Blisters, screes, sun and nettles

This week was really Belgian. On Sunday I roamed around Vrhnika for almost 4 hours with my friends from highschool (and of course with my most loyal companion) and Sambo got to try out his new equipment – a backpack with a harness that will be useful especially for our two- or three-day hike in the mountains that we're planning for the end of the summer / beginning of fall. On Monday my poor Belgian soul had only two regular walks, which I tried to correct on Tuesday, when we went running for an hour in the usual good company.

Wednesday was meant for hiking. Despite of my scepticism due to the hot weather the last few days and the chosen destination our guide decided to conquer Bivak II once more, a mostly rocky and quite big mass above Mojstrana. Soon I realized that my mountaineering boots weren't that perfect for my foot (it may be partly because they're inherited from Gregor, but I doubt it since he wears only two sizes bigger than I do…). Anyhow, after an hour or so the boot started to rub the area above my heel which I unsuccessfully tried to ignore up until the moment when my mind got occupied by the awareness that we're rising above the trees and that we'll be trapped between the rocks and the sun for the next three hours. I admit, the third ascent to this destination can easily be matched with the first one regarding the difficulty, when they took me onto this negligible 2200 m in the phase of recovery from a severe bronchitis I had… up through the scree! One would think that after such an experience a person, a normal Homo sapiens, could only be fooled once. Since this is the third time I went to this peak I wonder where would Darwin place me in the branches of the tre of evolution. It's probably better that I don't know it.

Even though the temperature of the air fell in reverse proportion to he height we were gaining, the ascent was still very hard in such a sunny and sultry weather and I have to say that this is probably the only time in my life I really sweated like a race horse. The other members of the expedition were in similar condition too; the two human members were marinading in their own juice, like me, and the dogs were grateful for every tiny twig that cast a little piece of shadow. An hour before the top they gladly took the opportunity to cool off in the cold shadow of a rocky cave and we crawled and hopped to a bench over a big area of nettles to take a short brake before the last effort. But you have to admit that Bivak II always redeems itself for the torture of hikers with truly beautiful views and the descent offers a true adrenalin-filled experience with a nicely relaxed finish – half an hour of sliding down the scree, some walking on a rocky surface and then a stroll through the forest to the car on a gently sloping path.







Thursday wasn't that exceptional, so we only had our regular walk and agility training, and today we headed to the mountains again, but this time in a more easy version. We went to Komna, but since we had a limited amount of time we really only went there, but didn't get there. This time we tried out the boots too; they were bought to protect Sambo's feet on our summer vacation on the seaside – last year he got some very nasty cuts when running through the rocks. The weather was very pleasant, sunny and not too hot, and if you're in the woods and near water it's always quite magical anyway… To as many such outings as this one!





My boys



Sambo thought it would be fun to get in between my legs, as he often does at home… while walking downhill… with saddlebags on him…



At the end it feels good to refresh oneself

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (or at least as far as we make it...)

The Black Death loves many things, travelling being one of them. Since he's a smart boy, he figured out that there's only a slim chance of getting a nice roadtrip during the exam period, and the poor fella's allowance is too small for him to afford a car. So, as it becomes of a youth of his age and the time of the year, he decided to become a backpacker :). His first adventure is of a more local sort, he conquered one of the hills nearby the city where we live, but he has an all-european tour in mind, considering his hitchhiking is successful enough, of course. So if you happen to run along the guy pictured here, please be generous and take him on board so he won't be deprived of his summer adventures because of my exams...




He added me himself using photoshop in this pic, so I wouldn't feel too left out. Looking at it I almost feel like if I was there for real...

And our brain finally caught up with us...

As I've told you in the previous post there was a double show in Hrušica for the first time this year. On Saturday my two favourite boy took me and Živa to the show and took me for short a walk with them near the show area. I was working as a ring steward with the first FCI group both days and I have to say that quite a few very nice and interesting dogs came to the Serbian judge Sunčica Lazić the first day. After work we stopped for a walk with Ivana and her numerous pack on the way to the hotel and Sambo and I took the opportunity to pose together after a long while; the fact that I was wearing some decent clothes was worth the session anyway…



Gravity doesn't really work on Belgians...



A big smile during the walk :)



On Sunday I worked with the shepherds again, this time the judge was Kenneth Edh from Sweden. Towards the end the rain tried to give us some trouble, but we still came to the end successfully as the last ring working (it was a tie with Živa's ring). So we came to the end of another successful weekend but had no time to rest because new obligations came with the new week – studying, arranging the house, agility trainings and more.

On Friday I finally managed to get some sleep and gather my stenght for the busy weekend that was ahead of me. On Saturday I had to get up early and go to the agility traning (Thursday's training was cancelled because of the rain, so we had a substitute trainig). After agility training we rushed home to help with the preparations for my dad's birthday picnic. Of course the preparations weren't the only tiresome thing, the picnic itself was quite tiresome too – so I escaped from it, to another picnic, this one in Gregor's honour. And yes, my pants still fit :).

Sunday came with another opportunity for new RO successes and Sambo and I joined the battle full of optimism. The trial was a very pleasant one despite of the raindrops here and there. There were 6 competitors in RO II and Sambo and I were the last to perform. We did very well, the only evident mistakes were a crooked Sit in one task and a less than perfect side step in another. I was pleased with our performance as we did much better than in Ljubljana, but I know we can do even better. Well, the judge was obviously less critical than me, he gave us 164 out of 170 points, which meant we were second! Here's our performance in RO II.

Since there was only one competitor in the RO III category I volunteered to double – you have to work in pairs in categories III and IV. i wanted to take the opportunity to train because I never practice with signs and I never do whole courses, I only train individual tasks as tricks. Furthermore, we'll probably compete in this category on the next trial as we have all the necessary requirements to advance into a higher level. I predicted our performance in III to be better than in II and so it was. Despite three not exactly shiny moments – the first one was my fault, I got lost in the course, again!, I have big problems with orientation between the signs (I would probably do better if I ran through the course, like in agility), especially if there's a 270 degrees turn in the course, so ¾ of a circle. I usually forget to stop, make a full circle and after two steps I realize that the next sign isn't ahead of me. That was the case here too. The second moment was fate or better said bad luck, I actually started training the table on our club's training field since I had problems with this obstacle, but this trainings don't help me at all in trials because our table is considerably larger than the one prescribed for RO and Sambo apparently doesn't perceive this as a table at all. It seems that we'll have to make a smaller table in order to train it effectively. The third moment was contributed by Sambo only, while performing one of the tasks he remembered he's a reincarnation of a Friesian and got in between my legs. Pure Sambo! I though that the least appropriate moment for such a move was when I'm walking down the stairs, now I see I can fear such an episode on RO trials too… Nevertheless, I'm very content with his performance – here's our RO III.

Enough for today. The weekend tempo hasn't calmed down yet, this Saturday I'm working on CACIB Portorož and we have agility trials the next four consecutive weekends. I hope they'll be more successful than the last ones, I'm certainly optimistic about it (as always) – apparently our brain finally caught up with us, at least in rally, so we're not only pretty anymore ;).

Greetings from the second place, type you next time!