Of mud and dogs and the shires

Anyone who's walked in the English countryside knows that there is a large amount of this...

necessitating the wearing of these ...

The keen-eyed will observe that these are in fact a pair of Hunters, de rigueur for the Tory set (accessorised perhaps with a flowery Boden skirt, a trug and a chinless husband). I would like to point out that none of these qualifications apply to me. Nor do I own a Barbour jacket or a range rover, or speak fluent horse. 


However, I do live in close-ish proximity to some pretty shire countryside ...

where yesterday, in a brief window of sunshine, I went for a walk ...

... Old Faithful plodding behind - a solo treat as a reward for undergoing an uncomfortable procedure at the vet, involving an injection of dye into his eyes and an undignified seeping of luminous green liquid from the nose like Halloween Dog. See the hint of reproach in his gaze

Not much fazes this African boy, though, who survived a brutal start to life as a starved wee runt in Mandela Park squatter camp in Cape Town. Look at him now, a well-padded English shire-hound, trotting after his Hunters Wellie-clad mistress!

Off we go, squelching through the woods

with an eye open to detail, the signs of autumn