Wednesday 2 October 2013

Breakfast with the Kingfisher – Monday 30th September 2013

This morning we were having breakfast and looked out of the window to see this Kingfisher on the opposite bank. We watched it for quite a while and then it caught a fish and finally flew off when the first boat came by. We would never have expected to see a Kingfisher at Fazeley Junction of all places.
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Today is a special day because the reason I fetched the car was so that we could go to the Puppy Walker Recognition Day at Guide Dogs new breeding centre at Tollgate. So after wishing Graham and Carolann a very happy wedding anniversary we headed off to just the other side of Warwick.
Arriving at Guide Dogs we were met by our Supervisor who happened to be on car park duty and then we went into the meeting room with nearly 200 invited Puppy Walkers for coffee and biscuits.
The photos below show the new Breeding Centre, a couple of supervisors and a trainer and below some of the invites puppywalkers.
122 GD School
There were presentations on the research work being done at the centre, question and answer sessions and demonstrations of dogs working in an obstacle course. The yellow Labrador is Penny who was walked by some  friends from our Puppy Class.
129 Dog Work
We also went along the viewing galleries so that we could see the young pups who had been born at the centre or had just come in for the first few days before going out to their new Puppy Walker. The litter pictured here is from a Brood Bitch who attends our class and one of the pups will be going to Katherine another PW who was with us on the day and we were all trying to guess which one she would be having next week.
143 Pups
The day was rounded off with a talk by Penny Hefferan about the eight Guide Dogs she has had since she was 19 years old. It was such a moving talk that I think everybody was in tears by the end.
We said our goodbyes to the old and new friends we had made in the Guide Family and headed back home to drop off the car before catching the train and bus back to Fazeley. We arrived back just before 6pm and arranged with Carolann and Graham to try the Ivory Tusk Indian Restaurant in Fazeley as it had been recommended to us by several boaters. We had a nice meal but it was not quite up to the standard of our local Indian.

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