Walking The Dog

Tough training day yesterday. After doing absolutely zero, zilch, nada on Saturday (when I'd had a walk scheduled with Natalie and piked because I was too tired), I actually felt pretty good. I put on one of my yoga DVDs in the morning and did a little posing and then after a midday nap, I took Bubbles for a walk. For a whole hour!! It's a little pathetic when my weekend run would normally be up around the two hour mark but I gotta do what I gotta do.

Iven and Nelson came for the first part of the walk with us but Nelson's 14 year old almost non-existent hip joints stop him from doing more than about 20 minutes now and that has to be done very conservatively. We walked through the bush at the back of the school next door then crossed the road to the park. It's all very pretty and we're so lucky to have such an expanse of green right near our door and only about 5k from the city. And when you're walking you really get to appreciate it, seeing as you're actually able to see it instead of zooming right by.

It was a pleasant summer's afternoon and both the school oval and the park were being well used. There were games of touch football, Frisbee, kids riding bikes, kids on the playground equipment and people out walking dogs. There was one woman in particular walking her dog and she was just a little ahead of us on the footpath - I was keeping my eye on her because our dogs are not the friendliest while out on their walks. Nelson isn't friendly because he's been attacked quite viciously when he was young. We don't really know Bubbles history - she was a stray who stayed.

When Bubbles first arrived at our house she was a scared, shy little thing. She weighs about 4 kgs dripping wet and has some miniature fox terrier in her and that's about all I know. Sam said she followed him. I tend to think there was some coaxing involved. She spent the first week at our house with her tail between her legs, cowering a lot while I spent the first week trying to find her real home and then our home became her real home and her tail came out into the wagging position and the rest is a six year history. We have no idea how long she was lost when we found her and no idea what happened to her while she was out in the big, bad world. But we do know that she doesn't like being approached while out on her walks.

Anyway, back to the lady in front of us with the black poodle that I was keeping my eye on. She had the dog on one of those extendible leads that I hate. I hate them because the owners her use them often wander unaware of what their dog is up to. They let them extend across the path of pedestrians, runners and walkers - the perfect tripping hazard. And they let their dog stop and sniff whatever and whoever they want - including other dogs that don't want to be sniffed. Bubbles made it quite clear that she was in this category - she snarled and her hackles went up - but the poodle was kinda dumb and so was its owner. She stood with a silly aren't-they-cute smile on her face and let that poodle wander over in our direction, with Bubbles snarling and barking and me trying to pull her away. And then I did something awful - I turned into a nasty old lady who says exactly what she thinks. I told her that our dogs weren't very friendly (I would have thought that was fairly obvious) and she'd do well to keep her dog restrained. And then I muttered Stupid Cow under my breath. At least I'm hoping it was under my breath but I'm not sure because I was so stunned with this woman's lack of common sense.

I'm turning into a shrew! But for the moment I'm blaming my inability to run. And I'm praying desperately that as I return to running I will become a nicer person.

But lack of running has given me ample baking time. Three batches of cupcakes over the weekend, I've got another birthday on Tuesday and had to get a cake done for Fi yesterday cause I start work today. I wanted to do her the cookie dough cake because my kids have deemed it 'kinda awesome.' But I do the birthday cakes in a four inch tin and didn't know how I could put in the cookie dough. Until my totally-inept-in-the-kitchen-but-can-make-a-pretty-good-cup-of-tea husband gave me inspiration. He asked if I couldn't put a layer of cookie dough under the icing. Well no, that was just plain stupid BUT I could cut the cake in half and put the dough between the layers. So I rolled out the dough and cut it with a big cookie cutter. 

It turned out better than I'd hoped for.


Have you ever let your mouth have free reign and tell off a stranger?