Come fly with me.

Getting a dog is a big responsibility. You have to feed it, train it and take it for walks. And walking it is not something you can get away with once two or three times a week. It needs to be done everyday, preferably twice. I have a dog and I walk her on a regular basis. I walk her most days since you ask and - let me tell you - summer is by far the worse season to have to walk a dog.

Autumn is probably my favourite, it's cold and wet. When winter starts to make an appearance there's a crisp breeze, even on the sunnier days. Winter is a close second, especially if there's been a good snowfall. There's a certain romantic quality to it which is just brilliant. Not too keen when the snow starts to melt as slush and I have never had a good relationship but I love a good frost, when each footstep as that awesome crunch sound. Brilliant. Spring; well, it's ok. The woods fill with colour and birdsong which is pleasant, but it means that summer is on the way.

I'll tell you what I don't like about summer. Summer (especially this summer) is too hot. You get back from your walk and your T-Shirt is sticking to you, no amount of iced drinks seem to cool you down and it's just horrible. Then there's the flies. Oh dear God; the flies! Today was particularly bad and what prompted me to write this, at a conservative estimate I reckon I had close to a million flies buzzing round my head today. My brother and I have tried several tactics. They include
- Running. Didn't work.
- Waving our arms around like pillocks. Didn't work.
- Spraying vast amounts of insect repellent on ourselves before heading out. Didn't work.
- Spraying insect repellent on the flies (the idea being that maybe they would stay away from each other if they were sprayed with repellent). Didn't work.
- Using a bug-zapper thing; a sort of electrified tennis racket. Didn't work.

My way of not getting to bothered by them is to wear a hoodie and keep the hood up. That at least means that I'm not being bothered by them landing on my head. The trouble with that is the heat; it's too hot to wear a hoodie, let alone go for a half hour walk with the hood up.

IT'S A LIVING NIGHTMARE!

But my dog is worth all of this. Besides, if we didn't do it then she would just complain.