Day 50

Officially back into the swing of things now a six miler was on the cards for today. Dad had gleefully decared that he stared at 8am every weekday morning, so after cursing my alarm, stubbing my toe getting out of bed and struggling into my walking kit by 7.55 I was sitting in the kitchen ready to go, boots and all. The minutes ticked by and I wondered what Dad was doing, realisation dawned when I heard his alarm go off at precisely 8am. I should have known "getting started" meant waking up for him. It was in fact 8.31am when we eventually left the house (which according to Mam is still at least and hour earlier than Dad would have been out under his own steam) He wasn't feeling "too well" today; I suspect someone wasn't as ready for an 8 mile walk as he had let on yesterday and was in fact only spurred forwards by the sight of my suffering, nevertheless encouraged by the improvement in the ground conditions (only 50% of the ground covered by ice and snow today) and my hangover thoroughly vanquished (I cannot say enough for the healing powers of a good Sunday dinner) we set off fairly chirpy. Nodding happily to bird watching man as we passed him, our conversation soon turned to our very first walking attempt, where we accidently covered the 6 mile route we were aiming for today. Yes, our conversation I said, and one of the notable points indeed was that we could now have a conversation as we walked, and we remembered fondly (and slightly repulsed-ly) the horrific unfit creatures we were before, lurching and lumbering around gasping and groaning. We may not have changed much on the outside but inside I was pretty proud of us. I took a turn holding the dogs lead today, as Dad felt that we needed to "bond" and I discovered the source of my nemesis' power. It would seem that the person holding the lead, even if not pulling on it or really making use of it in any way becomes the master of the dog, and he obays them instantly, looks to them as leader, and most importantly stays out from underneath their feet! Dad went on to let him off the lead, to demonstrate "what a good little doggy he is" folowing which he promptly ran off and began to play with a dog coming the opposite way. Dad was not concerned, and calmly ordered "Newbie, come." which was of course ignored (I knew that dog couldn't stay good for long) the calm calling escalated quickly to "Come! Come here now!" and was soon a "Please come her eNewbie!" until we finally caught up with and collared the furry feind. Appart from that we had a surprisingly pleasant walk and completed the time in 1 hour 35 minutes, which was again closer to the 4 mile an hour pace we've abandoned than the 3 mile an hour pace we're supposed to have adopted, and no-one needed a lie down when we got home.