It's made my day, and my day's hardly begun!

Today I was going to tell about my writing month... but blow that! I'm going to write about my first two hours of the day....

When I woke up to the sound of my alarm, I had these thoughts running through my head:

Gotta get up - dogs need walking

But it's holiday - I want to lie-in!

The dogs are so much better when they go out before all the other dogs get up.

But it's holiday - I want to lie in!

Just take a peek and see what the day's like... Urgh, it's light... Hang on a minute. What colour is the garden? It's orange!

Oh, Ok then. Fine. I'll get up.

Where's the camera? Where's my clothes? Where's my shoes? Where's the damn leads?! (obviously not where they should be after son walked dog yesterday!)

Wow! That's perdy...

View from window when I woke (if it's blurred, so was my vision...)

Out the door, and into the car...
there's a kind of anticipation and frantic excitement
as I rush to get to the forest and enjoy the sunrise!

Again, the moon was still hovering on the horizon

...and in the direction opposite to the sun's fair show,
there was another, quieter show

Finally, I tore myself from the glorious pink and orange skies
in order to walk the dogs before their doggie-enemies came to hunt them down
(or vice versa :-( ) and caught the sun through the trees as I walked.

Managed to reach my bench, and saw the mist was still whisping
over the newly - ploughed field, before I heard a really sinister sound...

Was it the screams of someone calling for help in the distance? Was it a whole flock geese calling to each other? Where had the dogs run off to?

I imagined all sorts of things. My heart was beating fast, and I took a few steps towards the sound. It suddenly occurred to me that I was on my own - even the dogs had deserted me. I didn't know whether they'd run towards the sound or away... I just knew they'd run off. Then I heard yelping, and I was really nervous. Rooted to the spot, I listened... hard. Silence.

I called really quietly for the dogs, not wanting to draw attention to myself if there was something out there. Or worse, what if there was someone in trouble, and I couldn't find them. I walked a few more steps to where the sound was coming from before stopping again. The sound came again. This time I identified amongst the cries a sound I recognised.

It wasn't someone screaming for help. It wasn't a wild, trapped animal nor was it a flock of geese (although that was in there as well). It was dogs. Excited dogs. Husky dogs! I knew what the braying meant.... the guy who practiced his sled-pulling (wheels) around the forest on weekends was doing the round today, being a bank holiday.

Darn it. I usually managed to avoid him nowadays. In the past, I'd been caught out by his dogs rushing through, and setting my dogs off into a frenzy. It's not that my dogs are so bad, but if a group of very excited and excitable dogs are rushing towards you at the speed they go, it can give you a bit of a fright. Also, Sparkey, the Jack Russel, loves to tousle with the big lead dog - not the best idea in the world... he can be a brute! And Sparkey, off the lead, can be a pain in the ...

So...

I decided to nip down the path I was on. For some reason I thought it led to a farmhouse (I think, because it looked like another one that did and I got them mixed up), so I'd never been that way before. It was a whole new part of the forest, and I loved it! All windy little tracks, beech groves and tunnelled paths....

And then I was stopped in my tracks. For there, in the path, standing in the misty sunlight, was a doe. It was transfixed, waiting to see what I would do:





I didn't dare move. I turned on the camera, and pushed the zoom button, before raising my hand slowly, slowly... and managed to capture a couple of pics before it run away with a crashing through the thickets.




Boy, do I wish I had a decent zoom! I was in a perfect position to get a wonderful shot, and had to make do with these at-a-distance shots :-(

But, wow! That sure made my day. I continued along the path for some way, before I realised I would have to backtrack, if I didn't want to end miles away from the car. But, I really didn't care that the dogs got an extra hour walking... We hadn't encountered the raring huskies, but experienced a moment of absolute silence, of absolute stillness, which was just perfect!

And - after saying yesterday I hadn't seen the deer for a while too!! :-D

(If I didn't manage to visit you yesterday, it's not because I didn't intend to... I'm trying to get round to all my friends within a few days... please be patient with me :-) )