A beautiful spring day out

Today, as the weather forecast was not "sunny and hot", I decided it would be an opportunity to see in real life if Justin was up to a full day's work. I do not want him to get dehydrated and tired at the same time. Target... St Sauveur le Vicomte ( on the "green lane", a converted ex-railway track going from Cherbourg to Mt St Michel ) and back. That is a thirty four kilometres round trip and hopefuly my daily travel distance.
Eight o'clock, after very noisy greetings from "The Philosopher" (as I have decided to call Justin from now on) and a few seconds chewing the mega-carrot I got him for breakfast, we set off, me with a fleece jacket, an umbrella and some sandwiches and water in my small rucksack, the dog "naked" as usual (but I have a lead and collar with me if necessary), the asse wearing his brand new halter that looks a hundred years old since he rubbed it against every single appletree in the orchard he now lives in.
We hit the track after a couple of stops in the village, once to introduce Justin to the young daughter of a couple who is building a straw house nearby and would like a ride before we go trekking and a second time by a neighbour who asked me if he could borrow my lawnmower (Justin) for a couple of weeks as he has some land that needs cleaning... He was very disappointed to learn that the lawnmower was going to clean the footpaths of France and Navarre instead, but it is a pleasure to see how welcome my new "green" friend is in our tiny village of less than 120 inhabitants. At first I was a bit worried about the noise nuisance as you can hear a donkey from miles away, but after all, there always was a "long ears" on the farm in the past. I remember when in the seventies, (we used to come on the farm for a couple of weeks holidays every year, from Marseilles where we lived then), my Great- Uncle used to own one, like almost everybody at the time. They were used to take the milk from the farm to the market or the plant were it was bottled or transformed into butter. Ah! the memories of homemade strawberry jam on thick cut slices of bread covered with equaly homemade butter straight from the tits of the beautiful Jersey cow that was looking at you from over the path with her loving eyes...
Anyway, as I write these lines, our five pairs of legs have taken us over thirty eight kilometres at an average moving speed of five point two kilometres per hour which I find really good. We were not in trekking situation, loaded and looking for directions but considering Justin's lack of training, that rings as great news to me.
He seems to have adopted my exact natural walking pace and we took the opportunity to set the correct lunge length (so that the dangling frequency matches our natural mouvements), he interprets my little tugs and my voice commands just like if we'd been round the earth twice together. Gamin was in front and checking every five seconds that we were following him. It is such a pleasure to link in such harmony, I had one of these very very rare priviledged moments when you feel so happy your heart feels like it is going to burst and you nearly cry... (well, actualy, I did and good job we were alone, people would have thought I was a nutcase, laughing and smiling stupidly...) So, well done my two little friends and thank you for these special few minutes which are going to stay in my memory for ever. Back at home, I feel very tired now so that will be all for today's post. I shall cook myself a nice tea (last few leaks of the season from the garden in a salad and eggs from our hens and chips) and go to bed early as tomorrow will be very busy again as I have miles of hedges to trim before leaving the farm for three months if I do not want to come back to a "jungle".