Blue finally gets to meet The Big Outside – Win Green

(I know, I know, something other than puppy-posts soon, I promise. She’s a bit all-consuming at the moment!)

So, finally, Blue has had her second injection and we can take her to meet the Big Outside. Where did we walk her for this landmark event? There was never any doubt – we didn’t even need to talk about it.

Win Green.

Oh, how we love that place!

It’s not much – just a hill top. The highest hill top for miles, from which there is a 360º view of the chalk downlands surround the Cranborne Chase. Tis magic I tell you. The tip of the hill has a small clump of trees standing on a Bronze Age Barrow, always a very special place to stand and just… be still… and breathe…and listen.

It’s the very first place my then-boyfriend (now-husband) took me, on our very first visit to Dorset. We’ve spent countless nights there, lying on our backs just watching the stars. We went there to absorb the news of impending babies, family deaths. To talk over life plans. Resolve arguments. Cure bad moods and Sunday-Sluggishness. To walk our toddlers in the shoulder-high grasses. To show the outside to our first brand new puppy Holly, to stretch her legs when she was too old to walk any further but still loved to get out and smell the flowers. And to scatter her ashes under the beloved trees.

Where else on earth would we want to walk Blue first?

Of course, there was snow. But in any weather, at any time of year, it never fails to lift my spirits and breathe a sense of calm and connection into me.

There wasn’t much snow, the wind was too strong and kept it sweeping across the hilltop. But man the wind was BITING!

Stilll, after a hesitant start Blue seemed to take it all in her stride…