Had an appointment in Launceston at 2.00pm.

Not going to waste a trip to “Launie” on a Saturday when all the shops are open, at least in the morning so planned to get there before 12.00pm.

Alps and Amici, little bit of fruit and veg, ordered 100g each of fennel salami and bresaola sliced thin. Perused the shelves, chocolate chocolate seemed half an hour had gone by. Ah, THERE they are. Dark chocolate bits, for use in cooking (chocolate cake flavored with star anise and served with coffee cream happening soon.) Salami sliced and packaged, ordered three chicken meatballs for the mutt, a nice pastry for me. We sat in the car and consumed the comestibles, yum! I had also bought a country loaf—real bread!

After leaving the establishment of the signori Alps & Amici went a bit downmarket to Youngs Vege Shed. Bought a few things, 2 lots rhubarb stalks,  punnet strawberries (stew both together, preserve.) Hmmm galangal! Yes, metheglyn! An even more amazing discovery awaited: blood oranges! Already! Yes!

Bought just under 2Kg of the blood oranges. Going to make Blood Orange Marmalade with Cinnamon but will flavor it with ginger. There is a conversation somewhere here where I and DNArever discuss ginger to enhance a marmalade. Have some ginger at home but bought extra anyway.

Recipe will be published here later today.

Nearly 1000 words and no mention of the Walk, the avowed subject of this thread, God I dribble on, eh?

Anyway, stow my fruit, veg and herbs in the boot, open the back door of the car, click the lead onto the bitch’s collar and we go off for a walk. If you can search Google maps (I bet a few here can’t {smirk} ) you will see the North Esk, ( a *river* ) is nearby. So out the carpark, maybe 30m further and I unclip the lead and Socks celebrates her freedom with a run so fast I lose track of where the hell she went. Socks can run, as I think I have stated dozens of times before. So we follow the usual route, crossing the North Esk next to a decrepit rail crossing now firmly closed and along the river. This time we don’t take the University footbridge across the North Esk but keep heading to Invermay Rd that crosses the N. Esk. No footpath under the road so we retrace our steps (near that busy road I clip the lead back onto Socks’ collar) then just before recrossing the North Esk, since I have over 90 minutes to my appointment, we turn left and follow the river then a kilometre or so further we leave that path and enter the University of Tasmania grounds.

Well that was nice! A triceratops (a dinosaur, Booby) statue outside what must be the geology or palaeontology Dept, engineering looking things outside what must be the Engineering Dept. Bit further, dormitories on the right—I stopped Socks heading that way, private business, not ours. Eventually we were back on the riverbank and returned to the car. Of to Coles and I spent nearly $30—Socks’ food only!

I think dogs like retracing old routes and exploring new ones. Socks did both today, did some nice running and met a Jack Russell/Staffordshire Bull Terrier cross. Both dogs got on well with each other and the owner was happy to chinwag for a while. Think his dog has the terrier self will and stubbornness from both sides of the cross 

Drove to my appointment, soon finished and homewards we went.