An attempt at Tarn Hows, with more success at Yew Tree Tarn - July 2015

This beautiful setting proved to be traumatic for Usko, as he was attacked by another dog. I'll spare you the gory details here, but include them at the end if you want an in depth account. So unfortunately we didn't get to see much of Tarn Hows, as we needed to get back to Ambleside (and then Windermere) for vet intervention.

Blood dripping from his head, still smiling, right before he had a sedative

4 stitches and 2 other smaller puncture wounds left to heal. Poor furboy.  He was very lovely to deal with post-sedation: I must admit, I wondered about asking the vet if we could have some supplies for home ;-)

All that aside, we did manage to walk some of Tarn Hows before we had to about-turn to the car park.  All 5 human family members were there, which I know I said would not happen again, but Grandma was playing the organ at a wedding in Coniston, and Papa was recovering from both hip and heart surgeries (brilliantly well I might add) so we thought it best to leave him free of boisterous charges for the afternoon.

Our first sighting of Tarn Hows

Lily pads visible, but alas not in bloom yet

He can't have been comfortable!

One keeps one's sunhat on one's head by wearing one's hood over the top. So I am informed.

(unbeknown to us: damaged) dog on tree stump

Boys on a log

That was the morning of 18th July. We then spent the afternoon at the vets' and received instructions not to walk Usko while he had stitches in.  So John and I very cheekily asked if we could go out for the evening, leaving boys human and fur behind.  Do not worry! Grandma was home by this point, and boy1 is capable of babysitting his brothers anyway. Plus the furboy was as placid as a placid thing, just watching the world go by in a disinterested fashion.

So off we trotted, to Yew Tree Tarn.  Being 7.30pm, we found a parking space with ease. We also saw no other single human being for the whole walk: bliss!

Yew Tree Tarn

I tried out various functions on my fancy-pants camera when I could remember how to access them. It seems I am of an age now where I need to carry an instruction manual with me. If I can remember where I put it...

There were foxgloves a-go-go

At the dam end of the tarn

Gotta have a gate photo!

We followed the path past Tom Gill (yeah, I know right?!) to see Tarn Hows again

Photo of me photographing

I do like a handsome smiling man to pep up a waterfall picture from time to time ;-)

Not only were there foxgloves a-go-go, there were slugs Ev-Er-E-Where.  For a couple of minutes we tried shouting 'slug' to one another whenever we saw one. It quickly became pointless because we would have uttered no other word in the english language for the entire evening.

After a while tramping through the woods, we came out the other side to see Tarn Hows from a bit further round where we'd been in the morning.  It was still lovely :-)

The sun had set, so we decided we had better head back before the woods got dark and scary. And we might have trodden on unwitting slugs in the process.  So off we trotted along a 'short cut' which turned out to be anything but.  Mind you there were beautiful views, which made back-tracking through bracken and brambles just about worth it.

Sorry, I'm a sucker for those gate pics...

Even the side of the road was pretty :-)

We returned to Yew Tree Tarn with light to spare, so decided to walk round it. At least then I would have circumnavigated a lake!

The north end

And then we jumped in the car to venture to Yew Tree Farm, which I wanted to snap. It was used in the film 'Miss Potter': made up to look like her Hill Top house.  Very quaint looking it is too. Although the house is now a holiday let, and the farm itself is further away. My mother-in-law buys meat from the farm occasionally, and has very good things to say about the owners :-)

It's a good job my camera works so well in dim light: this was 9.30pm!

So, not quite the day or walk we had planned; though it turned out well.  You may wish to know that Usko is recovering wonderfully, and was his usual bouncy self by the time we returned from our evening walk ;-)

The dog attack story: (cut an pasted from a message I sent a friend. I'm too lazy to retell it from scratch!)

So we were walking along a path around a lake. Not a particularly wide path, but wide enough that we could have all fitted across it.

I saw that a guy and his retriever were coming towards us, so I moved over to the left side of the path, with Usko on my left (so being on the very outside of the path) on a very short lead. I assumed the other guy would put his dog to his left, and walk past to my right, so it would be dog-person-person-dog. But no. The retriever was on a lead about 4 feet long and his owner let it come right up to Usko, thereby cutting in front of me. The retriever came round on the outside of Usko (so, to his left, making it retriever-Usko-me-man) and I was trapped, unable to move Usko forward and walk on. There were the usual couple of seconds of sniffing and then they just started fighting. The retriever had Usko's ear in his mouth at one point, or so I thought. Turns out is was the top of his head where the damage was done. I don't really remember how we got out of the situation... it was a tangle of dog and lead. the other dog was called Oscar which didn't help! Fortunately for Oscar, Usko was wearing his head collar, which restricts his mouth opening, so he wasn't able to inflict much damage, otherwise it would have been horrific, I imagine. We checked him over but could find nothing wrong. He did a huge poo a minute later but then I think I would have too!! Anyway, it was only a while later, when a couple asked us what breed he is, and I was stroking the top of his head that I saw the huge gash there.

The vet old us that the wounds were down to the muscle. Our poor pooch had just carried on walking, though I can only imagine he must have been in a lot of pain :-(

Although I know it was not my fault, it has made me realise that I need to ask people to keep their dogs on their other side so that I can just walk on with my boy when I need to.