General Update

The run up to the agility season beginning has been quite frantic as we've had so much going on in the background. We are trying to get my Mum's house ready for sale and it's both hard work and heart breaking going through things. The house means a lot to all of us as we were all born and raised there, the house has been in our family since my parents bought it in the mid 1950's. The three of us are children of the 60's and so there are lots of memories going back over a long period of time.

Dan organised a gang to start tidying up the garden and we are gradually making progress. The garden is full of wonderful memories and it was lovely seeing it start to reappear from the brambles and overgrowth.

We have spent a lot of time on our own garden as well and it's starting to look lovely especially the long border which Julie has helped us with. We have also made a start on a new rock garden and I brought home some plants from Mum's garden and have planted them up with pansies and violas. Every time I look at them I think of Mum and how much she loved her garden and growing things. Only wish I had inherited her green fingers!

Here are some pictures of the garden:

Runner beans which we grew from seeds

Sweet peas also grown from seeds

The start of the new rockery

The pond and surrounding pots

Above and below, planters from Mum's garden

A rose about to bloom; this is the rose that Sara and Steve bought me in memory of my beloved Abbey.

Andy gave the above plant a massive haircut as it was huge and not very happy. Since its haircut it's thriving.

Below are pictures of the long border. It's lovely seeing the different colours as they emerge.

May has been a very busy month for us with the garden, house clearing and also the WAO's and Boot Camp. Andy had a fantastic time judging at the WAO's and absolutely loved the whole experience. Hopefully there will be some pictures we can post at some stage, meantime here are some from their own gallery.

Boot Camp was a brilliant, two lovely groups of handlers and dogs and on the whole decent weather. It was absolutely exhausting but very satisfying. There's a lot of work involved before and after Boot Camp as well as the training itself. We couldn't manage without our janitor Andy and equipment mover Jay. Alex is a star and always helps us pack up and load the trailer.

We managed to get some good training in with our own dogs working on tricky weave entries and European style courses, all good stuff ready for the EO. It's beginning to dawn on me that I have qualified for this event and Zeki and I really need to get practising!