SMALL PLEASURES Part I

In the early candlelit dusk of the year, there is nothing more delightful than a gentle trudging-round-the-lanes-and-back hack. Bloggiana and I take our steeds Nag and Dobbin and clamber aboard swathed in furs. Sunglasses are sometimes required but usually we regret not bringing hot water bottles and reviving flasks of Famous Grouse. Sometimes there are floods to deal with; gales are a frequent hazard; ice storms not unheard of. But in between, we can amble behind the snaking silhouette of Our Dog and enjoy the small pleasures associated with watching a season work its magic on the hedgerows.

Curiously, the small pleasures are more satisfying the more they are sampled. To see the dark grey W of the heron in the same place, again, at the same time. To see the dipper flicker up and down the beck in that hectic flight, chocolate and white and charming. To count out the ewes wearing their tell-tale Been-there-got-the-tup-mark on their bottoms. To catch perhaps a glimpse of the kingfisher, bluely flashing in the willow on the beck’s turn.

Even more refined, the pleasure of breaking down the pleasures. So we wonder if the heron will be the exact same bird; and will he fly in the exact same pattern to the other side of the field? Are those the berries that were once the honeysuckle that we so admired a few weeks back? Is that the ewe that we nicknamed Brunnhilde on account of her extremely low brows and her Prisoner Cell Block H demeanour? Look, there is the black cow again, with the exceptionally long eyelashes who seems to acknowledge us in a very Some-Like-It-Hot manner. And over there, the teasels once so majestic in that long row in that narrow field, now standing like so many old ladies queuing for a bus.

To wave to the man with the bottle-bottom glasses who sits in his window, cat on the table, eating cold baked beans from a tin. To listen in at the door of the bothy that belongs to the recluse once seen pushing a television along on the handlebars of his bicycle. To be made to jump by the dog that leaps up at the fence that leans into the road, guaranteeing you a near-falling-off moment. To walk through the ford and wonder if Our Dog will be washed over the weir again, like before.

Bloggiana and I trundle along more or less the same routes for days in a row. Our Dog leads the way, one ear up, one ear down, one large bramble enmeshed in his backside, one long corridor of sniffing and leg-cocking beckoning him ever onwards. Nag and Dobbin occasionally pull faces at one another, exchanging snippets of equi-chat whose meaning we can only guess at. A flurry of goldfinches rises from the hedgerow. A flock of starlings swirls overhead, waiting a week or so more until their true optical illusion formations can be unleashed on us.

We turn for home. Cold, wind-blown, wet perhaps. But already looking forwards to the next time.