Cookham Matters

I think it’s fair to say that thunder and lightning would not be the preferred conditions to host a dog training walk.  It’s August as you recall, you kind of hope that it might be like high summer?  Sort of hot and maybe even a bit sweaty?  If not hot, then warm?  And sunny?  As it was, Cookham Dog Walkers showed their mettle – they are a hardy lot it seems, they just pulled on their wellies, turned up the collars on their sowesters and grabbed their sodden dog treats to attend regardless.  Of course, the dogs were entirely oblivious to the wet, they were just thrilled to meet some new friends.  Jia, a Tibetan Terrier decided the best way to demonstrate her enthusiasm was by running everywhere, extremely fast and preferably whilst jumping.  Which was fine because Honey, who purely by coincidence is also Tibetan Terrier (X Poodle), was easily her match.  Milo the Bichon Frise was a little overwhelmed by the girls, so he very sensibly kept his head down and concentrated on being an ex

Due to an epic house-keeping failure on Saturday, we were forced to eat out.  Very fortunately, Cookham Matters HQ is within walking distance of every hostelry in the village – so we are spoilt for choice. Of we set to Uncle Toms and unsurprisingly, it was heaving.  You could barely move out the front and the back had reserved on every table.  The girl went to ask if it was possible to squeeze a couple of little ones in, but unfortunately not.  Packed to the gunnels.  Rammed.  This left us with a dilemma, and is where this post might become a little contentious, because we all have our favourite pub don’t we? By far our nearest pub is The Chequers.  We were Friday night regulars along with many in the area.  Carlos was quite simply the best front of house host I have ever come across and we were welcomed and very comfortable, even when just having a drink.  We ate there only for special occasions and it is true that I found myself wishing that in addition to the white table cl

It’s about a month since the 100 year old Lime tree at the junction of Alleyns Lane and Dean Lane was felled because of damage to it’s tree roots.  You’ll remember that the drainage contractors dug a trench across the small green and through the Lime’s fine network of roots, and then they cut straight through the electric mains.  South East Electricity had to come in to repair, and they caused more damage to the root system as they were trying to reconnect us to the network – hence we lost the tree.  The drainage contractors were required to apply for permission from the RBWM (as the landowners), to dig the trench and, in doing so, they should have been given a Root Protection Area (RPA) to map out a safe dig.  There are questions regarding what was requested, issued and followed in this process, and the RBWM planning enforcement team started an investigation.  We have a single point of contact in the RBWM and I have asked three times now for an update of their investigation - with no

We recently had our Sunday morning dog walk cut short.  We had stopped to chat to the owners of a similar, but much larger, dog.  Everyone was off lead and no-one, canine or human, seemed anxious about that.  Our dogs have been very well socialised from puppies and whilst they are never going to win the obedience class at Crufts, they are largely responsive and reasonably well trained.  Moments in though, play turned nasty and it was clear that the other dog became aggressive towards one of ours.  It was very noisy with fur flying and none of us knew how to intervene.  Fortunately, rather than run in panic away from us, our dog ran TO us and cowered as close to my partner’s legs as possible, screaming.  He had a nasty bite to his ear, but more upsetting was his fear.  The people obviously apologised and went on their way so we could head home in the same direction, to try and sort the wound out.  It was at this point that a family who had witnessed the incident, approached us to say t