#doginlake

[kenesha11]

[byron130]

Thursday 11th May 2017: What a day. The sun was out and we all drove to Beaumaris where we took a boat trip to Puffin Island (for those who don’t know; Puffins are my favourite birds in the world) and we were lucky enough to see one or two circus of puffins quite close up, along with lots of other birds that live on the island and even a few seals. After this Lynnette wanted to take us to Church Island which they’d found a few days ago - it’s literally a church with a huge graveyard on an island of it’s own….she knew I’d love it! What I didn’t expect was to find that the church ‘St Tysilio’s’ was built in 630 A.D making it 1, 387 years old!!! And if that wasn’t incredible enough to get our heads around we learned, when googled, that the huge yew tree which stands at the entrance of the churchyard is actually FIVE THOUSAND years old! Minds. Blown.

We thought we’d had enough ‘wow’ moments today but the last was probably the scariest and most traumatic for myself and Philip. As we were chilling out in the evening I decided I wanted to they to get a photo of the little Sun Grebe that had constantly evaded me for two days so I parked a chair on the jetty and waited. Unfortunately Alfie was wandering outside with me and after spotting something under the water he suddenly shocked myself and philip by just diving straight in. The water is extremely deep and Alfie, being a dachshund, is a teeny-tiny dog. I saw him jump and sink and I nearly threw up. I screamed Philip’s name, he ran to the jetty and I threw off my camera just as Alfie resurfaced with terrified eyes and his little face covered in lake weeds. We dragged him out and as much as he was shaken and scared I still think it was Philip and I that will remain traumatised for a long time after witnessing that scene. I honestly thought we’d lost him. Horrific. At least we both know we would have gone in after him had he not come up when he did. The power of love that animals have over us. Unimaginable.