International dog day

In honour of 'International Dog Day', Ann took me on a long afternoon walk in the sunshine. When we set off, the intention was to walk through the Hermitage to Liberton, and then walk up to Newington and come home via the Meadows so that I could have some more run about time.

Mmmmmm.............. half way through the walk, Ann said, 'Trixie, it's such a lovely day. Let's go to Arthurs Seat and walk through Holyrood Park to Meadowbank, then we can get a no. 5 bus home.'

So that is what we did. I ran and I ran and I ran and I rolled on my back in the grass and the best thing of all.................... I found a manky old tennis ball. Yay!  After 6.5 miles we reached the bus stop. 

And then it all went downhill!  We literally just missed the no. 5 bus by seconds and there wasn't another one for half an hour. Ann was too tired to walk any further she had a sore toe – it's fine now. While she was debating what to do, a no. 44 bus appeared so she said, 'Trixie, we'll just get on this bus. It will take us to Prince's St and then we can get a no. 11 or 16 bus home.'

OMG! You wouldn't believe how busy the no. 44 bus was. We got the last available seat, but at least we were sitting down. It was horrendously busy. I had to curl up really small under the seat because I didn't want anyone standing on me. There were people standing in the aisle, there were kids in buggy's, there were other dogs, there were people with massive suitcases, there were old people with walker thingys............

Ann really admires the Lothian Region bus drivers................... It's not just a case of driving a bus. The buses hold 150 people and the drivers have responsibility for all those people. There's drunks & drug addicts getting on the buses and causing mayhem, there's foreign people getting on who don't speak English, haven't a clue where they're going or what the payment method is, there's selfish people who take up two seats  by putting a bag on the seat next to them and refuse to move it unless asked even though they can see that the aisle is rammed full of people standing. Ann thinks bus drivers in Lothian Region get about £32,000pa. She only knows this because she's seen the ads on the back of the buses. Compared to other jobs; is that a good salary for being in charge of 150 people? My human doesn't think so.

Moving swiftly on............................. My human must not RANT! When we got to Prince's Street, it was more busy than Ann has ever seen it. The bus stops had queues a mile long OK slight exaggeration so Ann said, 'Trixie, we'll just stay on the bus till Dalry and then walk home from there.'

Getting off the bus was a challenge. We had to squeeze past everyone standing in the aisles and a cute little Westie growled at me. However, Ann couldn't have been more proud of me. I was the 'bigger dog' and I just ignored him and at least three people on the bus commented on what a well behaved little Collie pup I was. 

#smugcolliepupowner

It's the last weekend of the Edinburgh Festival.  Hopefully things will go back to normal next week?!

It took us just over half an hour to walk home from Dalry, so this afternoon we've walked about 8 miles. Tired now! In fact I went straight to bed. Fortunately I was still alert enough to know that my new manky old ball needed guarding. I put it under my chin so that if Ann tried to get it I would wake up. How clever was that?!!!


Happy International Dog Day. xxxx