sit and watch her do a funny thing with boxes and words [Ed. on-line crossword].

Roll on the good weather so I can enjoy sitting out in my garden, watching the squirrels and taking the air in the sunshine. Paws crossed it won't be long to wait for that now.

 

So this is Christmas

Hmmmm.....look what happened last week. The humans got the tree thing from the loft and fixed it together, then they hung bobbles on it (I think they called them bobbles).

Then they found a bag with antlers on headbands and the human who feeds me put one on her head and one on MINE! Then she took a photo of me. I usually get a bit excited when I see a photo op coming up but this time I was a bit grumpy because I had this thing on my head.

To her credit, she took it off straight away after I'd posed and it's not been seen since. Thank goodness.

And of course, we had all that wet white stuff they call snow and it was blooming cold out, slippery too. They put on my warm fleecy onesie coat when we went out for walks, and they took walking poles with them as the snow had frozen and it was icy. My paws held up OK but it was nice to get back in the warm.

They took me to the Heath, which looked very white. There were other dogs there in the snow too, so that made it more interesting to run about in.

Then they went away to somewhere called Lincoln to see some family but they didn't take me as they were going to sing carils in the caffeedroll and stay overnight in a hotel. What are carils? The radio keeps playing these carils songs and yesterday I got pretty excited because the caril song said holly and I thought it was about Holly the Cat who lives near my house and sometimes comes into my garden [Ed. "The first tree in the green wood it was the holly..." was the carol and it had  

I went to stay with my Fan Club across the road, where the girls who love me live. Sometimes they come to my house for a play date and they like to groom me, so the human who feeds me packed my grooming brush and comb so they could do this while I stayed there.

I watched while their mum wrapped up presents then they played with me and we all watched something called football. No idea what it was about but people kept running about after a ball and I liked seeing them moving around in a big field. 

It was almost as good as Dog TV.

To the lighthouse

I got a bit excited when I heard one of my humans say we were going to see a lighthouse, as I had absolutely no idea what a lighthouse was. But then, when she said something about a lighthouse in a book by Virginia the Wolf, I knew it would be a good place to go. And it was.

It was on that Squirrel place with beaches we've been to before. We went there in my campervan and had  walks on the beach before lunch. I met some other dogs and we raced around for ages which was pretty good.

 

The lighthouse was really part of a house (fancy living there!) near the beach. I looked around for Virginia but didn't see her. No wolves in sight, just a few friendly bouncy cockerpoos. Then we walked through some sand dunes, big hilly things with grass and boards with information on Natty Jack toads ( what are they...?). My humans found this thing called a mermaid's purse on the beach, and it was cold, blooming cold, windy too.

I was glad of my onsesie as we walked a LONG way and I had to cross a wooden plank over a some water, which I didn't like much.

We walked all the way to a place I've been to before, called West Curby. When we got there we looked back and could still see the lighthouse. Still no wolf.

Then we had to walk all the way back again through the dunes and found a wooden path that went through the boggy bits. I didn't like that much as my paws got trapped between some of the boards, which were a bit old and rickety. The human who plays school with me carried me over the bad bits.

It was getting later and colder as the sun went down. The humans are a bit keen on sunsets and kept taking photos. Then AT LAST!!! we were back at my campervan so I could warm up, have a drink and a treat and settle down in my cosy bed for a kip while we travelled back home.

I had a great day out, but I never got to see Virginia the Wolf.

 

Does my bum look big in this?

Someone left a nice comment on my last post, saying:

Bosworth, hi! Please can we have a cute pic of you in your fleece onesie? Don't complain about doing the same old route all the time. Walking is good for you. You must see all your little friends out and about, which is nice for you and your humans. Billy 

Thanks Billy, and Hi! No idea who you are but thanks for your request for a pic of me in my onesie, which my human has found, along with something I wrote  a while ago on another blog I had, about going to be fitted for my onesie. Here it is - the story of the onesie. Actually, I have two onesies now - as we've had so much rain, mud and even snow, they bought me a spare for when it's cold and wet. I'm very lucky. And I do enjoy my walks, especially when it's somewhere new.

Here's the tail - sorry, tale - of how I got my first onesie: 

We went on holiday in my campervan to somewhere called North Devon. My humans did all the arranging and driving and packed my food, treats, toys and bed, so all I had to do was behave myself and settle down between the two front seats of the 'van for the journey (hitched up to my restraint of course).

We stopped off at a couple of places on the way before we actually reached North Devon, and I'd heard them say something like, "We could go there on the way and have him measured for it, it's somewhere near the campsite" (that's a magical word for me - I know it means we're going somewhere new and interesting).

Their satnav thingy didn't work properly and they kept saying things like, "It's right out in the sticks here." I like sticks. You can chase them and chew them and sometimes, if I find one I like, I carry it back home. So I thought we were going to a place that had lots of sticks for me to play with. But no. We ended up in a sort of farmyard with a big shed building where there were people making things with funny-looking machines.

They all made a fuss of me then I was taken into a big room with lots of shelves and one of the nice people got something from a shelf, took it out of the bag it was in and put it on my body! I was a bit startled. It was like having human clothes on and I wasn't sure what to make of it, although it felt kind of cosy and safe once it was on. I even saw that dog I sometimes see who looks a bit like me. He was  wearing it too when I looked at the thing they call mirror. I must say, the colour looked quite fetching against his coat.

In my onesie in the snow

After that, we got in the 'van and went to the campsite, where it was wonderful. Woods! Mown pathways through them! Lots of long grass! Smells! Places to explore and a big lake, where they had to keep me on my lead as there are things called beavers who live there. Seemed to me that the beavers chopped down bits of trees as there were plenty of sticks lying around on the ground. Maybe this was the place they meant that was in the sticks?

Great as it was there, it did rain a lot one day. That was the day they got my my new outfit out of the bag and put it on me. It was to stop me getting soaked, muddy and dirty in the rain, and it worked. When we came inside the van, it was the outfit that was wet and muddy, not me. So it's not too bad at all really.

I do wonder what I really look like in it though, and if my bum perhaps looks a bit big in it?

Editorial note for dog owners: Bosworth's suit came from the home of Equafleece in Devon.