A wet walk and more painting

Another wet day today and we went for a walk in our local woodland which has the River Alyn running through.  My black labrador Holly loves it here and always has to have a swim.  She finds a stick (the biggest she can find) and then runs around us waiting for us to throw it into the river so she can dive in fetch it - she would do this all day and is a typical water loving lab.  After all the heavy rain there was a lot of water gushing down the river as you can see in the photograph below.  During the summer months the water usually disappears down swallow holes and the river bed is dry along this section.

After our walk we stopped at Caffi Florence for an early yummy lunch (ham and sweet potato soup for me and a sausage sandwich for Gary) then back home as I had family visiting. When they left it was back out again for a run as I'm trying to get fit for a challenge I've signed up to later this year (I've got a long way to go yet before I'm anywhere near fit enough though!). This evening I spent some time finishing off the painting I was working on yesterday for the wildlife journal, adding a grey seal we saw in Angel Bay on the Little Orme and a fulmar as we saw many of these lovely birds flying around and perched on the cliff edges.  At first glance they appear gull like but are actually related to albatrosses and can be distinguished from gulls by their stiff wing flight and tubed noses. The photograph below was taken by Gary Jones in the lower quarry at the Little Orme

 and here is a blurred photo of the journal page taken on my phone ....

Tomorrow is my last day off before returning to work after the Christmas break - it's forecast rain again but I'll be out and about at some point - you have to when you've got a labrador!

Highlights of the day today - having a lovely walk this morning - seeing my gorgeous niece and nephew this afternoon - going on a run and feeling really good afterwards that I'd been on a run!