Scaling Mont Blanc

At the moment SuperModel is still finding the outside world a bit scary.

We have been making the most of our last few holiday days before the In-Charge is back at college, which has resulted in our introducing her to rather a lot of new places at once.
We took her to the woods the first day.
When asked if she had enjoyed the experience, she wasn't sure. She thought she might have done, but confessed she had spent a good bit of the walk worrying what the ultimate destination might prove to be.

Next, we took her to our favourite beach. She was very reluctant to enter the car in case we were moving her on again - this is her 4th location in as many weeks, after all - but she perked up considerably when we got there.
At the beach the In-Charge persuaded me to let her off the lead which I did - reluctantly. After just two days she certainly didn't know her name, but there was no one there, and the tide was right out, so the sand stretched invitingly from here to Manhattan. They raced and chased and she circled and returned, circled and returned, and then - just as I was starting to relax she took off and flew towards the distant sand dunes.

First day at the beach

Fortunately the In-Charge is much calmer than I am. He sent Model Dog after her, and when they were both standing in the distant marram grass looking from us to the high dunes behind them and back again, he blew his whistle. I think I held my breath as Model Dog streamed back across the sand towards us, but our new arrival followed after only a moment's hesitation. I put her back on the lead after that. Even if she hadn't had enough exercise, I'd had enough palpitations.

By our third outing, she was happier to get into the car. We took her to the headland and the two of them flew over the bumpy mounds in ecstasy. It was wonderful to watch.
Model Dog was over the moon to have someone to chase, someone to chase her. I was surprised to find that Model Dog, who is larger and heavier, is also faster, despite SuperModel's racing chassis. I wonder how long that will last?

Race time

On the way home we passed several groups walking the coast road in the afternoon sunshine, their pooches trotting happily along the grass verge. SuperModel barked viciously out of the back window at each and every one.
We aren't used to barking dogs. The hounds of our experience have been almost completely silent.
'What's she saying?' I asked the In-Charge.
'This is MY road, MY headland, MY car and MY family. GO AWAY! NOW!' he replied promptly.
Silly me.

This afternoon, our last day off, we decided to go back to the headland, but when we got there it was full of people, so instead we drove to the far end of the woods. It's a place we rarely go to, so it has the special feel of Christmas, or snow, or high days and holidays.

When we got to the end of the walk, I was so chilled out, I allowed the In-Charge to lead me onto the narrow path that carries on along the top of the steep, wooded bank. It is high, high above the river, very overgrown, very muddy and to my mind, akin to a goat ledge on the top of Mont Blanc.
Not for humans.
Not this human, anyway. I fall off stepladders if I go higher than the second rung.
Even worse, the other side of the track is dense with prickly hedgerow and barbed wire screening off tantalizing glimpses of blissfully flat, level, green fields. But fields containing sheep and horses and hares - all those things that an un-tried hound mustn't be let near.

View from the goat path

It was - if not exactly fine and dandy - at least survivable, until we came to the end of the chamois trail.
Then, happily, I spotted our escape route back to the real world. 'Oh look, there are steps down to the river.' I said brightly.
Ho ho.
There were some rough steps. All three of them.
However, going on seemed better than turning back, so we continued down the fisherman's path, clambering through brambles, holly bushes and fallen wood until we reached the water.
Safe at last, I thought, visions of tea and Christmas cake flitting temptingly through my head, but about a hundred yards further on, the In-Charge, nobly leading the way, announced that we had come to the end of anything that could remotely be called passable.
'Is the river very deep here?' I asked hopefully. Paddling had never seemed so appealing. Even in walking boots and January-cold water.
'Yes,' he said, peering in. He sounded uncompromising.

We ended up scaling the North Face.
My gorgeous son in New Zealand likes mountain climbing. Totally mad, but what can you do?

I, on the other hand, prefer my mountains on post cards.

The North Face

I am deeply un-athletic.
My sister gyms and runs, my brother cycles to Paris and back, Wonder-brother rushes about renovating houses.
I eat too much and waddle forth for leisurely walks with the dogs.

There was nothing leisurely about that particular walk. Model Dog set off, unfazed, heroically coming back to my side whenever she thought I'd been stationary for too long. 'It's all right for you,' I told her, somewhat resentfully. 'You can just leap and scrabble and dig in your claws and propel yourself vertically into the air over vast tracts of impassable undergrowth.'
I, on the other hand, ascended somewhat less elegantly, scrambling upwards on knees, toes, hands and chin, tummy moulded to the dripping incline, using my elbows, teeth and fingernails to hang on to anything more deeply rooted than moss. Bracken, which I've never given much thought to, has risen in my estimation, and after frantically chanting 'Don't look down, don't look down!' the whole way up, I see how mantras have become so popular.

All in all, it was not a pretty sight.

The In-Charge hauled me up the worst bits in true movie-hero style (my arm has nearly settled back into its socket, thank you). He kindly pointed out various hand and footholds, but they were mostly out of my reach, and all nestled in the slippery, oily mud slyly concealed beneath the fragile plants clinging to the vertical slope.
Not having either a goat or a monkey as a grandparent, I can't say it was one of my happier sorties into the woods.
Our new baby didn't seem full of the joys either. She hovered uncertainly behind me, deftly following my lumbering ascent, her stilettos doing a better job than my sturdy walking boots and scrabbling fingers.

What are we DOING here?

Three times I thought the ledge above my head was the longed-for chamois trail, only to find it was just another ledge. And then, as with fading resolve I launched myself at the final ascent, SuperModel surged upwards, leapt onto the path, and disappeared through an infinitesimal gap in the hedge to the forbidden pastures beyond.
Oh woe. Oh calamity. Oh impetus like no other.
I levitated the last five yards.
We called. I shouted. Finally I hollered and ran - yes, ran - along the goat path trying to find a break in the brambles so that I could even see her. She was having a fine time, chasing perceived or imaginary scents to and fro across the field and paying no attention to us whatsoever. Mercifully there was no livestock in sight, and being a man of movie-hero propensities, the In-Charge had already managed to lever himself through the brambles and over the wire. I gave Model Dog a hearty shove in the same direction and did the only thing I could do. Call our errant SuperModel and watch.

The In Charge strolled in a leisurely way to mid-field and then squatted down, called Model Dog in and started making an extravagant fuss of her. In less than a minute SuperModel had paused, circled and then taken the bait, sidling in to be cuddled as well. A moment later he'd slipped her lead on, picked her up and lifted her over the fence.


When we finally got home, I'd largely recovered from my urgent need for a medicinal brandy, but we were all so wet and dirty it seemed as good a time as any to give SuperModel a bath.
She endured it with good grace and was very pleased with herself as we towelled her dry in the warm kitchen afterwards. She bounced around looking like a coy coat hanger covered in blonde fluff, but after shaking several times and licking herself all over, she curled up in her bed and went out like a light, an old T shirt for a duvet.

Tired but oh so happy. Or is it, happy but oh so tired?

Four days into her new adventure, I think she has definitely clicked 'Like'.
We certainly have.

Tomorrow she is booked in for her first visit to the dreaded Needle-Lady to be vaccinated and chipped.
Let's hope that doesn't make her change her mind!

Supermodels in Stilettos

There is a new member of our family.
No one could bear the perpetual emptiness in our house any longer.
She came last week - or to be more precise, we went and got her. A mere five-and-a-bit hour trip each way, but I had a gut feeling it would be worth it.
She was rescued a few weeks ago by Great Hounds in Need, and put into foster care.

A new addition to the family

I have huge, massive, unending admiration for foster mothers.
You open your heart and your home to take in a nervous, often abused, usually hungry and inevitably needy dog, who has no idea what your intentions are and who might be very unwilling to trust you. For days, possibly weeks, perhaps even months, you lavish your all - calling up heretofore unsuspected reserves of patience, putting up with accidents, countering jealousy on the part of your own dogs, and I can only begin to imagine what else - and then, just as you have fallen in love with the newcomer and shown it that not all humans are horrible, a 'forever' owner descends and takes it away.
I couldn't do it. It's probably due to my inherant bossiness, but I'd never be convinced that anyone else would look after the rescue-ee to my satisfaction.
Thank heavens there are 'better men than I am, Gungadin'.

Despite my inability to be of any real use, I am 'Friends' with half the rescue agencies in Ireland, and having seen this girl's photo on facebook, I'd been in touch with the Agency and her foster mother, Eileen. She only lives a few hours south of us, which seemed handy, but over Christmas, through no one's fault,  it apparently became necessary to move the dog to another foster home - on the far side of the country.
Last week, as we set off two hours before dawn, it felt more like the far side of the world!

Impossibly long legs

What I had seen on facebook was a bedraggled, very skinny hound who looked - as they so often do, God love them - lost and resigned. She had been found straying, obviously hungry and homeless. I'd been told she was nervous and wary around men, but she was lucky, she had no physical injuries - unlike the puppy found this week whose throat has been cut from ear to ear, or the almost hairless dog found in a ditch a few days ago, smothered in cooking oil and covered from head to toe in dog bites. Both creatures alive - just.
What some people do to animals beggars belief.

Isn't it shocking that the complete neglect our dog has suffered seems almost trivial by comparison? But I am thankful nothing worse had happened to her. When we arrived at our destination at lunchtime last Wednesday, it was to find a tall, pretty, but unbelievably thin blonde hound running happily round a stable yard with a bevy of other dogs, including a shaggy wolfhound. She was wary and very shy, but she came to say hello and seemed pleased to meet the Model Dog, 
She wasn't quite so pleased to be put in our car an hour later and driven away, but despite her tense, anxious looks she was as good as gold on the long journey home. Jo, her second foster mother had told me that she'd obviously never been socialised and had no language - she didn't recognise any words - but a couple of weeks in foster care had introduced her to the possibility of a whole new world, so even though she didn't understand, we reassured her as much as possible.

Eeeek - there's a man on the end of my lead

Since then it has been, as with all new arrivals, a slow but steady process of  getting to know each other.
She doesn't cry at night, but she barked at the In-Charge the first time they were alone together - as if to say 'Just keep your distance, buddy!'
She is clean in the house, apart from one little accident the first morning when I couldn't get my boots on fast enough, and she is perpetually hungry.
She has no concept of what a name is, although it's starting to dawn on her that we say one particular word to her an awful lot, and - four days in - she also strongly suspects that 'Sit!' or 'Good Girl', and even 'No!' might have some personal relevance.

Butter wouldn't melt - and who stole my scarf, young lady?

I'm not yet convinced of her intentions towards the cats, and, since The Incident in the kitchen the other evening, am steadfastly refusing to buy into her wide-eyed innocence where they are concerned. The cats are more nonchalant than I am, and rub against her and butt her nose with their faces, but at the moment she is still firmly on a lead when we go outside the back door, and is only allowed to run around in the garden when they are securely locked indoors and the hens are in the hen house. I have seen her dreaming up several delicious ways of serving fresh hen!
There are moments when I wish we loved Labradors.

But she's only a youngster and I'm sure she will learn very quickly, and in the meantime she is adorable, affectionate and drop-dead gorgeous She has kohl-lined eyes, impossibly long legs, ultra-fashionable black nail polish, extremely high stilettos, and a beautiful, pale honey coat.
And she is, currently, anorexia-thin.
A SuperModel, in fact.

A SuperModel who is relaxing a bit more each day.
And a SuperModel who already has a big fan club.

Endings and Beginnings

We have been going to the beach every day since we got back from England. It gives the days a real holiday feeling, which is daft because we live within sight of the sea, and it's only a five minute walk to the water. But even so, we don't go that way every day. Usually I go to the woods.

I will go to the woods again soon, but not yet.

Distant Benbulben and Knocknarea across the bay

We had to pick up a trailer-load of logs from Charlie, so we went to Portavad, a beach we rarely visit as it's further away. It was beautiful. Quiescent. Perhaps because it isn't imbued with memories of other walks.
A ghost-less beach.
We went there again today, to take the trailer back.

It's where the sea comes into the estuary at Ballysadare, so the roar of the ocean is muted, and the water laps calmly along the shell-littered shore. A short distance out, seals flop on the sandbanks, and Sligo's iconic mountains lounge just the other side of the bay.

There was no one else there.
A spit of land, rough with marram grass, stretches for a mile or so, the sea and the beach on one side, a shallow lagoon and pasture on the other. Cattle and sheep graze there, and one or two fishing boats keel into the muddy flats when the tide is out.

One-dog Badminton

Model Dog, true to her name, is not interested in the sheep or the cattle. She spent a good while tossing a piece of dried up seaweed around and catching it, like a shuttlecock, trashing the smooth sand.

Afterwards, she watched the geese and oystercatchers along the shoreline, and stared intently across the water, no doubt seeing the dogs and walkers strolling the wide beach on the far side of the bay better than we could. To us, they were just moving dots below the sharp, sun-drenched dunes under Knocknarea.

Beautiful Model Dog

It was very peaceful as we strolled along, picking up pieces of sea glass and looking through our binoculars at the heron, the distant walkers and a lone seal periscoping up through the swell in the middle of the bay. Two men were painting the hull of their fishing boat in the lagoon.

A quiet way to end the year.
A year that, like all years, has been a bit of a lucky dip.

On the way back, a rainbow arched its way across the bay and plunged into the sea. There are many rainbows here, but they never cease to be special and they always catch at me, always make me stop and look.
They are filled with promise. They light up the heart with hope.

Early this morning, as I walked through the cool, damp orchard, something crunched lightly under my feet.
It was the tips of the new daffodil leaves, piercing up through the grass.
And under the copper beech, the first snowdrops are already in flower.
'Nothing is certain, only the certain Spring.' *
The certain Spring - and the belief that no matter how hopeless things seem, there is always hope.

Happy New Year

The first snowdrops

* from The Burning of the Leaves by Lawrence Binyon

A Suffolk Christmas

My sister's 'pet' pheasant.

December, normally one of my happiest months, has been so overshadowed this year, that it seems to have passed me by. But Christmas itself was lovely - truly lovely.
The In-Charge and I flew to England to spend four brief days with my parents, my sister and my brother-in-law, and it was the best thing we could have done.
For one thing it forcibly removed us from the axis point of our very real grief.

They all live in Suffolk, a part of England we have loved for many years - even before first my sister and then my parents moved there. Some of my father's family originally came from Suffolk, and he has happy childhood memories rooted in the county.
When I visited in the spring, it was a dust-bowl that had received only 8mm of rain in three months.
No longer.
The flooded fields visible first from the plane and then driving East from Stanstead were a sight more familiar in the Emerald Isle. My parents, who live in a charming 500 year old weaver's cottage, are fortunately located at the highest point of their village, so water has not been an issue, but my sister, whose own delightful house is probably of similar age, lives in a picturesque country lane beside an ancient ford. Fortunately the building is also raised out of harm's way, but the ford - through which she and others have to pass in order to commune with the outside world - has been in full, and deceptive, spate. In the last few weeks it has seen off not only her car, but also at least two others whose owners mistakenly thought they could cross unscathed.

'Earth cares for her own ruins, naught for ours' - cars included.

We have only spent two other Christmases in England in the last 19 years, and it was lovely to do so this year. A balm - a much needed balm - to our sore hearts.
And to my delight I found these creations nestling amongst the presents under the Christmas tree.
They were not there as gifts but have apparently - in my extended absence - become part of my parents' yuletide tradition. They were made some years ago by my aunt, my mother's twin.

Oh how I do love knitting!

I don't suppose they quite qualify as guerrilla knitting, but I'm very willing to make an exception!
Although, now I come to think of it, in the politics of the time, I suppose this lot were pretty much all guerrillas!

Especially these guys.

I particularly love the black and white lambs - but then that's not really surprising, is it?

On Boxing Day, or Stephen's Day as I've learned to call it in Ireland, we went for a long walk - on the safe side of the ford - and ended up at the tiny Church of All Saints, lost in a copse of trees in the best Meaulnes tradition.

Built in the 14th and 15th centuries, it was a gem and a delight, decorated throughout with bunches of holly for the recent candlelit carol service. The church was apparently restored to its original medieval glory in 1862, when the changes made in the 17th and 18th centuries were rectified. The whole church was beautiful, from its hammerbeam roof and painted coat of arms to its stained glass windows, but the bits that pleased us all the most were the poppyhead pew ends, each carved with different leaves and fruit. I particularly like knowing who carved them (and everything else in the church) 150 years ago - James Wormald and William Polly. What pleasure it must have given them to create so many beautiful objects.
Some of them are decidedly Christmassey.

Holly

And, of course, ivy

And the pear tree, although I didn't see a partridge lurking amongst the leaves.

Works of art, each and every one - quite beautiful.

There may not have been a partridge on the pew, but there is a crow perched on the top of the little spire. Apparently it was put there when the church was renovated again in 2004.

The day was just fading and rain beginning to spit as we arrived back at my sister's house, the pretty lights in the bushes around her windows shining to welcome us home. We sat around the fire and ate far too many delicious mince pies and slices of cake for tea, all washed down with mulled wine or a cuppa according to taste, while Tilly, her new cat, went from lap to lap to be stroked and admired.

What a perfect way to spend Christmas.

Tilly being admired

Sweet Boys

Oystercatchers on our favourite beach

Yesterday we went to our favourite beach.
It felt like a pilgrimage - difficult. Something to prepare yourself for.
Comforting and painful in equal parts.

The tide was out and oystercatchers clustered on the sand, along with flocks of delicate brown and white birds that I recognise but cannot name. My sister would know what they are.
A lavender grey sky, heavy with rain, paused for us on the horizon, waiting patiently until we left, but the promised wind was already flirting with the dunes, sending scarves of dry sand snaking across the surface of the beach.
No one was there.
No one but ghosts. And us.

Model Dog looked up and down the beach and raced off, but only the wind chased her and finally she walked along tucked between us, the beautiful collar I bought her for Christmas gleaming pink and gold in her camouflage fur. She wasn't sad, just a bit lonely.

We are sad though.
December has been a month full of sorrow, and memories, and gratitude, and loneliness.
We buried Under Dog in the orchard on the 1st of December. He hadn't been well for a long time, and the balance was suddenly tipping the wrong way so that I was no longer sure if enjoyment was uppermost.
We had known it was coming.
It doesn't really help much though, does it - knowing?

We didn't know at the time that it would be our last walk on the beach

But, bad as that was, there was worse to come.

What we didn't know was that Top Dog was only holding on for his brother.
Although I might have known. He's always looked after his twin, right from the start. When they were just little plippys, he'd climb in and lie on top of Under Dog in the basket to keep him safe. (Hence the name, Under Dog.) Such sweet plippys they were. They slept like that for years, until Under Dog had his awful accident and damaged his back. Top Dog never climbed in on top of him again after that.

Thirteen years we had them - and I am grateful for every one, even though time has embedded them so deep in our hearts they can't be removed without taking huge slices of us too.

Sweet plippys

Some unfathomable instinct had warned me that when one of them called time, the other wouldn't want to stay for long on his own. It's why we got Model Dog in May.
But I never dreamed we'd only have ten days grace.

It was very sudden. A quiet, happy Sunday chewing his marrow bone, but then awful pain in the evening which the vet's injections didn't really alleviate. He lay calmly in his basket all night, watching us, obviously uncomfortable, but not distressed. We wondered if he'd swallowed a bit of bone.
We hoped. Too anxious to talk, we just watched and hoped.
The vet met us again at her surgery before first light, and I held his sweet face in my hands as he fell asleep, but the operation only revealed that there was nothing to be done. It wasn't a bit of bone. Our poor Top Dog was bleeding internally from a tumour tangling around his blood vessels and the kindest thing was to kiss him and let him go with our blessing, without waking up.
The kindest thing for him, not for us.

He had seemed so fit and well. Ageing, but fit and well.
But it explained why he hasn't wanted to walk very far recently. Why he'd hide behind my legs when Model Dog was racing and chasing, why he'd handed the responsibility for small jobs over to her - like going out with me to feed the hens.

We buried him next to his brother. Model Dog sat and watched, visibly appalled, as his grave was dug. When we placed him in it, she tried to get in too, and the next day I saw her carry his bone up to the orchard and leave it close to where he lies.

Model Dog and I didn't go to the woods for a week or more afterwards.
I couldn't face it, and still find it difficult. They are there, two black and white ghosts dancing through the trees, racing down every ride, swimming in the river, running along the bank.
They are carefree, full of joy.


Nothing can prepare you for how you will react when something happens. The morning he died, I removed Top Dog's bed from the kitchen because I couldn't bear to see it, perpetually empty. And I sent an email to the family, to my friends, to people I might bump into, because he was so important a figure in our lives that I needed to 'stop the clocks'. Everyone had to be told of his death immediately, so that I wouldn't have to explain later, although I couldn't bring myself to speak to anyone except my own two boys.
But how kind people are. I hadn't thought beyond the ordeal of telling them, and I was more touched than I can say by the kind messages, the texts, cards, emails, even flowers we received during the following days and weeks. Such an outpouring of love and comfort - it has helped so much.

Candles for the Winter Solstice

And on the Winter Solstice - that day when for so many generations our ancestors have reached out from the enclosing darkness to welcome the return of the light - I filled the windowsill with candles in memory of them, in celebration of their years and the joy they brought us, the companionship, the trust, the love - in gratitude for the continuance of them.

They are woven in, woven in. Nothing can remove those we have loved, and truly, it is only ourselves we weep for, not for them, for they 'have slipped the surly bonds of Earth/And danced the skies...' *

But the trouble is, neither of us can quite get used to a world without them.

More than ever, I am grateful for my lovely Model Dog.

A dear friend sent me this poem in the days after Top Dog died.
It made me cry all over again, but it is beautiful, and I think you will like it. It was written by Mary Oliver.

Her Grave  

She would come back, dripping thick water, from the green bog.
She would fall at my feet, she would draw the black skin
from her gums, in a hideous and wonderful smile -
and I would rub my hands over her pricked ears and her cunning elbows,
and I would hug the barrel of her body, amazed at the unassuming
perfect arch of her neck.
                                            

It took four of us to carry her into the woods.
We did not think of music,
but, anyway, it began to rain
slowly.
                                          

Her wolfish, invitational,  half pounce.

Her great and lordly satisfaction at having chased something

My great and lordly satisfaction at her splash
of happiness as she barged
through the pitch pines swiping my face with her
wild, slightly mossy tongue.
                                       

Does the hummingbird think he himself invented his crimson throat?
 He is wiser than that, I think.

A dog lives fifteen years, if you're lucky.

Do the cranes crying out in the high clouds
think it is all their own music?

A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you
do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the
trees, or the laws which pertain to them.

Does the bear wandering in the autumn up the side of the hill
think all by herself she has imagined the refuge and the refreshment
of her slumber?

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the
smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know
almost nothing.

Does the water snake with his backbone of diamonds think
the black tunnel on the bank of the pond is a palace
of his own making?

She roved ahead of us through the fields, yet would come back, or

wait for me, or be somewhere

Now she is buried under the pines. 

Nor will I argue it, or pray for anything but modesty, and

not be angry.

Through the trees there is the sound of the wind, palavering.

The smell of the pine needles, what is it but a taste

of the infallible energies?

How strong was her dark body?

How apt is her grave place.

How beautiful is her unshakable sleep.

Finally,

the slick mountains of love break

over us

Mary Oliver

                                  

How apt are their grave places indeed.
It is where they loved to be. It is where I love to be.

My brother wrote:

'What a very special orchard you have now, and for a long time. 

May every season you walk there bring you more peace.

And now you have Model Dog, in the nick of time.

And God's Good Grace, all the time.

Love and love and love.

Sorry I can't offer more but I know you have been blessed and you will be again.'

Amen to that.

Blessed indeed.

Farewell, sweet boys.

* from High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr

 

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