Waggy Walks 2011

Kenfig Nature Reserve is such a beautiful place to walk and, as we did the Dogs Trust's sponsored Waggy Walk today, we covered 10km of it. That's 10km, mostly up and over dunes, in glorious sunshine, with three dogs, I hasten to add. There were concerns that the event would be called off due to the surprisingly warm weather, but, bag loaded with water and beef chunks (high quality treats indeed), we set off ahead of the pack to get a head start so that we wouldn't have to obey the rule about dogs being kept on their leads at all times or find ourselves being held up by possible ditherers with no opportunity to overtake on narrow,winding pathways. As the weather was as it was, it also made sense not to hang around in the heat waiting for the official start time and to instead allow ourselves the opportunity to stop for a drink and breather as and when we needed to, without a Dogs Trust-yellow throng pushing us forward in single file. The chance to walk at our own pace, with regular breaks to drink, turned out to be most welcome with the sun bearing down on us throughout. We met some nice people along the way, the dogs were so well behaved and afterwards enjoyed a dip in the pool, the largest freshwater lake in the south of Wales. I was ever so proud of my boys and also pleased to discover that 10km is hardly anything; we must cover such a distance on the majority of our regular walks.

Through sponsorship, we raised more than £300 for Dogs Trust and had some spare change left over to collect and deliver a gratefully-received donation of food to the more modest rescue kennels from which we had adopted our two terriers.

It was a really lovely day and couldn't have gone better.