Max and Paul's Excellent Adventure

Dedham has many protected buildings giving us the impression the clock had been turned back many decades. We were able to get all our produce from the local co-op supermarket, patronised one of the pubs and, of course, many a cafe. The cottage we stayed in (pic below) was well located as it was on the main street close to the centre of town. To Max's relief, there was a charity shop in town! Actually, it ended up being me buying an Italian woollen coat for next to nothing. 😊 Here are some pics of the main street One of the best things we have experienced on the rural pet sits is that we can walk through private farms where we'veseen some spectacular scenery. The owners told us of a particular walk that took us from Dedham to Flatford, a little Hamlet a mile and a half away.  The Stour River meandered through the farmland and here are some of the views along the way. We ended up at a cottage that had inspired the famous artist John Constable to paint 'The Hay Wain'  Her...

After a quick visit to Daniel and Ellen's back in London, we ventured out to a dog sit in Dedham which is on the east side of the UK. The owner was kind enough to pick us up from the train station and took us back to the house to meet the pooch and get the rundown of the property. 'Toffee' made us feel welcome and was an easy dog to sit. She even took herself off to bed at 9 o'clock every night. Toffee loved her ball and daily walks (with the ball) to the park. Whether she let it go was another matter. The concentration... And one of the tricks she learned was how to play dead.

 We drove from Dublin to Waterford via the east coast and, must say, that hiring a car in Ireland was the best thing we could have done. The VW Golf was economical and had the grunt when required. Even though the price of fuel was nearly 3.00 AUD a litre, it ended up using just under 4 litres per 100km. The car  The roads were great and the scenery was as beautiful as the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. We didn't stop anywhere for long as we needed to get to the pet sit the same day. It was so green considering Ireland was just coming out of summer and what topped it off was the perfect weather for the whole time spent here. Waterford was having a street festival on one of the weekends we were there.  Local farm animals were on display A very talented musician  The locals were making the most of the Indian summer with Guinness aplenty. I think the Irish are right when they say it tastes better in Ireland! A bit of humour from a Waterford shoe repairer They don't give way ...