more books

On my last trip to Millets, I spotted a pile of Country Walking magazines on the counter and just had to buy one. I'm a sucker for magazines and find it very difficult to resist the glossy, colourful covers gleaming from newstands. I cut my teeth on Cosmopolitan, Company, Glamour and the like and graduated to, er, House & Home. Nah, just kidding.

But I can sit and enjoy a magazine on many subjects. I like the photos, the short and to-the-point articles. Relaxation reading, easy on the eye and on the brain. I draw the line at Hello and that ilk, but even that I will devour shamelessly while, say, I'm waiting at the dentist for instance. But I did grow rather tired of women's glossies after 20 years of reading them and now I can't remember the last time I bought one. I just don't think they have anything new to tell me.

Country Walking is a different matter altogether. That has plenty to tell me - where to walk, how to walk, what to wear when I walk and what to take with me, who to walk with (or not). I think they covered everything I needed to know in that one issue - so now I can't wait for next month's to find out what else I don't know.

At £3.70 I thought the price was a bit steep for a monthly, though. That's 4.68 Euro, 7.46 Canadian and, what, about 15 American.

Okay, okay, so that's a slight exaggeration. But, hell, I never thought I'd see the day the American dollar was roughly on par with a Canadian one. When did the American dollar become so worthless? Must ring my broker - buy, buy! Oh, I don't have a broker? That's a shame, perhaps I should get one for my birthday.

But seriously, folks...

Another fantastic book (if you happen to live in Southwest England) and not at all over-priced is one that is often advertised on the Google ads that appear on this blog (see bottom right). Toby's Dog Friendly Walks. It's a book of walks in this area written "by dogs for dogs". Cute. And I think the book is turning into a series of books, which is even better.

There seems to be no end to the number of books giving details of walks all over the country & the world. But the ones that tell you the important stuff from a dog's point of view are more rare. Things like where the wooded path you are following suddenly comes out onto a road so that you need to put your dog back on a lead, where you might round a corner and come upon livestock. And, most importantly, where all the good sticks are. So, big shout out to Toby for a job well done. What a clever Dalmatian you are. My Finnish Lapphunds applaud you.


Distance - 6.25 miles
Time - 2.12
Dog(s) - Neka
Weather - mainly cloudy
Could I do another 5? - unlikely