Practising

You know the way people have lists at John Lewis and places like that

for wedding and baby shower gifts and stuff like that?

Well, we thought that maybe we could do something similar for our birthdays

(coming up in October in case you weren't sure)

We shall instruct the Madwoman to set up a list

for us at once with the local butcher.

In the meantime, Archie has been practising hard for when

he becomes a tearaway teenager.

The Shape of Things to Come ...

So today, in lieu of zoomies at the paddocks (see yesterday's post) we did leash walking ... not as exciting or fulfilling as zoomies or vole watching, but lots of new sniffs to sniff ...

The Madwoman cleverly found a field full of pregnant sheep - meaning that there was a big sign posted on the gate leading into it asking people to please keep their dogs on leads. Hurrah we thought!

A nice safe place for us to do our sniffs as any other dogs we meet will be safely contained on leads. We really should have known better. We'd only gone a dozen yards when racing towards us came two very-off-leash terriers.

We removed ourselves to the church in Missenden instead.

Roald Dahl was buried there.

Apparently he was a Famous Writer, although the Madwoman only has one of his books, and that only because it was given to her as a school prize back in the Dark Ages.

Either he is not as Famous as we have been told,

or the Madwoman is an ill-read Pit of Ignorance.

You decide.

This is the church. It has a lovely woodland cemetery area.

And this, presumably is where they do the cremations.

 

A sad week

 

It's been an odd sort of week.

The secure paddocks which the Madwoman hires for us to use four times a week.

have been sold, so we had our last zoomies there on Friday. It was wet enough for raincoats, but we made the most of it.

We've been lucky enough to have the use of them for ten years,

and have had lots of fun there, but we shall miss them. 

There was another farewell this week too,

as Angel's sister Grace-in-America went to Rainbow Bridge.

This is the candle we lit for her. 

The Madwoman decided we needed some cheering up so we

went to Chiltern Open Air Museum yesterday.

We ate blackberries ...

Then we stared reprovingly at the goats, who we suspect of

eating lots of the blackberries ...

And then we came home for a snooze.

It will be our birthdays soon, so we multi-tasked while napping,

thinking of presents to put on our wish-lists ...

We're thinking that this year, a new paddock will be at the top.

Although sucking pig will come a close second.

On location

It was like something out of the X-Files ...

mysterious super-bright lights shining through the trees at Chiltern Open Air Museum ...

Bravely we tiptoed closer ...

 

... and then an eerie mist started to seep through the undergrowth ...

Well, if Mulder and Scully needed rescuing,

obviously we were the wippitts to do it ...

As we inched cautiously forward, we found it wasn't aliens at all.

No, it was Horrible Histories back filming for a seventh series.

Ah, we remember the halcyon days when they filmed the first one,

and all the actors were a bunch of unknowns who gathered round on the village green

to stroke us, exclaim over the softness of our ears and

exchange wippitt anecdotes ...

 ... we hear they have now broken into films.

Or possibly broken some films.

(We are wippitts, not movie buffs.)

 

Here is a behind the scenes shot of the atmospheric smoke being made.

It smelled really horrible, so we didn't hang around.

Besides, someone had just said 'Turn over' which we believe is the new-fangled

and rather boring way of shouting "Lights! Camera! Action!"

First of the season

Today we found our first shiny conker of the autumn.

(Never stand under conker trees when it's a bit blowy)  

We have also been enjoying the first blackberries.

We're rather partial to them, and like to pick our own.

We have been keeping a careful eye on the ones growing

at Chiltern Open Air Museum, and could swear there weren't as many

around today as there were on Tuesday.

Now, it's not that we're pointing noses at anyone, but we suspect

that certain goats have not only been eating their own fill of them,

but everyone else's too ...