One of our favourite walks is around the Mount Batten Peninsula. Although the humans love a cafe stop, Lola is obsessed by them. Our walks at Mount Batten are timed to fit in with life, chores and the weather. In winter the cafe that Lola favours operates on restricted opening hours. But Easter has come and gone and they have increased their opening hours. For the first time in months our walk and the cafe being open coincided. In this photo Lola has taken full possession of a dog blanket and has the look of a woman who will not be leaving any time soon. She appears to have forgotten that the title of the event is actually a dog walk.
Purely for vanity I am sharing one of last summers hybrid photographs from Mount Batten. A sailing ship moored up just beyond the camper van.
View from Mount Batten
Lola may think she is hard done by if the cafe is closed but she is never without some degree of comfort on her trips to Mount Batten.
Yesterday’s blog slipped off my schedule almost as my fingers hovered over the keyboard.
Lola had been let into the yard, the sun was out, and my neighbour was clambering up a ladder in the sunshine. In that wrinkle in time the blog was lost.
He, my neighbour, asked me to unlock our back gate as one of his chickens was in my yard. At that moment, out of sight, but not sound, Lola and the chicken met. Lola had the chicken under a citizens arrest with a very firm grip on its feathered armpit. There was no catching them , the chicken broke free , scuttled into the house and I decided to leave them to their own devices whilst letting our neighbour in the back gate. Another human gave me a better chance of conflict resolution.
Armpit feathers
There was no sight or sound of them.
We searched rooms. Lola appeared calmly on the stairs but no chicken.
A chicken bottom feather.
Just one chicken bottom feather laying on the stairs.
I thought I could hear a fluttery feather settling sound coming from the kitchen. Janner the chicken had escaped the jaws of Lola and returned downstairs and was roosting inside a dark bag that had been left on the floor.
Both chicken and dog had a winning look in their different locations. The chicken, victorious, by settling in enemy territory. Lola,perhaps, because she had driven the chicken downstairs and plucked a feather out of Janners* enormous bottom.
Chicken and neighbour went home. Lola went into overdrive. Every moment of the chickens journey through our house relived by sniffing and tracking every glorious moment of her hunting frenzy.
*I have no idea where a Janners apostrophe goes.
Two chickens, one named Argyle to honour the local football team. The other called Janner or Janners the collective name of Plymouth Argyle supporters. Or indeed Plymothians in general.
And that my friends is how the day started and I was given my earworm for the day.
Which leads nicely into the intended blog of the day.
Wandering the cobbled backstreets of Plymouth hunting down my hair stylist who has swapped salons. Successfully as it happens, and I have had my winter haircut. I feel like a Spring lamb or perhaps more like its mother who has had a woolly winter coat sheared off. Co-incidentally the sun came out as I skipped up this lane with considerably less curls than an hour earlier.
Talking of curls, we have had Miss Lola in our lives for 10 years this week.
A bit like me with a new hair cut she looks a little different this week compared to her first week with us.
She is paler and curlier. Her pale is just paler, mine is greyer. But that is what ten years looks like.
I took this photo last week. I was intrigued by the twist on the normal message of Merry Christmas. Taking Christ out of the salutation and replacing him with love. Millions of people with no Christian faith at all celebrate Christmas, and for them Christmas is all about being with the people you love, sharing food and gifts and most importantly sharing oodles of love widely. I never expected to use this photo, but the sudden death of a much loved dog has plunged us into a Love-mas. Not merry but a Love-mas never the less.
Messages of sympathy and love have flooded in from all over the world. Along with photos of Hugo that we have never seen before and stories of his antics that have made us smile.
Hugo was an Interventionist Flâneur, from the day he arrived.
Having observed, he intervened, fixing people with his eyes, limpid, black pools of love and interest. He looked into souls, searching for a reason to give one of his specialist dominating cuddles.
One hour after a friends Dad and Pops had died.
A dog who knew all about the human need for comfort. He felt the pain of bereavement, heartbreak, hangovers, period pains and sorted things out with long moments of eye to eye contact.
Before collapsing into the cuddle position which was always his unstated intention. If he had been a human therapist he would have been struck off every list that exists.
The therapist struck off for inappropriate behaviour.
For the first time in 13 years he is not around to resolve my sorrow and sadness. But because he was so good at what he did, our family has been flooded with love from all corners of the world. We have loved getting the photographs and anecdotes. They make us smile and they make our eyes leak, but we find ourselves in a Lovemas all of his making.
From time to time, people tell me, “lighten up, it’s just a dog,” or “that’s a lot of money for just a dog.”
They don’t understand the distance travelled, the time spent, or the costs involved for “just a dog.”
Some of my proudest moments have come about with “just a dog.”
Many hours have passed and my only company was “just a dog,” but I did not once feel slighted.
Some of my saddest moments have been brought about by “just a dog,” and in those days of darkness, the gentle touch of “just a dog” gave me comfort and reason to overcome the day.
If you, too, think it’s “just a dog,” then you probably understand phrases like “just a friend,” “just a sunrise,” or “just a promise.”
“Just a dog” brings into my life the very essence of friendship, trust, and pure unbridled joy.
“Just a dog” brings out the compassion and patience that make me a better person.
Because of “just a dog” I will rise early, take long walks and look longingly to the future.
So for me and folks like me, it’s not “just a dog” but an embodiment of all the hopes and dreams of the future, the fond memories of the past, and the pure joy of the moment.
“Just a dog” brings out what’s good in me and diverts my thoughts away from myself and the worries of the day.
I hope that someday they can understand that its’ not “just a dog” but the thing that gives me humanity and keeps me from being “just a man” or “just a woman.”
So the next time you hear the phrase “just a dog,” just smile, because they “just don’t understand.”
Hugo died suddenly, one day after we returned from our holiday. His last enthusiastic greeting had broken his heart. Heart Failure caused by a sudden rush of love to his heart.
Lola is celebrating a full recovery from her cruciate ligament injury in the Spring. She has been on a regime of very limited exercise and plenty of rest. A lifestyle that suited her life goals perfectly. We have avoided beautiful, wide-open beaches all summer because the temptation to be too giddy was annoying for Hugo and Lola who took a very dim view of walking on the lead in places where extravagant dog behaviour is the norm. The only time Lola engages in joyful exercise willingly.
Talk to the paws because the ears are not listening.
Hugo set about recovering stray seaweed at the tides edge, while Lola allowed us some very rare moments of being photogenic and compliant.
Just twelve hours later their playground was the location of our Basking Shark, breakfast experience. Almost unbelievable really.
Once home and with a reliable signal Dr Google tells me that Trevone is a ‘hotspot’ for seeing basking sharks.
Friday evening ended unexpectedly. We had an early morning visit to Truro Cathedral planned, on Saturday to see a friend become part of the Laity of the Church of England. The plan was to leave the dogs at home for a few hours.
An early start was needed to avoid the holiday traffic, but then we discovered that dogs are welcome in the Cathedral. That changed everything and we packed up the van and headed to a wild camping spot by a beach not too far from Truro for Friday night.
Trevone
We were set for a fine sunset, a cool beer and chips from a beach bar.
The sunset did not disappoint.
Trevone
Breakfast did not disappoint.
Trevone
And the dogs were good in the Cathedral.
Truro Cathedral
So much better than leaving them at home for a few hours while we did a quick dash to the Cathedral without them. And now we know a beautiful spot for some overnight camping. A marvellous change of plan on a Friday evening.
Not my favourite beach and not Lola’s but definitely Hugo’s. A dog who was born in Bedford and raised in London is obsessed with collecting seaweed. He learnt this habit on the pebbles of Whitstable and the Thames Estuary.Perfected his art on the expansive beaches of Cornwall and currently operates on the city beaches near our home.
Wonder and Joy
This beach would win no prizes for human pleasures beyond exquisite sunsets over the Cornish bank of the Tamar. But for Hugo at mid-tide, it is a pleasure-dome of seaweed research and reconnaissance and, ultimately, rescue and retrieval. He is at his happiest when he can create a pile of seaweed. Obviously, he works along the water’s edge and creates his pile a little distance from the tide’s reach. All well and good on a lowering tide, the distance walked just gets greater, but on an incoming tide,he just rescues the same ten or so strands of seaweed as his pile is gently washed back into the sea as the tide laps at the foundations and then destroys the evidence of his endeavours. On a good weather day he would choose to be there for hours. The only thing stopping him is me. I am not always his best friend.
The need to de-rig Christmas was derigueur yesterday.
Not because I always adhere to the custom of the 12th night. But because I had done half a job on Saturday, and half a job is worse than no job at all.
To motivate myself, I started early and decided to do the job in my pyjamas, promising myself that I could not shower or dress until the job was done. Not a popular decision with two dogs who love an early walk. By 11:30, everything was done, and some Christmas lights had been converted into winter lights to pull my summer-loving soul through a gloomy mid-winter towards Spring.
Pyjamas Day explained and on to Gotcha Day.
Hugo st 8 weeks in London
12 years of Hugo, the original urbane city gent who moved to the Cornish countryside and then relocated to the coast and currently lives the life of an old seadog. His current good looks are still a little lopsided, but nothing a few more weeks of hair growth can’t cure.
theoldmortuary.design 