To Burnham Market for an eventful training Sam with Martin Sullivan and then on to Horning to host Diana for a few days with dinner with Gerry at Mr Chann's
Up and then the journey to Martin Sullivan's caravan near Burnham Market. I had not received the map and instructions on how to get there due to the vagaries of the postal service again but eventually found the site and met up with Martin and his family.
**"Read More" BELOW for the complete story**
His wife was kind enough to give me a drink and snack and so I did not go hungry. I was a bit embarrassed at the tussle between Martin and his wife over who would have their car and felt sure that my late arrival and alternative plans was the cause of the trouble.
The rain had been pouring down, but it had cleared up by the time all this was over. Martin took me for quite a drive to some fields of set aside and then sugar beet.
I ran in some set aside first and Sam, though lacking control, found and stolidly pointed a pheasant and flushed it when we were up with him and ready for him to do so. Martin then took me through a hedge and ran his dog first through some sugar beet.
I then was just getting Sam under control and in his stride when we were accosted by first a contract farmer and then a gamekeeper. It transpired that we were not in the land within our permitted training area and so, with Martin being a police officer, we were embarrassed and had to leave with all four tails between our legs!
Some dummy work and use of the dummy launcher on a nearby common in which Sam ran well to the mark and retrieved but the other dog was both lame and needed close handler control to pick the dummies. It is sad because it had a beautiful temperament and Martin has expended so much training effort on it only for it to develop three inherited physical faults.
It has a bad leg, an ingrown eyelid and only one testicle descended and the other had to be removed. All this from a breeder who is both a vet and chairman of our GSP Club branch and therefore so much for line breeding from champions!
I got away in late afternoon and only just arrived behind Diana and the girls. Even so, I was glad that I had prepared the place for their arrival as I was supposed to have slept there the night before and I was also frightened that there would be some strands of Wiggly's hair or some other sign that she had been sleeping in Di's bed from the times she had been there.
I need not have worried, for the place looked fine and she did not notice anything. I persuaded Diana to go out for dinner at Mr Chann's and got her drunk on a bottle and a half of wine for good measure.
The atmosphere there was quite subdued with Gerry himself coming out from time to time to serve and greet the customers now that the children had deserted the serving task.