The start of a journey

 

It seems that I’m often on motorways at this time of year, in the weeks leading up to Lammas, when the fields are golden with wheat and yellow with rape, and cylinders of gathered hay scatter the land.  There is something rich and hopeful about this part of the season and something calming about viewing it at speed from a long straight road that cuts through the landscape.

But there is nothing serene about this journey.  We are travelling to a specialist veterinary hospital, where our dog, Winston, will be checked over by a neurologist and receive an MRI scan, after developing a sudden weakness in his back legs.  I watch the fields unfold, attempting to dampen the anxiety of this unexpected journey.  Suddenly, I glimpse something strange at the side of the road, something I know shouldn’t be there.  For a moment, I don’t know what I’ve seen, but then I realise it is a deer, walking on the verge.  We hold our breath – she’s too close to the motorway –  but in a moment, she turns and melts safely into the trees.  I’ve often thought that the deer is the spirit of the woods, a gentle, airy spirit, barely glimpsed.  Seeing her now is a good omen, I think.

At the hospital there is talk of slipped discs and surgery, meningitis or stroke.  There is definitely a neurological problem, but it seems to be at the low end of the scale.  We leave Winston for assessment and drive home silently.  As we do, the month’s heat gathers into ominous clouds, hinting at a storm that doesn’t come.  To a house that is silent and strange without him.

The clouds finally break the next day.  A light drizzle sets in that won’t do much for the withered plants, but brings the temperature down to more comfortable levels.  We’re bringing Winston home today.  He has two calcified discs, that have caused inflammation of his spine, but they’re hopeful that it will settle with medication and physiotherapy.  He is confused and crying after the anaesthetic, panting beside me on the journey home with wide eyes.

We settle into a week of worry and waiting.  Winston has been my walking companion for almost six years.  It is because of him that I re-discovered nature.  It is on our walks that I see what I see.  But he is forced to rest, only short visits to the park at the end of the road.  Yet there are still glimpses to be had on short walks, or on no walks at all: gilded clouds above our back yard, swifts screaming high in the sky near sunset, goldfinches chattering on the telegraph wires, my only ladybird of the summer on our gate post.

A week later and we return to the hospital for a check up and to see the physio.  Dark clouds mass over the motorway once more.  Winston’s neurologist wants to watch him walk, so we take him outside to find that rain has finally come.  More than drizzle this time.  Strong, soaking rain.  We don’t care that it’s falling as we walk, we’re all refreshed by it.  And with the balm of the rain comes good news.  He is stronger, the inflammation must be settling.  We come away, for now, with instructions for massage and gentle exercises.  This is not something that will go away.  We will have to manage it, there may be things he can no longer do, it could become worse.  We don’t know how long the journey will be or where it will take us.  Back at home, I stand in the yard as the rain falls, tilting my face into it.  I’ve waited weeks for this, for the benediction of rain.  The scent of it in the air is like hope.

The soul of a dog

There is an old episode of the Twilight Zone, in which an elderly man and his dog die and make their way to the afterlife.  They approach what they believe to be heaven, only to be told that the dog isn’t allowed to enter.  The old man decides that it can’t be much of a heaven if his dog isn’t welcome, so he walks on by.  Of course, it soon becomes clear that this wasn’t heaven after all, but hell, and the devil was trying to trick him.  His loyalty to his dog saved him.  I must have watched a lot of Twilight Zones when I was young, but this one has stuck with me.

Some people believe that animals don’t have souls.  That everything they do, they do purely out of instinct or because it serves some purpose for survival.  They believe that humans are the only species with a rich interior life, full of dreams and enjoyment.  I know that my dog dreams.  I watch him sleep, his eyes fluttering, paws twitching.  Occasionally he growls, sometimes he barks – tiny barks beneath his breath that sound more like mewling.  This is one of my favourite things to witness, because I know that he’s in some other place, hopefully having fun.  It leads me to imagine which parts of his day he’s reprocessing, which scents he’s remembering, which dogs he is playing with.

I know that animals do things out of instinct and for survival.  I know that some species have very brief lives in which their purpose is only to mate.  But does that mean that a mayfly can find no joy in its flight?  Does a bird only sing so passionately to attract a mate?  Are we the only species who do something because it sings to our soul?  This seems a narrow and dull way to look at the world.

My dog finds joy in the simplest things.  Running around the beach after a ball, demolishing squeaky toys, following scents.  If he was a working dog, he’d use these skills for hunting.  Because he’s not, he uses them for play.  And in this combination of instinct and joy, my dog is sure of his purpose and puts all his effort into it, every day.   Every game is as exciting as the first.  I have no doubt that he has a soul and he feeds it with the pursuits that give him joy.

I know that my purpose is to create.  But unlike my dog, I can allow other things to get in the way.  I rarely approach the page with an enthusiasm and energy as simple as that which my dog brings to his play.  There’s a reason the devil didn’t want any dogs in hell.  Dogs sniff out the truth of the matter.  And my dog is my greatest teacher.  When I falter he reminds me by his example.  That it really is simple.  Focus on doing what you love, fiercely, every day and your soul will never go hungry.

The colour of summer

Globe thistle

Tufted vetch

Buddleia

Viper’s bugloss

Self-heal

Summer is a purple season: willowherbs, thistles and buddleia bloom in vibrant profusion, self-heal punctuates the grass, vetch curls its tendrils in the undergrowth, small clusters of viper’s bugloss and foxglove bloom in hidden spots.  The fresh whites and yellows of spring and early summer have given way to deeper colours in preparation for autumn.

Knapweed

Foxglove

Rosebay willowherb

Summer is a rainbow season.    A time for donning rainbow flags and fancy dress and taking part in colourful parades.  A season for  merry go rounds, bandstands in the park, celebration and frivolity.

Paws with pride

Winston in rainbow colours

Paws with pride 2014

Summer is a growing season.  Blackberries and rosehips are appearing in the hedgerows, green turning to orange, to red and deep purple.  Rowan berries are already ripe on the trees, while others are still green, waiting to burst.  But summer is also a dying season.  Many of the flowers that bloomed just a few weeks ago have already lost their blossoms.  Seed heads in browns, reds and ochres preview the autumn colours to come.

Rosehips

Blackberries

Rowan

It has been a summer of searing temperatures, the sixth hottest July on record.  Humid, dry, too hot to do anything comfortably.  Coinciding with something of a fallow period for me.  An occasional sea mist in the evening the only respite.  The grain harvest has arrived early in the UK, with rape and barley harvests beginning weeks earlier than normal.  Wheat harvests are predicted to be bountiful.  Before autumn arrives we’ve been doing our last outside work, those final jobs in the yard to see us through the coming winter.  And despite that fallow spell, I have done some creative work: finished one painting and started another, drafted some short stories.

Dock

Hogweed

Hogweed

Lammas falls on the first day of August and begins the season of transformation, when, as the wheat is turned into bread and sweet treats, our projects begin to bear fruit.  This is the last tide to focus on what I want to achieve this year, before the reckoning of the final harvest on the equinox.  I spent Lammas thinking about what I have created so far this year and what I still want to do before the harvest.  I think about and give thanks for the work I’ve put in, but also consider what I might have to sacrifice over the coming weeks to achieve my goals.  The day after Lammas, a hint of autumn crept in: mist over the sea, rain, thunder and wind.  The first day in many that I’ve wanted to cosy up indoors.  But the seals are still on our island, a sign that the responses I’m waiting for on my novel might still come.

Summer is a season for recognition, for sharing your gifts with the wider world.  Inese, over at Inesemjphotography recently nominated me for the Very Inspiring Blogger award.  Inese shares some wonderful photos on her site and I particularly love her nature photography.  Pat over at Plain talk and ordinary wisdom has nominated me for the Butterfly Light award.  Pat shares inspiring stories that might be told around her kitchen table.  Pat and I took part in a blog hop recently, so you can learn more about her here.  Though I no longer take part in awards, I’d like to thank Pat and Inese for thinking of me and, instead of following the rules, I’m sharing links to three bloggers I’ve recently discovered, all of whom have a strong focus on nature and connecting with the earth.  At this time of the first harvest, I hope you’ll pay them a visit:

My wild life is about the adventures of a zoologist working in the Inner Hebrides.

Maia of the birds writes about shamanism, poetry and nature.

Partridge, Pine and Peavey is about the outdoors and the people who live in it.

A dog’s nose

To a dog [a well-sprayed lamp-post] is The Times hot off the presses; latest news, social column, gossip….We smell in black and white, while a dog smells in eternal rainbows of subtle and delicate nuances. (Simon Barnes – Bird watching with your eyes closed)

 

For the first few months of our dog’s life with us, ‘up’ didn’t exist.  He lived his life at nose level and below.  Sometimes, he was puzzled at the noises he heard, such as the gulls above us, because he hadn’t yet realised there was another dimension to the world.  But already, there were things he knew that I could never know.

When I walk with my dog, we’re each having the same experience in a different way.  In sensory terms, I can only ever experience the walk in the present moment.  Though I bring to it memories, local knowledge and history, that walk will always be what is happening now.  I can see events as they unfold; I can interpret noises; I can smell strong odours; but experiencing that present moment is all that is available to me.

My dog knows things I can’t know.  He knows which dogs and people have been here before us.  He knows which way they walked.  He knows if they were friends or strangers.  A dog’s need to sniff has been likened to reading the daily newspaper.  When my dog sniffs a tree or a patch of ground and feels the need to mark it, that’s because of something he’s read in the newspaper.  When he picks up a scent and follows it, that’s because he can ‘see’ a trail that is invisible to me.

His nose can identify if a dog is male or female, what it has eaten, if it is in season and a myriad other factors.  Recent research has shown that dogs are able to smell disease.  Their nostrils work independently so that they can tell which direction a scent is coming from.  And my dog is always sniffing.  His nose rarely stops twitching, whether he’s awake or asleep, whether he is sitting before an open window at home, or walking outside.  I may believe that nothing much is occurring, but to him, there are all sorts of things going on.

A writer’s brain is like a dog’s nose.  It’s our job to see in a different way.  We can use all of our senses to experience and describe a location.  But we also have to see the things that aren’t there.  We go beyond the limits of our senses.  We people the world with imaginary characters.  We imagine events we haven’t physically seen or experienced.    We build up the layers of place, people, events until they can be experienced in a rush of sensation.    As a dog’s nose is always ‘on’, so is a writer’s brain – always observing, always sifting ideas through the ‘nose’ of our creativity.  And, just like a dog, we will suddenly pick up a scent and we’ll be away, following the idea hungrily to see where it will lead us.

Dog scenting is usually seen as a way of asserting dominance, by marking territory, but it could also be viewed as a huge effort of co-operation.  Each dog is a canine reporter, contributing his smell, his story, his ‘news’ to the doggy newspaper, so that other dogs can make better sense of the world.  And in this way we, as writers, do the same.  We don’t usually write for status, but only to interpret the world in our own unique way, which will hopefully contribute to the world’s understanding of itself.

As a lesson for living, my dog’s nose reminds me that life is lived in the present moment and that is the best way to be content.  As a lesson for writing, it reminds me that there is so much more to imagine and ‘see’ than what is in front of me.

Three go off to camp…again

Regular readers may remember that my first experience of camping wasn’t quite the experience I’d imagined it would be. I’d hoped for the adventurous, romantic camping experience suggested by Famous Five novels, but instead found something much more uncomfortable and somewhat boring.  But that experience was just a preparation for the real adventure to come, when we would be off camping again, but this time, with a multitude of dogs.

And so, on Friday 13th, we set off for Otterburn, a small village on the edge of Northumberland national park, amidst the Cheviot Hills.  We had initial flutters of unease when the sat nav wanted to take us east and we knew we needed to go west, but by going old school and reverting to the map, we foiled her and got ourselves on the right road.  The drive took us through rugged, but traditionally beautiful English countryside, with sweeping hills and valleys, heather covered moorland, clumps of forest and craggy cliffs.  The weather, which was forecast to be dry and bright, was grey and windy, but since our virgin camping trip had been in gale force winds, our confidence didn’t falter.

One of the biggest army training ranges in England is in Otterburn, so we set up our tent to the sound of shotguns and machine gun fire, but by the time we were ready, the army had given it up for the weekend and all was quiet.  The camp site was a sports ground in a rural setting.  All around us were fields full of sheep, cows and horses, enclosed by dry stone walls and lined with hedgerows.  An old barn beside the camp ground was piled with bales of hay that had recently been harvested.

Participants travel from all over the country to attend Borderfest North, where scores of Border Terriers and their people get together.  We know most of the dogs before we meet them, as they have their own Facebook pages which are regularly updated in doggy speak by their perfectly sane owners.  These ‘celebrity’ dogs were joined by a bone fide celebrity dog, Eccles, the Border Terrier who stars in the soap Coronation Street.

There was nothing boring about this camping trip – scores of people and dogs to meet, stories to share, home-cooked food and a lullaby of howling dogs as we settled to sleep.  All would have been well if we’d just gone for the day, but unfortunately, we still had the camping to do.  That is, the endless night in a freezing tent during which we decided we were never doing this again…

As always, despite the discomfort, there are moments that are precious.  The first hour or so, snuggled in our sleeping bags, warm and comfortable, as rain pattered on the tent above us.  Getting out of the tent in the early hours, everyone else asleep and seeing the stars so clearly against a deep blue sky.  Waking just before dawn to see the mist cloaking the hills, while the sheep bleated and the birds began to sing.  These are all moments I wouldn’t have experienced without that long, sleepless night under canvas.  But I’m afraid to say, our days in a tent are over.  I’ll always love the wild places, as long as I have a comfortable bed to return to when the day is done.

The biggest dog walk in the world

Earlier this month, I went for a walk with 20,000 dogs.  Tiny chihuahuas, enormous Saint Bernards, families of huskies and all kinds of dogs in between.  We walked three and a half miles with our eleven month old puppy to complete the Great North Dog Walk. The walk begins where the famous Great North Run ends and forms a large loop across grassland and above cliffs in the town of South Shields.  It really is the biggest dog walk in the world, holding the Guinness World Record.  It began with a few hundred dogs 23 years ago and now more than 20,000 dogs take part, representing 185 breeds.

There’s something exhilarating about walking with so many dogs, of all different breeds.  So many dogs with so many stories: those who have been brought up from birth to be cossetted and spoiled; those who were rescued from horrific circumstances; those who work and those who spend their lives at leisure.  You can see their diverse personalities: the ones that strain at the lead and jump around excitedly at being surrounded by so many dogs and people; those who walk sedately, seemingly aloof to all the excitement; those who are grumpy if another dog gets in their way.  And with them, their people, with their own stories and personalities.  There is no typical dog, just as there is no typical dog owner.

For us, the walk illustrated perseverance – our young dog, obviously exhausted half way through, carrying on without complaint, still with the same sense of excitement he had when he began.  And it was about that doggy magic again, of not worrying about anything else, just putting one nose in front of the other and enjoying the moment.

And afterwards was the afterglow.  As we finished, we colonised spots on the grass, groups of people and dogs.  In our own circle, two Labradors, three kinds of terrier and two spaniels.  And the people accompanying them just as diverse.  We exchanged doggy treats, strokes and cuddles with all the dogs, and home-made chocolate treats for us.  We discussed everything from homelessness to crafts and of course, the many foibles of the creatures that were our reason for being here.  So we didn’t only walk with 20,000 dogs, we also walked with more than 20,000 people, getting to know one another a little better through our common interests.   Above all, the day was about sharing – our love for our dogs, conversation, aching muscles, food and the achievements not of us, but of the creatures we spend our lives with.

My dog ended his day lying flat out on the bed, barking in his sleep in that funny way he does that sounds like he’s laughing.  His legs were twitching as he ran in his sleep.  His nose quivered as he dreamed of remembered scents and, I hope, the happy memories of the day.