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Sunday in Brampford Speke
Oct. 8th, 2017 06:48 pmSunday walking with a difference today, with a trip out to Brampford Speke allowing us to take advantage of the glorious weather. We parked in the village, got the tiny beasts out of the various cars and walked down the hill, past the slightly odd but very nicely restored Barnhill House down to the Exe.
We followed the path south-east towards Stoke Canon, a walk I'd done on F's birthday a couple of years ago. The weather was beautiful and everyone enjoyed themselves, although there was a nervous moment when Dasher dived off the parapet of a bridge and into a ditch — it not quite clear what happened, but she was completely unharmed and unbothered by it — and a more amusing one when Tiny Flora decided to stay on the wrong side of a mesh fence, only to have to be bodily hauled over it by her human.
Reaching Stoke Canon, we walked along Green Lane until we got to Burrow Road where we turned back west. Walking past the farm with its big pile of hay bales, we had to retrain A, who was overcome with a desire to stand on top of one — and, who knows, may sing from The Sound of Music? The road came to an end at a meander of the Exe and we then followed the river back round. The current was fast, thanks to the recent rain, but all the dogs were wise enough to stay well clear of it, although A, deprived of her hay bale, insisted on climbing every available tree:
Arriving back in Brampford Speke, we decided to have lunch at excellent local gastropub The Lazy Toad. The food was excellent — I had a roasted root veg jalousie parcel — the tiny hounds were reasonably well behaved once we got Tiny Flo away from an incredibly intriguing flower border, and everyone enjoyed themselves, soaking up sun and food and good company.
On the way back, we stopped off at the garden centre because J was after compost following yesterday's shopping trip where they'd come back with 4kg of bulbs. The Christmas display was pretty amazing — everything you could ever want and then some, including glowing reindeer — and they had garden gnomes on offer: three for 20 pounds. But the stars of the show were a collection of fantastically kitch 3D posters of animals — dogs, cats, sheep, goats — all shot in the finest soft-focus known to man. They were so hilarious, I felt like I was in serious danger of rupturing my spleen!
We followed the path south-east towards Stoke Canon, a walk I'd done on F's birthday a couple of years ago. The weather was beautiful and everyone enjoyed themselves, although there was a nervous moment when Dasher dived off the parapet of a bridge and into a ditch — it not quite clear what happened, but she was completely unharmed and unbothered by it — and a more amusing one when Tiny Flora decided to stay on the wrong side of a mesh fence, only to have to be bodily hauled over it by her human.
Reaching Stoke Canon, we walked along Green Lane until we got to Burrow Road where we turned back west. Walking past the farm with its big pile of hay bales, we had to retrain A, who was overcome with a desire to stand on top of one — and, who knows, may sing from The Sound of Music? The road came to an end at a meander of the Exe and we then followed the river back round. The current was fast, thanks to the recent rain, but all the dogs were wise enough to stay well clear of it, although A, deprived of her hay bale, insisted on climbing every available tree:
Arriving back in Brampford Speke, we decided to have lunch at excellent local gastropub The Lazy Toad. The food was excellent — I had a roasted root veg jalousie parcel — the tiny hounds were reasonably well behaved once we got Tiny Flo away from an incredibly intriguing flower border, and everyone enjoyed themselves, soaking up sun and food and good company.
On the way back, we stopped off at the garden centre because J was after compost following yesterday's shopping trip where they'd come back with 4kg of bulbs. The Christmas display was pretty amazing — everything you could ever want and then some, including glowing reindeer — and they had garden gnomes on offer: three for 20 pounds. But the stars of the show were a collection of fantastically kitch 3D posters of animals — dogs, cats, sheep, goats — all shot in the finest soft-focus known to man. They were so hilarious, I felt like I was in serious danger of rupturing my spleen!
