We had a wonderful (late) honeymoon in Northumberland – and like on our wedding day, the weather has been kind to us. While there were stories from the rest of the country of storms and torrential rain – we mostly had sunshine and blue skies. It only rained on one day, so we were very fortunate. It was our first longer trip away with Zoly – and he seemed to have a lovely time; lots of walks, new experiences, time off lead, things to smell and potential friends to meet and play with. He was really good – coped with the long walks well and slept between us most nights.

On our last morning we thought that Zoly should have a good walk and be emptied out before the long train journey back to Bristol, so Mike took him down to Alnmouth beach for one last time while Matthew finished packing the bags and updated the visitor’s book. The tide was the furthest out that I’d seen it and the sand was very soft underfoot. There were some other dogs for Zoly to play with and he ran into the river a few times. It was a shame to have to turn back for the house.

When we returned to the cottage a small dove was wandering about outside the door – Zoly was fascinated (and salivating)!

Our train from Alnmouth was at 11 and we saw Jill the house-owner as we were leaving. There was an interesting information board, especially about the history of Alnmouth station. The routes we’d taken on some of our walks to Alnwick was along the proposed new heritage steam train route.

We changed trains at Durham and then Birmingham – Zoly was an angel on the train – and as usual had lots of pats and strokes compliments and admiring looks. Everything went smoothly, even though the trains were very full. We arrived back in Bristol at 4:00 and Mike walked Zoly home via Victoria Park to give him a bit of additional exercise before diner and Matthew took all our bags home in a taxi.

We expected to him some trouble persuading Zoly to sleep back in his own bed – but he wasn’t too bad – only two attempts to get on our bed, but each time we took him back to his bed and the second time he stayed there ’til morning. He’s a fast learner that dog!

We hope you’ve enjoyed reading about trip and seeing some of our pictures. Hopefully we’ll be traveling by bicycle next time with a dog trailer for Zoly.