Tag Archives: mountains

Happy new year

December 31, 2016 Bubbles Leave a comment

As a dog I am rather surprised about all this happy new year stuff. Humans make a lot of fuss about it, as if today will be very different from tomorrow because it will be a ‘new year’. Typical. The sun goes down and comes up again, which in itself is pretty magical every time she does that. Drawing a line between two days with an ‘old’ and a ‘new’ year is kind of…. technical.

Anyway: humans share a lot of ‘looking back on 2016’ news and that I do like. It got me thinking. It was a good year, you know. So I thought I’ll share my biggest adventures of 2016 with you.

This is The List of 2016:

February: camping for the first time with our new campervan. I guard it even more ferociously than I did before, with our old campervan. We went camping a lot this year, which was awesome.

March: helping the police to catch some burglars – that is a police officer you see in the picture, the burglars escaped. But we did find their tools!

May: exploring the woods around our home and discovering a new path that is known only to us.

July: hiking in the hot hills of Italy.

August: chilling in the high mountains of France.

September: cruising along the beach boulevard with my boy-friend.

November: exploring the vast woods around our favorite campsite.

I also want to mention the numerous times I was on the beach. We go there almost every day, so I can not call all these beach strolls a big adventure. But I do love them. There might not be a big adventure waiting there (although sometimes there is, like the times I assisted the police), but one never knows what little surprises we will encounter. They count too, you know.

Happy new year!

Darshan

November 13, 2016 Bubbles Leave a comment

M is absorbed in a book and she tells me something about it now and then. I like it when she is talking to me – when she reads I doze beside her and sometimes I pay attention to what she is saying. This book apparently is about walking. That is no surprise to me: she likes walking and when she doesn’t walk she likes to read about walking. I have the same, in a way: I like eating and running and when I don’t eat or run I like to dream about it. That and walking exciting paths.

Anyway, this book about walking is not just about the movement itself or interesting paths, it is about the philosophy of walking too. Yesterday M told me something interesting she had read. It is about darshan. That is a word in the Sanskrit language and it means seeing a divine vision. The writer of the book (check the tags down this blog for his name, M does the tags, I do not bother about them) walks in the Himalayas and sees this wonderful mountain. It is so astonishingly beautiful that it feels like a sacred place. That is what darshan means, he writes.

I have been wondering about this. M told me it is not just about seeing something divine, but about feeling it too. I do not sense much difference between that, because for us canines seeing is feeling is hearing is smelling…. well, maybe you know what I mean. For us it all comes together in one experience. I do know the feeling of darshan. It is exactly like this writer says: I feel it when I am near something beautiful. Or, better: in something beautiful. Like a magical green forest:

Or in the mountains. Especially mountains, I guess they have a lot of darshan:

But near our home I have this experience too, now and then. Mostly when we are near or on the beach and the ocean is vast and smooth under a silver sky:

I wonder: could there be darshan in food, too? It feels wonderful to see juicy food and know one will get it. But that is another feeling than I have in the mountains. So maybe that is not darshan, but something else. I wonder if the book says something about that, too. I will pay attention to what M is telling me these days…

Home

Back home

August 12, 2016 Bubbles Leave a comment

I am home again. No more mountains for walking, but the vast beach for running!

I met some new friends and we ran together. I like that!

The holiday was grand, traveling through Europe and hiking in the mountains and vineyards of Italy, Germany and France. I had a great time and so did M and P. But it is good to be back home again. I do like going on holiday and having Adventures abroad. But if I am very honest about holidays: the part I like best is coming back home. And finding that the beach is still here, and all my soft beds and my favorite viewpoint from our house.

Cats and squirrels, Holiday

Mountain wildlife

July 17, 2016 Bubbles Leave a comment

M tells me we are in the south of Germany and these mountains are called The Alps. I don’t care much about the name of the place, but I do like it here, very much. We make nice long walks and we are camping in our new campervan. When we walk M and P like to stop and have a drink and some food and they share it with me – so far I ate speck, big chunks of pancake called Kaiserschmarrn and schnitzel. So these mountains aren’t only great for walking, but also for eating out!

When we walk I smell loads of wildlife. The mountains must be swarming with it! Yesterday we sat for some drink at a place where a special kind of wildlife was roaming free. They came very close. I would have loved to catch them, they looked big and fat and juicy. Alas, M had me on a tight leash. Which was not fair. I have dreams about this wildlife now… In those dreams I do catch one of these big chunky birds and tear them to pieces. I think they will taste like Kaiserschmarrn. My mouth is watering!

Holiday

Mountains!

July 13, 2016 Bubbles Leave a comment

We are in the mountains! That is great, I love mountains. The smells here are overwhelming, the air is fresh and pure and the grass tastes delicious. I like to eat grass, all dogs do. The grass back in Holland is okay, but here in the mountains it is something else.

We walk a lot here, up and down the mountains, through woods and meadows and over rocky little paths. There is even funny white stuff in some places, stuff that tickles between my toes. M tells me it is snow. Snow in summer! This is a truly magical place.

Holiday

Summer holiday

July 8, 2016 Bubbles 1 Comment

I am very excited, because M and P are packing. Books, food and hiking gear: everything is stowed in our new campervan. We will probably leave very soon! Of course I will keep you posted about our Adventures. It will be great, I am sure of that. This will be my fourth big long summer holiday – what, do you think I can not count because I am a canine? Don’t be silly, every dog can count. Why else do you think we are annoyed when you only give us one (1) cookie?

Anyway, these big long summer holidays are always great. Last year we enjoyed the hot weather in Croatia, which was very relaxing:

We had some great Adventures too, like canoeing on an awesome lake:

The year before that we had a great time in the mountains:

And the year before that I was still a puppy, having my very first Adventures with M and P. We went biking!

I am big enough now to run next to the bike, so I will do that. I don’t fit into this basket anymore, anyway. It was already a bit cramped when I was little, as you can see.

Who knows where I will go next? I’ll let you know!

All kinds of cookies

What a year

December 28, 2015 Bubbles Leave a comment

I notice that during these days a lot of humans look back at the past year. We dogs normally don’t do that: we do not muse about the past, we do not dream about the future, we are always and totally living in the present. But I can make an exception for my human readers. Actually, it is quite nice to look back on the last year! If it was a good year, that is.

My year was certainly a good one! I made some great new friends:

We did a lot of nice long walks:

We had awesome holidays, in the mountains and near the sea!

There was plenty of time to snooze in the sun:

And new culinary experiences:

Yes, it was a good year. I hope you had a splendid year, too!

The Bubbles Diaries