Wednesday 18 May 2011

Patch


Oh my paws! I knew something exciting was going to happen today when She Who Thinks She Must Be Obeyed put the waterpawroofer on her boots and started putting things in the rucksack. She was meant to go and do something for someone today, but they phoned and said not to come so as the man on the tele said it was going to stop raining by 10 o'clock (it didn't) she put on the waterproofs (I already had my allweather fur coat on, who needs anything else?) and we got the bus to Patch.

Me waiting at the bus stop.
Apparently it's up to the driver whether I'm allowed on the bus or not but luckily it was a nice bus driver who knew She Who Thinks She Must Be Obeyed. Many years ago when she first had Imshi, she was riding him along the road and this bus driver came the other way in his bus. He was very good and stopped, but Imshi took one look and climbed a six foot high bank at the side of the road, the bus driver couldn't bear to watch what happened next and drove off, She Who Thinks She Must Be Obeyed dropped the reins and told Imshi he got them into it so he could get them out of it and the driver of the car behind just sat frozen until Imshi was back on the road again, the bus driver reminds her of this every time she gets on his bus!

Me on the bus. We sat right at the front because there were loads of people already on the bus. The driver scratched my ears.

I was very excited when we got off at Patch because it's one of my favourite places. The tide was in so I got down to some serious swimming straight away!

The tide was going out quite quickly so I had to really CHASE those sticks before they got away!
I like swimming!


We walked round the headland to the sea, but there wasn't any beach there 'cos it was all covered up with water so we walked along the caravan site and back and then the tide had gone out enough so we could walk up river towards Cardigan. We didn't go all the way to Cardigan though. She who Thinks She Must Be Obeyed was looking for Marsh Samphire for her dinner because they were talking about it on CountryWise last night , but it was too early_ it must be out earlier in Devon! But I did some foraging, I found a rugby ball and an aquatoy!

Here are the toys I found on the beach. Aren't I a lucky puppy!

We found an old log which had got washed down the river to sit on and watch a Heron but the Heron didn't want to be watched so it flew off ( I didn't help it, honestly. It decided to go all by itself!) so we ate our lunch instead. We shared a humongous Cornish pasty and I washed the box it was in up so She Who Thinks She Must Be Obeyed didn't have to do it when we got home.

The Heron.

It was still raining and it was a long time after 10o'clock so the weather man was wrong, but it didn't matter after all I got wet swimming!

After lunch we started walking home and then it did stop raining and the sun came out and it was quite hot. We walked back through some woods and She Who Thinks She Must Be obeyed did some more foraging and found enough elder flowers for some Elderflower cordial. This is very refreshing for your humans and if they put it in their water bottles when they take you for a walk it makes them able to take you further because they are refreshed, but don't let them drink too much because they have to leave their pee-mail in special little houses and there aren't too many of them about when you go on a good walk.
I watched She Who Thinks She Must Be Obeyed make some and this is how she did it:
10-15 fresh elderflower heads
zest of a lemon and an orange
1 litre boiling water
750grm sugar
100ml lemon juice
Shake the flowers to get any insects out. Grate the lemon and orange zest and place in a heatproof bowl with the flowers. Cover with boiling water. Cover and leave overnight. Strain through a sieve into a saucepan and add the sugar and lemon juice. Bring to the boil and simmer gently scimming off any scum. When cool strain again and decant into bottles and refrigerate. Dilute with water to use.

(There weren't enough flowers yet to do Elderflower wine, which is probably just as well because it is powerful stuff and made Auntie Sue fall into the bushes when she had two glasses of last years brew_ mind she was on the medics and shouldn't have had any anyway, but she said it was too nice to miss! I'll give you the recipe for that another time

2 comments:

ForPetsSake said...

That swimming looks very refreshing, just like this cordial you describe. I'm really curious about the wine ;)

Scout and Freyja said...

No Elderflowers over here in northern Michigan so momma has to do without. BUT, we do have lots and lots of water and we know how fun it is to swim and go to the beach!