To travel?
Couch Travelling
Oh dear. I have been sooooo slow to catch on about what's 'out there' on Youtube. No, I haven't discovered real time weeding videos (though I'm sure they exist). It's much, much worse, hee hee. I have discovered a huge library of Real Time Driver's Eye View Train Journeys. Alternatively, called 'cabview'. So I can spend hours, couch-travelling in trains the length and breadth of countries I will never visit.
Loving this!
I'm loving this! I can slither through gorges, zig-zag up sides of mountains, glide effortlessly through snow, marvel at sparkling alpine lakes - with a glass of House Merlot in one hand, the other hand patting a snoozing kitten. Youtube trains are relaxing, effortless, clean, noiseless (via the mute button), and inexpensive. No fast-forwarding for me - I don't want to miss a bend in the track, a new view...
Being a novice couch train-traveller, I was totally fooled on my very first trip. Started the TV ap running, pulled out of the station, scuttled into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, returned to the couch - oh no! A totally black screen. It wasn't working! Turned everything off, then on again. And then I worked it out. The blackness was a rail tunnel. Oops. Felt rather unintelligent for a moment.
Red Fred Kitten
Too hot to garden...
Yesterday when it got too hot to garden I went up a mountain cog railway in Switzerland with Red Fred the smoochy kitten on my lap. And again it's too hot to garden today. Earlier I stacked another trailer load of firewood in the woodshed and bucketed water on some of the roses. Nothing else, gardenwise, I'm sorry.
But I've noted with alarm that next-door is happily mowing grass along the boundary - in dry heat, the driest of vegetation, and my property down wind. Well, my hoses are on, watering the Allotment Garden nearby. And my nose is 'on', too. Sparks from mechanical equipment start fires so easily, and we are on an extreme fire danger alert.
Where to?
So which train journey would I like to go on today? The rhythm of the train tracks is chanting 'should be gardening, should be gardening, should be gardening.' Colorado's Royal Gorge Route here I come.
Collies in the Driveway
Sunday 17th February
My life is full of days too hot for gardening, excess dogs, Freds (the kittens), and Youtube train journeys, hee hee. This weekend big brown Escher has been staying.
Escher
Leader of the Pack...
He is the Leader of the Pack - not the brightest but the biggest? - and my two collies follow him around. Unfortunately (for me, his dog-minder) we have lots of rabbits on the property at the moment.
Yesterday Escher chased one into the hay barn. It hid underneath some sheets of wood, and he barked and barked, helped by two disciple collies (who normally don't take much notice of such things). Dog-brain! I told him. Leave the bunny. Come on, let's go 'THIS WAY'. Not a chance. Escher was in the hunting zone, communing with his dog-ancestors.
He kept wandering off down the paddock to check on the bailed-up bunny. His two collie disciples would follow, and soon I'd hear the sound of distant deep-barking. Each time I'd stop stacking firewood (my favourite mid-summer task - not), grab the dog lead, and plod through the orchard to retrieve him and his friends. 'Too much barking!' I'd tell him. 'You'll get hoarse!' Horse? I'm a dog!
This morning I filled the trailer with another load. Some docile horses trotted past on the road, barked along the fence by the collies, but Escher was tied to the trailer. Phew! Then I spent two hours trimming down the driveway and watering the roses, while the dogs flopped onto their sides and all three snoozed in the sun. Phew again!. No rabbits on the dog-brain today.
And now - where to go? Yesterday afternoon I started the journey from Bergen to Oslo, both kittens asleep on my lap. I have no personal experience of the Scandanavian countries, and had no idea that there was a significant 'west coast'of Norway. Geographically hopeless, me. But learning! A wee trip in Montenegro, with 102 tunnels and 73 bridges, I reckon! Yeay for Real Time Train Journeys...
Please can I acknowledge the top photograph, which I found on a Switzerland Vacation website