Today, the dreaded Sunday and we had rain and dark clouds, sunshine and blue skies, more rain, wind, hail and sleet .. oh and despite my hope that the changing weather would keep them away, we had lots of bloody people about!
Jezi and Nico
dampness on the camera lens as the first shower quickly turned into hail.
A dry breezy walk, but not a happy photo as Ross was annoying by continually grabbing at Sammi's neck. The girls look worried as I finally lost the plot and let him know how unhappy I was about it, he didn't seem to care!
When I first parked here today there were 2 blue vans already there. Between walk 2 and 3 one had left, the other was still there as I was coming back on walk 3. But as I got to the steepest slope back down I saw a man walking towards the blue van. I opted to wait for him to leave. He arrived at his van and then took an age to get out of his waterproofs, change his shoes cleaning his walking pole and do god knows what else he was doing. Loki and Kaiah ran around happily behind me but Tali got bored and started toddling down towards the van. I managed to get her attention and walked to the left for a while, but I was soon at the wall so I had to come back. I decided to stand and wait for him to leave. Not that they would bite or bark at anyone, but "reason for apprehension" is all some needs to claim these days and you're dogs life is in danger. I didn't fancy walking them down on the lead as it was muddy, wet and slipper. I may well have ended up going downhill on my bottom! As I stood there and waited for the man to leave he started to lean on his van and stare up at me, I stood still for what seemed like an age and he stood staring leaning against his van door. I started to think of alternatives, going back up and round .. walking home .. Oh god I thought, that's silly, but still he stood and stared. I opted to try walking down with the kids on their leads and Tali loose, but due to me walking so slowly Tali toddled on ahead. Still the man stood leaning on his open van door and staring at me. Tali stopped to look back and I was able to get her to return to my side and I popped her on the lead too. As I started to walk again Kaiah spotted the man who was still lurking and she gave a handful of barks, I didn't discourage her. The man then closed the back door of the van, got into the van and reversed back, before pulling forward again. I waited again, this time he reversed back and drove away.
I have to admit I was very unsettled by his strange behaviour. Surely it was obvious to him that I wanted to get down to my van which was parked next to his. You can hardly miss a bright yellow van with pictures of GSD's on it, and I doubt you could miss me in a bright yellow coat with a red hat and 3 GSD's. All sorts went through my mind, I can't help but think of the current situation with dog thefts, after all weeks on and Stan the 8 year old who was stolen has still not been found. As Steve said it was probably all very innocent, he may have been a dog lover who wanted a chat, he could have recognised me and been waiting to say "Hi," but for me it was a very uncomfortable situation and one I'd sooner not repeat.
