Tuesday September 9th 2014 - A grey day, a silly mistake and a dog encounter

In spite of my previous night's metaphorical finger crossing I woke that morning to a cloudy grey sky and no sign of any sunshine, so I decided to stay local and just mooch around in the vicinity of the camp site. And it was when I was ready for taking the dogs for a walk that I discovered I'd made a very silly mistake when I'd left home two days previously.

Now I guess that many people have a favourite comfy pair of shoes or slippers - those that have definitely seen better days and are probably all but falling apart but are so comfy you just can't bear to bin them. Well I have one such pair of trainers, and while they are no good in the rain and the soles are so thin I can feel every stone underfoot they are really comfy for driving, so I'd put them on for the long journey from home and just on the point of leaving I'd grabbed a pair of my normal trainers, put them in a carrier bag and thrown them in the back of the van, which was where they'd stayed as I'd been wearing my beach sandals since my arrival at the site. And the back of the van was where they were returned to, as when I took them out of the bag I found that far from being a pair they were two right shoes from two totally different pairs!

It took several seconds for my brain to register what I was actually seeing, then when it finally dawned on me that this 'pair' of trainers was completely useless I broke into a fit of helpless giggles; now I've done many silly things over the years but this one was definitely a first! And having realised the previous day that beach sandals aren't ideal footwear for climbing up and down ladders in windmills it meant that I would have to get a new pair of trainers if I wanted to go up a couple of church towers later in the week. So after a dog walk along the beach and a leisurely breakfast I drove into Yarmouth, found a Sports Direct store, and returned to the tent with a nice new pair of Slazengers for the bargain price of £17.99. The rest of the day was spent relaxing with my book and a few crossword puzzles, and though the sun did finally put in an appearance it was too late in the afternoon to bother going anywhere. 

It was 8pm when I encountered the dog; it had been barking almost non-stop for an hour and the noise was coming from the vicinity of the tent further down the field so when the tv programme I was watching had finished I went out to ask the owners if they could quieten it down a bit. Their tent was in darkness though and the dog - a little Border Terrier - was running round nearby trailing a lead behind it so presumably it had escaped from somewhere.  Thinking that I would catch it then try to find the owners - they could only have been in the on-site club or the pub across the lane - I went towards it to pick up its lead. Big mistake! Without warning it flew at me and went for my feet, biting my right toes - if I'd still been wearing my beach sandals and not my new trainers it could have done some very painful damage. And the wretched creature continued nipping at my ankles all the way back to my own tent.

Now in all the years I've had dogs of my own or dealt with those belonging to other people I've never been nipped, bitten or attacked by any of them so this was a first - and I wasn't best pleased. I was also concerned that the dog could possibly get itself lost so I needed to find its owners; I tracked them down in the on-site club, and though at first the woman denied the dog was theirs she realised it was when I described its pink lead. She said they'd left the dog in the tent thinking it would be okay for a couple of hours, but obviously it wasn't happy about being left and had escaped by pushing its nose through a small gap in the zipped-up door. It was called Rosie and it was actually quite friendly while its owner had hold of it under her arm but the minute she put it back down on the ground it went for me again! Luckily she was holding its lead and I moved out of the way in time, though I was glad in a way that it had another go at me as I didn't think its owner believed me about the first time. And although after that night I did hear it barking occasionally over the next few days I never actually saw it again - and after that evening's encounter with it I didn't want to either!