Flora goes swimming

With D&P back from their honeymoon, we met up first thing for Sunday morning dog walking — now starting to become something of a sacred ritual. The newlyweds had had an excellent time away and seemed happy to be back — Dasher was ecstatically pleased to see them! — and it was nice to have some quiet time to catch up and hear all about it.

We walked the usual route along the canal and, instead of following the path through Riverside Valley Park as we have done the previous weeks, we went through what is now known as the sheep field, after a day in August when the others ended up part of a small, stray flock. Rather than loop back, we cut through the corner — Dasher made the decision for everyone — up on to the western side of the canal and walked down to the Double Locks.

As we passed the lock pool, which looked just as green and weedy as it did the weekend of the wedding, A said, "I wonder which of the beasts is going to be stupid enough to mistake it for grass..." This was followed, thirty seconds later, by a big splash as Tiny Flo fell in. Fortunately, she discovered that she was able to swim and made for the shore, where I held on to A while she leaned down to the water, grabbed the tiny hound by her harness, and dragged her out, covered in green slime. Then, once over the bridge, Martha, who clearly didn't want to be left out, dived in too, coming out looking very fetching with pond weed over her face!

Bouldering and quizzing

Slightly less successful climbing session: I took a fall relatively early on a warm-up boulder and caught my thumb, ripping the nail in the process. I mopped up the blood, washed everything out, and switched to route climbing for the rest of the afternoon. Rather to my surprise, I made pretty good progress: obviously my open-hand strength has improved to the point where I don't need to pinch the hell out of the holds on easier routes.

Later in the evening, I headed walked down to the river to meet the others for the Sunday quiz at the Puerto lounge. We had a full-strength team, with P&J providing some extra intellectual firepower, which definitely helped when a tricky round on farm animals came up. Once again we were without Yorkshire Nick, but the alternate quizmaster was on much better form than last time and zipped through the rounds as fairly quickly, avoiding the problem of adding up the scores at the end by asking the teams to tot things up as they went along.

We scored highly as we went along — the team whose answers we were marking, another of the regulars, changed the name on their sheet to "The Wooden Spoons' Holiday Fund" once they began to suspect we might win. Sure enough, we finished ten points ahead of the second placed team and went home clothed in glory. Or, in my case, clothed in a windproof jacket, hood up against the rather less than lovely weather...