By noon on the 18th, Beenham the fronts had cleared eastwards, allowing a showery NW'ly flow to set in. Stats: Overnight low 6C, high, 11C, rainfall 30mm, thickness 544dam (00z).

After tearing myself away from the Internet this morning, it was time to take a trek up to Beenham to meet the wolves again.

Annoyingly, I forgot to take my camera today, so there are no pictures to share this time.

Anyway, from my point of view the weather's taken a change for the better - gone is the sunshine of the past few days, with low cloud and persistent rain leading to a fair amount of spray as I zipped around the London Oribital. While heading along the small country lane that leads to Beenham the clouds broke and I actually got to see a small bit of blue sky; it was shortlived, though, as it started drizzling by the time I drew up at the wolf trust.

Most of the wolves are in a school as I'm writing this, (as part of the Trust's seminar they're holding today), but much to my delight they were all there at the trust as I arrived. A few minutes afterwards, Alba (the European alpha wolf) threw back his head and let out a.... silent howl. Strange to see (although I'm sure he knew what he was doing), and the other wolves all joined in proper howling soon after. Four out of four visits have seen the wolves howl as I'm arriving or shortly afterwards, it's almost as if they're saying "hello", almost....

It actually felt quite wintry today. There was a light breeze, but the rain and the darkness of the skies leant it a special feel - the fact the temperature was struggling to break 10C helped as well. The wolves are still in their winter finery, with no signs of moulting; maybe they've read a long range forecast predicting cold weather!

The wolves had decided not to go into their kennels last night, instead preferring to greet the rain outside. This meant there was no cleaning required, but rather than send us all back home it was decided we'd pull up burdock plants (as used in the odd sounding but nice tasting Dandelion & Burdock drink, although these were weeds).

It doesn't sound exciting, but there was a twist - we were pulling up plants anywhere from an inch to a foot away from the old pair of wolves, Kodiak and Kenai, and they were very interested in us all. We'd hopped over the fence that keeps people away from the main enclosure mesh, and digging around in the mud (while it was raining), with wolves sniffing you, jumping up on the mesh and chewing on random bits of grass is something I'll not forget in a hurry.

There were some bits of plants we had to leave behind, as those wolves are... well, not that they'd bite your finger off, but it's best not to give them the chance! As it'll be their 10th birthday on Tuesday, I'd suggested giving them their favourite treats, hotdog sausages - yet for some reason feeding them to the wolves is not something people seem too keen on. I'm sure I'll find out why one of these days....

After cleaning up and enjoying a flying lunch, it was time to head for home - mainly dry, but there were a couple of torrential downpours on the way back. The temperature was still struggling to get above 10C as well, a completely different feel to things from the last few days. It looks like when I'm off next Sunday to see the wolves again, things will be much warmer - but I can hope, I can hope.....

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