A merry time was had by all at Christmas Common this week on the December school trip! Barley, Fergus, Bob, Jambo, Jack, and Thor had great fun exploring a wooded hillside, searching for elves and festive treats. Starting from the Watlington Hill National Trust Car Park, we followed the well marked paths through ash and beech trees and found some beautiful open grassland and views of the Oxfordshire Plain.

The origin of the Chiltern Hamlet’s name is a little uncertain, it might be linked to a Christmas Day truce during the English Civil War, local holly tree coppices or the local Christmas family. No time for the dogs to ponder this though, there were too many rabbit holes to sniff and trees to run around.

Bob and Jambo are serial rabbit hole divers, so were kept on the lead with Thor staying keeping them company, watching Barley and Fergus chasing each other up and down the slopes. We had a very lovely walk, but also the least successful group photo to date… Convincing six dogs to sit still with so many exciting things to smell and wee on is very tricky!!

For August's afternoon outing we made our way to Aston Rowant Nature Reserve with the same crew as last month (Ted Gus and Thor), plus Lola! The reserve is located just on the edge of the Chilterns, and has really beautiful grasslands and views, despite it's proximity to the M40. We had fun spotting all the red kites, along with chalk hill blue butterflies and green woodpeckers, as well as walking the sculpture trail which had some hilariously bizarre wind-up listening posts.

Obviously the dogs didn't care about the views, wildlife or M40, they were simply happy to run around a new place! They had lots of fun together, Ted and Lola bounding around like little lions and Gus and Thor playing nicely. There was also a tremendous number of blackberries of which Lola, being no stranger to wild foraging, snaffled an impressive number!