I had to take both dogs to the vet this morning for a check-up (do you know, you can’t get basic wormer, etc anymore if they haven’t seen the dog/cat in a while?) and I was also worried about Pepper. She rolled off the chaise longue in my shed a few days back and then walked funny for a while.  Anyway, both Pepper and Ted behaved appallingly, just like two wildly over-excited terriers.  I was ashamed.

Afterwards, wanting some calm time, I took them to the beach for a walk.  It was possibly me that needed the calm time.  You should’ve seen P&T – chaos.

The beach was deserted and we all walked up and down enjoying the instant peace.

This is a beach where occasionally I find a groatie buckie – the Shetland name for the Northern cowrie shell (Trivia arctica – I could not love that name more)

My method is to pick a tideline with small debris, look down, give up, stop looking and then have a conversation with the sea with my request and bingo, I found two!

I was very pleased.

The downside of groatie buckie searching is that I can spend the entire dog walk with my head looking at the ground, which is not ideal as small dogs can take advantage of this and leave the scene.

Anyway, I was on the case and, having had my request fulfilled by the sea, I pocketed my two groatie buckie and gave up my search, concentrating fully now on the dogs.

This was a perfect way to spend some time after the tortuous visit to the vet, created entirely by my two dogs. Ted even bit me when I picked him up to sit on the examining table.  A new low!  And that’s why we don’t go to the vet very often.