Lets try and be at least moderately chronological, shall we? I'll take my cue from the assorted photos that I have to play with from the last few days.
Not long after finishing our holiday, we needed to head westward to Truro to see Betty Slobb so we could collect some furniture that she's donating to her big sister. We did the almost traditional walk out to Malpas for a pint at The Heron where I had my first ever (and very minor) brush with someone's house rules about dogs.
The landlord came over as we stood at the bar and started fussing Rusty, but as he was in harness (Rusty that is - not the landlord) I politely asked him not to. We were then directed to the right hand side of the bar "dogs are allowed over that side" said Mr Landlord. "He's a guide dog and he's allowed anywhere by law," sayeth I. Mr Landlord immediately backed down and told us to make ourselves at home anywhere we liked. We actually chose to be outside so the whole, brief, conversation had been entirely unnecessary, but that's how it was. I have no Rusty photo of that walk or pub, but I do have one of Betty Slobb borrowing my jumper as it got quite nippy when the sun went down.
Mrs the Millbrooker and I decided to stay overnight with Betty and MinorEarthQwake (we always carry a couple of Rusty meal portions just in case of such eventualities.) Here's His Rustiness and me the following morning during the all-important strong black coffee.
Friday of last week then saw Mrs the Millbrooker, Rusty and yours truly heading northwards for one of my favourite pub dance outs in the Wreckers Morris calendar: The Race Horse Inn at North Hill near Launceston.
Rusticles stayed with Mrs the Millbrooker for most of the evening while I was busy hitting the twelve string for all I was worth - my amp had run out of battery so I lacked a touch of volume next to Wrichard Wrecker's melodeon and Gordon's well amped bass.
Rusty thoroughly enjoyed his Morris evening, making friends with a local pooch and charming all and sundry. Our good friend Julia who lives in North Hill took the Rusty shots here...
I think someone told Rusty the old joke "Why did the German Shepherd have to go to court? He hadn't paid his barking fine". I've mentioned before that Rusty's sense of humour isn't sophisticated, but he does enjoy a corny joke...
And then the really BIG DAY came around. While I was training with Rusty in Weston Super Mare, I was told his birth date. And it's the 31st of May. Yes, indeed, on Saturday just gone His Rustiness turned 2. Needless to say we thought it the least we could do to hold some sort of a gathering.
The weather was warm(ish) and changeable, but I took the risk and declared it a barbecue day. Earlier we'd noticed that Rusticles had a bit of a lump on his head which turned out to be a tick embedded just above his right eye. We smothered it with Vaseline as advised by the vet pending getting our hands on a tick remover. Apparently the Vaseline smothers them and sometimes they drop off by themselves after this treatment. This one certainly did.
Before Rusty's guests arrived, I took him out for a special birthday walk up towards Wiggle over the fields and took the official birthday portrait.
In the early evening, people started arriving and Rusty got to eat his special birthday tea (exactly the same as every other tea, that's how it is for guide dogs) as his guests looked on.
Aperitifs were were quaffed by the assembled throng, and barbecuing got underway.
Here we have Slocombe (with ale) and Grandma Dong the Legend at the aperitif phase.
Cooking got started in earnest and Rusty helped to supervise while Grandma Dong the Legend stood by.
Soon we all sat down to good old slap up in Rusty's honour. Can you spot His Rustiness in one of his favourite places in this photo, boys and girls?
Yes, well done eagle-eyed readers - there he is......
After he'd been underneath the table for a while, Rusty decided that wandering his domain would be more fun and chose to spend some of the time hiding behind a clump of crocosmia in the weed patch that we laughingly refer to as our garden.
There are, of course, a minimum of two rituals to be observed on a birthday. Firstly a toast to the birthday boy (or girl).We did that one.
And then there's the cake, candles and singing "Happy Birthday". We did that one, too. And Rusty blew out his own candles by walking past wagging his back end enthusiastically and creating enough draught to extinguish the flames.
Here's that very wagging in action as he gets some fussing from Grandma Dong the Legend. Followed by the result thereof. I have no photo of the candles alight, Rusticles was a bit quick to blow them out.
With Rusty's birthday over, it was time for another: Betty Slobb celebrated her birthday just two days later with a long walk from Looe up the West Looe River to Duloe. Here she is with MinorEarthQwake at the start of the walk, just before treading in a pile of Rusty's recently emitted "spend". She even knew it was there, I was looking for some leaves to clear it up and into the undergrowth.
I'll tell the rest of the walk story in photos only - it was very muddy and obstacle strewn. Quite an adventure, I'd say.
Regular readers might remember that our destination of Duloe is the village that Rosemary calls home, we called in and enjoyed a nice cuppa, some birthday cake and a spot or two of bubbly. Oops, might have got a tad over excited with the bubbly.
The day was rounded off with a slap up feast at Bistro Pierre in the Royal William Yard. Where Rusticles once again assumed his accustomed place among the table legs and did one of his favourite things. Sleeping.
Phew - what a social whirl. I'm just off to pop an ice pack onto my fevered brow........ tune in again soon for more Rusty news and utter nonsense from me.
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