Walk with Kate and Bryn

It had been really good to see Kate again! But we didn't get around to doing more than a short walk. We still wanted to squeeze a bigger one, with the dog, into the diary, and one August Sunday it worked out. She had a commitment late morning, so we couldn't do an exceptionally long walk, but a shorter one is nice too. 

The day before, she happened to come past my house, so she briefly stopped over to make plans. And have coffee with cake. That was nice! And the next day I just rocked up at her house, drank buckets of coffee, and just did a bit of newspaper reading well she was seeing to her commitment. And around noon that was sorted. We could leave!

Selfie with Bryn

We decided to do a walk we had done before, two years ago. I hadn't been back since. Dolwyddelan was looking great, and Bryn, the dog, was very excited. We decided to climb out of the village until we would get to a field with no sheep anywhere, so the dog could come off the lead, and have lunch there. Given that we only started walking after 12, lunch needed to take place quite early in the walk. We found a beautiful spot for it.

Lunch view

It was good to be out in the hills, and it was fun to do a walk with the dog. I'm sure the novelty of that has already worn off for Kate as she takes him out several times a day, but for me it was special. He is quite sweet! Very well-behaved. If we were sure there were no sheep around he could come off the lead. And if we had to walk through a herd of sheep he did need to be on the lead, but he barely complained, and barely barked at them.

Summit selfie

Summit view

There was one occasion where there was a gate that wouldn't open, and there was no stile. And then there are only two options: you have to go over the gate/fence, or you have to go under it. And he is mature Labrador, so lifting him over is no sinecure. Luckily we managed to convince him to squeeze under! On the way back that required bribery with snacks, but we did it.

The most important part of the walk was of course catching up. A lot has happened since the last time we had a day in the hills together! And I hope we can do things like this a bit more frequently than we did in the first half of the year. I suppose Bryn needs walking anyway, so if I am in need of a good catch up I might just join in!