Beryl On The Bill

I just got back from a couple of days by the sea. Well, a few miles from the sea to be more accurate. On a farm, in fact. Lots of geese, hens, sheep, cows, ducks...

We went to Portland Bill yesterday, which is one hell of a weird place, let me tell you. Much bigger than I expected. Very windy, unsurprisingly, since it sticks out into the Atlantic. It's an island but it's connected to the mainland by a bridge and a causeway.

You can't say a certain word there. It's like saying the name of the Scottish play in the theater. They had to change the name of a Wallace and Grommit movie when it played.  Like I said, weird place.

As you can see from the pictures, we had great weather. The sea was blue. Not used to seeing that in England. 

Beryl had a fine old time. She likes the seaside and the wind.

She's been under the doctor as the old joke used to go, with an embarrassing condition I don't think she'd want me to broadcast to the world. It's not serious in itself but it could become problematic and lead to an even more problematic operation if it did so let's hope that doesn't happen.

She's on antibiotics and they seem to have worked - fingers crossed, touch wood. She was pretty droopy just before we were due to leave, though, and we thought we might have to cancel but in the event she was much better on the morning we were traveling. We figured an adventure would take her mind off her problems and it did.

Beryl's an excellent traveler. She thinks the car is just another room in the house. Mostly she falls asleep as soon as she gets in. It was only about a two-hour drive anyway.  

She also loves new places and exploring so she's no problem to take on holiday. We were staying in a pretty large cabin in the orchard of a farm in the back of beyond beautiful Dorset countryside and about five minutes after we got there she was settled and ready to stay there forever. 

It did take her somewhat by surprise when half a dozen geese turned up to eat fallen apples just a few feet from the gate to our cabin but she's met a lot of animals in her time - pigs, hens, sheep, horses, alpacas - and she's always up for meeting a new one. At a safe distance, that is.

We did an inordinate amount  of walking, some of it along Chesil Beach, which is extraordinarily peculiar and really hard to walk on. Even harder for a dog. 

Beryl tried to run on the deep shingle which was pretty funny to see. She was a lot more impressed with the flat rocks around the lighthouse on Portland Bill. I had to stop her trying to drink seawater out of a rock pool there. She's mad enough already without that. 

I took a lot of photos and I was quite pleased with some of them and I just wanted to get something posted tonight so here we are. I might do a follow-up because this has been a real rush job but I expect other topics will quickly push their way to the front and this will be the last we'll hear of it.

By the way, Beryl is in that last picture with the lighthouse but not only is she tiny, I used the free version of SnapEdit to remove Mrs Bhagpuss, who would not be pleased to have herself included, and it slapped the watermark right on top of poor old Beryl. Still, you can gauge the scale from what little you can see of her, which was why I picked it over a lot of better shots of the lighthouse itself.

And I'm going to leave it at that because it's late and I'm tired. Normal service may very possibly be resumed tomorrow. Let's hope so.   

 Bonus picture of the geese. No Beryl in this one. They'd have made very short work of her!