Tuesday 16 June 2015

Luci’s diary: finding out how much fun travel can be

Lucis Diary. Shes discovered the delights of travel. And the joy of the car – which takes you somewhere great whatever direction it’s travelling. 















Late May 2015


Travel – wow – it’s just great!

Now, I didn’t always like the car. Got to admit that. My number 2 human even had to clean up a bit of – well, how should I put it – regurgitated material on one of my early trips. But I soon learned to enjoy it. 

The thing is that it takes you to nice places.

The humans find me a bit odd, because I’m always so keen to jump into the car, at the end of a walk as much as when we set out for one. But, hey, it makes sense. I like the places we go to walk, and I like home. So obviously I like going either way. And because the car always takes me walking or home, I like the car.

On the other hand, you can get too much of it. We had hour after hour the other day. By the end, frankly, I was getting a bit fed up. But then we turned up in this most fantastic place. It’s in Yorkshire, and I’ve decided that Yorkshire is God’s own County. I’ve decided that because it sounds good, even though I don’t know just what a County is, let alone God. Still, there’s nothing you can say about Yorkshire that I’d think was too nice.

First of all, you can walk, and walk, and walk. We stayed in a place called Malham. There’s grass all over the place. With loads of new things for me to get to know – sheep, for instance, and rabbits – and lots of crows to chase. Wonderful.

And there’s lots of water

Water – such fun when it behaves and stays still.
Well, of course I already knew about water. I’d seen it in my bowl, where it’s useful but a bit dull. Then you get it in other places where it isn’t dull at all, but nasty and tricksy. Streams, for instance. The water never stops moving. It tugs at you. It swirls at you. You can’t trust it at all.

Well, near Malham’s there’s this great place. It’s called the Tarn. That’s a patch of water that behaves itself like it should: it sits still. So you can go in and jump about and have fun. And, boy, it’s fun. What a blast.

And back in Malham itself, there are other great places. Pubs, for instance. Where they actually want dogs to come in. Fantastic. There was a character in one of them who decided that what he really, really wanted to do was share his meal with me. He gave me half his hamburger. See what I mean? God’s own county.

Now that’s what I call a friend
We had such a good time in Malham that I was really happy to get back into the car. That surprised the humans again – “if you like this place so much, how come you’re happy to go somewhere else?” They’re a bit slow sometimes.

Look, the car took me somewhere I really liked. So it was obviously going to take me somewhere else I
’d really like. What’s so hard to understand?

And I was right! We went to Scotland, and there was a small human in the place we stayed. Wow. I really like the small ones. And this one kept trying to train me, which meant doing things like sitting down or coming over to her. Those were things I wanted to do anyway, but training means you get treats for doing them. Fantastic. It was wonderful getting her to do what I wanted.

But there was more water. Another kind. So big. Salty too – no fun to drink. And, wow, does it move. Worse than a stream. It has these waves, right, and they break on you. You might be sniffing at the water, and one of them sneaks up and makes this great, cracking noise right over your head before drenching you.

And that isn’t the worst of it. It chases you up the beach! Appalling.

Still, we had fun all the same. A good trip. Really liked the people. Really liked the food. Really liked the places. Why, to be honest, I even quite enjoyed the water, though it was a bit scary at times.

And then: joy! We got back into the car. And we went home! Magical. Amazing. 

The car’s just fantastic.

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