Watching the World go By.....

My world today:
Quite a lot of workywalkies with Mum along the towpaths, but also lots of lying down. Lying on the back deck of our floatyboatyhome watching the water and trees drift by. Lying on the locksides supervising Mum while she did all the windy-uppy-windy-downy-pushy-pully stuff. It's a tough life!

One of the locks seemed to get Mum a bit scared. There was a huge wooshy sploshystuff thunderflow and she had only done a little bit of the windy-uppy thing. I really couldn't work out what all the worry was about. I just got a bit bored waiting! I will post a separate video of that later.

Me lying on the back deck with my paws almost over the edge of the deck. Pic shows the side/back of my head as I watch the world drift by.

Me lying by the lockside watching Mum doing all the work. This is a huge lock at Aldermaston. The edges are scalloped and the lockside surface is red bricked.

I should Coco......

💓💓💓💓
I ❤️ Coco

Coco is the black lab puppygirlie that I met at a lock. We had a fandabbydooooozzee game of chase and swim and roll and box and chase and run and....... Ooooh it was all too fast and too good to remember it all! She is 14 months old, born as a Guide Dog puppy but now training to be a Hearing Dog for a deaf person.

That was immediately after a brief play with a 14 week old Cockapoo puppy called Holly, at the same lock. It is always nice when Mum lets me off duty at the 'in the middle of nowhere' locks, but this one today was just super good.

I had worked hard before all this fun! I guided Mum the three miles to and from church this morning, and around some other locks too.

And it IS Sunday! So it is supposed to a day off isn't it?

Ooh....Sunday..... Muuuuum.....Sunday - bone day..... Ahem......
Waddyamean it's too late now?

Well......actually....my eyelids are a tad heavy......your lap is comfy......zzzzzzzzz.....

Shopping....

Rude! Very rude awakening!

Dad was doing sizzly stuff in the kitchen. I was enjoying a lovely cuddle snooze with Mum in bed (shhhh....don't tell!). All of a sudden I jumped right out of my fur! The little round thing on the ceiling started megableeping! It was nasty! Mum tried to tell me it was all right, nothing to worry about, but I wasn't hanging around to find out! I hid in the safest place I know - the warmrainbox!
Dad waved his paw at it a couple of times and it shut up, then he carried on sizzling. I didn't even get any sausage or bacon to reassure me either!

Things got better after that when I got to take Mum on a nice long workywalkies to Morrison's. I don't think she was entirely impressed with my efforts to read and send weemails all along the towpath route. There are soooooo many trees and bushes that really do demand urgent communications but I had to ignore most of them and 'Head up. Do your job'. Once we got onto the street bit of the route I registered my protest with a ploddypaws demonstration. I didn't keep it up once we got to Morrisons though. I thought I should relent a bit and be nice to Mum. After all, there was always the hope of a carrot...... but Nope! Not a morsel!

Mum's command of 'Find the way out' did not exactly fill me with enthusiasm. I didn't want to just go straight back. I was, therefore, perhaps just a tad more enthusiastic at the next command: 'Lets go find Pets at Home'. Well, that is much more exciting! Head up. Nose forward and vvvvvrrrrrooooommmmm!

'Steady' seemed to be a predominant command after that! Well, I thought I had best make up for the plodding earlier!

I think I must have averaged out to a good day's work overall - I got a new toy!

Photo of me with my new pink fluffy grunting pig with a tuft of ginger headfur. I am looking slightly cheekily sideways towards the shot.

Chicken Bones....

Huff! Such injustice! All night long the sky was growling. Not a murmur from Mum or Dad. Today, I growled once at a passing pair of dogs and I got told to 'shush' and 'leave'! I was only trying to tell them I didn't like the looks of them! They made my fur go all spiky!

That was after a day of lots of little bits of workywalkies, a very important visit to Guide Dogs HQ to collect a bag of my nosh, and lots of car-riding. We also visited another boat; the floatyboatyhome of humanfriends Peter and Lin. I came very close to achieving a delicious job. I was trying to save them the trouble of emptying their bin. Peter was a meanie though; he took the bag out and hung it up out of my reach! He said something about chicken bones being bad for me. Those chicken bones smelled utterly delectable and I'm sure they would have been much better for me than they are for the bin......but I shall never get to prove it! Humph!

Yack Yack Yack Yack and Flippin' Yacketty Yack Yack!

Workywalkies, sausages (well....one little bit of sausage that Mum dropped within hoovering distance), workywalkies, bus ride, workywalkies, looooooooong bus ride, workywalkies, car ride, workywalkies, yackety-yackety-yackety-yack-yack-yack.......picnic tea, more yackety-yacking, freerunnnnnnn! Yayyyyyy! That made the car ride home much more acceptable! The freerun was along a stretch of towpath that I guided Mum along last year when we did our MegaWalk. It was nice to check it all out again.

Four photos of all the yackety-yacking stuff. Apparently it was a meeting - something to do with important people on the canals - I just enjoyed the fusses that I got from some of them, and endured all the yacketying....

Meeting new friends from Reading Buses.

Apparently this is the Top Man of the Canals!

Martin - he helps at the locks at Newbury!

Some other boaty people Mum yacketty-yacked with.

Boil Me Bus....

The Chase. That's what Mum said we were going to. Well, there wasn't the slightest hint of any chasing going on! I think it should have been called The Lie Down and Snooze! That was what I did anyway. And rather a welcome snooze too. It was nice and cool in there, and I was very hot and pooped after working my paws off guiding Mum there. I did sit up a few times to peer between the heads of the people in front of us. (We were sat right at the very back so I had room to stretch out). All the humans in the rows of seats had lots of bursts of banging their paws together, so I thought maybe something exciting was going on. Still no chasing though, but a very ear to clean on the man in front! Heehee! He seemed very appreciative of my services!

It it was a big day of workywalkies and train rides and bus rides. The train bits were OK. Actually the train home was great! I got a bit space to sprawl out and ut was wonderfully cool too. That was VERY welcome by all if us after the humdungously bus ride. Dad said it was called a Borisbus. I think it was a BoilMeBus. It was super crowded and I got squashed sort of under the seat and against Mum, and all the humans had leaky skin.

I enjoyed having my picnic tea outdoors tonight! I got to munch overlooking that big long wide stream in the middle of that big London place.

1) Me sitting, in harness, beside Mum, who us standing at the top of all the seats in the TV studio. Behind is the stage set of The Chase show.

2) Mum and me beside the big blue and yellow train that brought us into Paddington Station.

3) Waiting for the bus in London. Mum standing, me sitting in harness in the shade by a bus shelter.

4) Me guiding Mum across a road in London.

5) Me guiding Mum along the busy Southbank walkway beside the Thames.

6) Mum and me on the Southbank with a very big house in the background. Mum says it is called The House of Parliament. It has a mega huge tickydisk up high on a pointy tower.

7) Me in harness waiting patiently while Mum is yackety-yacking with two people on the Southbank.

8) A taxi driverman stopped to say hello. He said he is a Guide Dogs supporter. I had to give him a kiss yo say thank you for doing that! Happy to oblige!

Now, we have made it all the way back to our floatyboatyhome home. The bed is unoccupied.......Mum and Dad are occupied by that squawkybox on the wall, and with some of that niffy red water they like...... I'm a very tired doggy who has worked very hard today......heehee! I think I shall indulge myself.....shhhh! Don't tell......

Mischief....

Woohooo! I like this mooring! It comes with doggypals today! We have new neighbours moored behind us: a pair of collies who are great fun to play with - oh and their humans too!

I also got to enjoy a lovely freerun this morning all around the nature reserve beside us. Mum was a bit mean though - she wouldn't let me go into the giant puddle in the middle. There were quacky featherballs in there that I really wanted to go play with but I wasn't allowed. Huff!

I managed to make up for it a bit later though when Dad let me off my megalong lead (a yellow one that is longer than the boat. Mum tethers me to it sometimes so that I can chill out on the towpath without 'getting into mischief' - I don't know what she means by that........). Dad released me to play with the collies. Well..... I DID play with the collies. It was great fun! Then I just slipped off to investigate the river..... it was lovely and cool in there! Heeeheee!