I get Soaked, Monday 18.8.08

I had a lie in this morning. Lovely. Poor Buster was sick last night and wasn't himself for a while today. He just lay in his box looking sad. Which he does very well, I must say. It was quite sunny and much warmer in the early afternoon, so I headed up to the vegetable plot as Jim said the strawberry patch needed weeding. With it being so wet, at least the weeds came out pretty easily. BlackJack joined me for a while.

Buster has been off to Sandra and Pete's cottage again. He knows they have tins of food outside and cats to torment. Jim fetched him back the first time and he spent the next hour in the conservatory, then he joined me. I hadn't noticed he'd gone again but this time he wasn't down the road. Goodness knows where he went. It started raining and of course he reappeared, not liking to get wet. What a dog! So Jim is now making him a kennel. Then if he keeps wandering, he can go in his enclosure and keep dry if it rains.

After the animals' tea at 5pm, I took Buster for a walk just down the path that leads to a bungalow and Kevin's farm, both right at the side of the lake. The sun was out and we trotted along happily. I took a couple of photos, one of some ripening wild rose hips with the sun shining on them.













I took another one of a super old fence post covered in lichen:





Buster loves running about in this field.
















Then I took one for Rachel that I've been meaning to take for a while. I know she'll love this makeshift gate, a log and a piece of pipe replace one of the struts and it's all held together with blue baling twine. That's really Irish!



It seemed to be getting rather dark, so I turned round and was greeted by this:












and this:












which then did this:



I think you can see the rain in this. It's always difficult to photograph.







The rain stung my back like hail. Buster looked at me desperately and dived into the thick hedgerow! I could see Kevin's big new barn not too far away so decided to head for shelter there. My 'shower proof' jacket wasn't up to the job and I was soaked through. Buster reluctantly followed and as we reached the shelter of the barn, Kevin, too, was sheltering there with his sheepdog. We sat and chatted until the rain had stopped, but not before I managed to capture this:






Quite a small rainbow, but lovely clouds and some blue sky over Lough Graney.




I headed off back up the lane after a convivial chat with Kevin, the fount of all knowledge in these parts. Buster had other ideas. He was having far too much fun playing with the other dog. I had to put him on his lead and drag him up the hill. I let him off after a while and he headed straight back down to the barn. Kevin took pity on me and walked up with his dog to where I was waiting and again Buster went back on his lead. He just doesn't seem to associate that if he runs off he gets put on his lead, which he doesn't like. I did manage to take one more shot of the rainbow:



























I saw this one lonely honeysuckle flower, which stood out against the dark green leaves:









As we walked back up our lane to the gates, the sky looked wonderfully mysterious again:
It's amazing how much the colours and cloud formations can change in a matter of minutes.

























Inside the gate and our gladioli and dahlia were looking lovely spattered by the rain:


The red dahlia is known as a cactus dahlia, because it's kind of 'spiky' I suppose. It's such a rich red. We also have an orange one just coming out.





















I'll finish with this photo I took yesterday after I'd been weeding the parking area yet again. When it's been very wet, we sometimes get this algae growing there. It looks very alien. I'm sure it's a piece of the material used for the old film 'THE BLOB'!










How revolting is that?








I've just started another 3 Artist Trading Cards, though I haven't yet managed to put any onto a swapping site. But it's fun making them!

Off to bed now as it's almost 3am. xxxx
Oh aims, a bilberry is in the same family as your blueberry, only much smaller. It has about the same taste, so Jim says. So now you know!