A cold, crisp walk in the park

Don't you just love the ever changing weather in the UK?  

One of my favourite weather conditions is an unclouded day, with the sun beaming with all it's might to thaw out the frost from the previous night.

You need gloves, hat, layers  (lots of layers) and thick socks inside good boots to make sure your tootsies don't freeze and fall off.  But whilst the air is nippy, the sun feels warm.  

You look down to the frozen ground and feel the chill rising from the earth, then you look up to the sky and feel the warm sunbeams on your face.  Most invigorating.   (I sound like a daft old hippie now don't I?)

Anyway, a good time for a dog walk.

We crunched around the local field.  It was a nice change to walk on the top of the frozen grass and not sink an inch or two into the mud as we usually do.

Ruby kept herself nice and cosy warm by running about lots.   The field is enclosed, bar for a couple of small walkways, so it is nice and safe for her to play.

If we take her a toy to play with she has no interest at all, but she always tries to find something to bring home with her.  We have had plastic bottles, a biro pen, a feather, a crisp packet and a bed slat  (yes really, a bed slat).

Today's toy of choice was a tree branch.   I did try to swap it for a simple stick, but she wasn't having any of that, she wanted the whole branch.

She spots it....

She ponders it.....

She takes it....

It took her a little while to work out that it was actually quite difficult to run about with half a tree in her mouth, so she eventually gave up on it, which was a good thing  :)