Autumn Sunshine

What a glorious day, a jewel of a day. I went with my Mum and The WonderDog down the road to Symonds Yat. How lovely, I thought, we can have it all to ourselves again, the tourists will have all gone home. I forgot it was half term. It was very busy but we were able to park and it was nice to experience the lively holiday atmosphere. There were lots of families walking and cycling and the pleasure boats were still running with their flower bedecked roofs. The sun was warm and lit up all of the autumn colours on the trees. I can't even imagine how many photographs I took and I am looking forward to seeing them on screen.

We walked for about three miles and were joined for much of it by the lovely Bertie Eden who lives at Garth Cottage, a guest house by the river. Bertie, who must be in his 90's, told us much about himself, his experiences during WW2, his work building Concorde, the iconic aeroplane and his disappointment that he was never allowed to look inside it when it was finished. We parted at The Biblins bridge where we were to turn around and walk back but Bertie was going to go on to the cafe on the other side of The Wye for tea and cake. He walks along the river everyday and picks up any litter as he goes 'Its a sad world' seemed to be a favourite phrase of his but I couldn't feel so pessimistic on such a treasure of a day.

I had forgotten to take any water so that Jasper could have a drink, dogs walk about three times farther than we do as they have to keep turning back to follow scrumptious smells. There was no alternative, we had to do it -just for him, of course. There was a big bowl of doggy water amongst the tea tables at Rose Cottage so we just had to go and have a cream tea, only for his benefit you know. Now I ask you, would we really want to sit in the sunshine beside the river scoffing scones, strawberry jam and clotted cream if we didn't have to? The things we do for that dog, but then again, he is a WonderDog.