Long Car Park Walk - March 2013

Posing before the walk.

a photo from Julie Champion

BASSET HOUND CAMP

The committee have been toying with the idea of holding a camping & caravanning weekend but have not been able to come up with a suitable venue.

Ideally we would want a field where we could all gather with a large number of hounds, there were 32 on our last walk so perhaps that many, maybe more. There might be some who wouldn't want to stay the night so it would have to be possible for them to join us say for a barbecue/picnic at around lunchtime. Perhaps a campsite with an event field.

©Sheila Williams

Some might want to have electric hook up. It may be that those wanting electricity will have to park in a different part of the campsite to those without.

As part of the event we would want to take all the hounds on a walk so ideally if it were a place from which we could just embark on a walk or if not somewhere close to a suitable walk.

As for location, I would prefer somewhere in South East England away from where we normally hold our walks but the committee is open to ideas. 

Of course one problem with going somewhere unfamiliar is apart from finding the venue we also have to find somewhere suitable to walk 30+ Basset Hounds.

Does anyone know of a campsite or perhaps even of a farm where an event like that might be held?

Any ideas, thoughts? Please let me know, click here to send me an email.

Click on the images to view them larger.

Thurber

I’d heard about ‘Mutley’ but not, until just the other day, met him. On one our regular routes through the fields outside the village there he was with his keeper, keeper not owner, his owner’s mother residing in the town at the other side of the fields, she did explain but can’t remember why, anyway it has no bearing on what I have to say. Always a pleasure to bump into another Basset of course, if you hadn’t guessed, ‘Mutley’ is a Basset Hound. Attempts to recruit ‘Mutley’ and his crew to join us on Branch Walks were unfortunately evaded.

However what ‘mother’ did remind me of was James Thurber, not that she resembled him in the least but during our conversation she suggested that he had drawn cartoon Bassets, I was sceptical. I had a vague memory of Thurber’s drawings and did remember Thurber dogs. Back home I sniffed out a few images on the net and came away more confused. Somehow I felt these were not Bassets but perhaps poorly, from an anatomical point of view, drawn Bloodhounds, from a humorous point of view, the point after all, brilliantly drawn. Frustrated, I promptly ordered a copy of the Library of America publication ‘James Thurber Writings & Drawings’.

There it was, on page 83, proof, part two of a piece, “The Seal in the Bedroom”, written/drawn in 1932 “The Bloodhound and the Bug”. As, much of the Bloodhound’s bug stalking is done close to the ground ‘mother’ might be forgiven for thinking him a Basset.

So I have ‘Mutley’ to thank, if not for ‘Mutley’, I wouldn’t have had a conversation with ‘mother’, for reintroducing me to Thurber. Am looking forward to reading “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, “My Life and Hard Times”, Fables of Our Time”, “Is Sex Necessary?” and many other gems.

Clearly Bloodhounds in this cartoon

Webmaster Makes a Mistake

If you have been looking at our website, www.southeastbasset.org.uk, you will have noticed that the venue for this Sunday's, 21st October 2012,  walk has changed.

We are walking from Broadstone Car Park on the Ashdown Forest.

Unfortunately it seems I was asleep at some point at a committee meeting and missed the discussion which led to a change from what was originally suggested.

My apologies to all.

Abbots Wood Walk

Dill dons perfume

A welcome drink

Not quite everyone

Time for home.
One more Hound to fit in!