Dog days

It was an exciting weekend for young Dart.

On Friday afternoon, the sun was shining so we took advantage and jumped in the car down to Porth Joke (known as Polly Joke) beach in Cornwall. It's one I'd heard of an fancied trying and it was a goodun.

When we arrived, Dart was a complete hooligan as he always is when he gets to the beach! But once he'd calmed down, Andy took him in the sea with his ball and he managed to swim for the first time. Very proud of our little pup!

Saturday was sunnier still, so we headed to the Okehampton food and music festival where there was a great atmosphere in town. Before getting set to spend the evening in the garden with a bbq and wine, we took Dart for a walk down to the river to cool him down and perfect his doggy-paddle skills. He's totally got it now!

Sunday we'd been looking forward to attending a Doggy Day Out in Harford. These are a series of events in the South West totally focussed on dogs and there owners - perfect for us!

Unfortunately it was absolutely tipping it down in the morning, but in the end we felt sorry for the organisers so stuck our rain coats in the car and set off. Luckily the rain had more or less given up by the time we arrived, but it wasn't as busy as they'd hoped. However Dart had a super time and got to try out a bit of agility and flyball.

He's a very energetic and intelligent (read 'gets bored easily'!) young dog so he's going to need a hobby and we were keen to see how he got on.

As a massive ball lover it wasn't a surprise that he seemed to have quite a flair for flyball. We spent some time with the 4x4 Flyball team who were extra friendly and encouraged us to come along and join them. We're definitely going to do that as they are only down the road from our new house (touch wood etc)

Flyball could become a new hobby for me and Andy as well as Dart, the seemed a very sociable bunch. It's definitely meant to be as the founder is a big 4x4 fan, so the teams are named after different 4x4's, such as Defender - a perfect fit :)

We finished the day with a 6km walk around Meldon Reservoir which was HOT. Dart managed some good off-lead recall around sheep. We are getting there slowly.....

Spotted a huge yellow and black stripy dragonfly eating a bee, it kindly posed for a photo!

Dart and I are home alone for a few days this week as Andy's work has taken him to London. Think it's going to be the same for the forthcoming, we miss him loads when he's away. Once we move in to our new house (still all going to plan so far!) we both want to get work locally so Andy doesn't have to be away. We've started looking and applying so more change, for the better, ahead.

Got my 1.5 stone award at Slimming World this week. I'm loving being back on plan, enjoying healthy food with some treats, and being part of the team at Zoe's group. Only a couple of pounds from target now, but I've been at target a few times before in the last 12 years..... This time I'm determined to stay there and I think the trick will be to keep attending a group!! Still enjoying working at the Devon Air Ambulance shop in town too, keeps me out of mischeif anyway.

That's all for now, don't forget if you want to visit us in Devon, get in touch as we won't be here on gorgeous Dartmoor for too much longer ;)