Bartola and Shana with Phil.

A 'cage full' of dogs on a day out!

19^th – 20^th May

Over the last week or so workmen have been resurfacing the roads around the campsite, apart from the noise that starts around 8am there hasn’t been much of an inconvenience. However the winds got up today and as they scratched away the sand and shale of the old surface a lot of it found its way into awnings and caravans. It really got quite dusty. Today also marked the return to our 3 days a week of alcoholic abstinence. This really is a different ‘holiday’ for us …we haven’t been on a beach and we’ve really cut down on our alcohol, something you have to do when you are away for so long. As I keep telling Barbara “its not a holiday, we’re living abroard”. Reading, walking and cycling have taken more of a precedence. Today, Tuesday, saw our return to the dog shelter. We got there on our bikes just after 10am and were allowed to park the bikes in the shelter. We were quickly given two dogs again. One was Bartola a 12 year old Dalmation and the other was an 18 month old Sharpai called Shana. Both dogs were friendly and well worth adopting, we couldn’t believe why Sharna had been over 12 months in the shelter.

After a lovely walk lasting just under an hour we returned to find 6 English people in deep discussion. It appeared that they were planning to take a group of dogs out walking. By a group I mean a cage full of dogs. It seems that a group like this has to go together, if you take just one or two out of the cage for a walk the others attack them when they return. Sounds like a jealousy thing. As they needed two more people to be able to take the group out we volunteered. So we all went off together for another hour. Mine was a lovely mongrel called Linda who had only been in the shelter for 4 months. Many of the other dogs had been there for up to 10 years! It was a good social event with everyone mixing and finding out things about each other, a recommendation for anyone in the area who needs to mix and socialise with other people.