Mystery of the disappearing footpaths

Yesterday, Mum and I went for a walk. One of our usual walks. One where we normally amble along, smelling things, chasing bits of bread or carrot, upsetting the odd pheasant, and seldom meet anyone else. We follow the path in a wide circuit until we get home, have some food, curl up and go to sleep. (Mum doesn't curl up and go to sleep, that bit's all me!) So it's an activity that doesn't require much thought. Until yesterday ...

Here's the sign for the footpath. But where's it gone?

I'm sure it was here last time.

Maybe I can sniff it out. Got to get Mum home somehow. My tummy's starting to rumble.

Think I'm onto something here

Yep, definitely found it. But just when I was getting confident that the food was only minutes away ... this happened

Pssst ... Mum, there's no path! You don't seriously expect me to follow you. I'm a law abiding dog and besides, the farmer's bigger than me. If his big tractor-thingy ripped up the path, just think what it could do to me. Oh, you've got a clue for me ... okay, I'll come as long as it's a tasty clue.

The stile! Not exactly tasty, but at least it means there was once a path here.

We eventually got home; (I) ate, curled up and went to sleep.

The disappearing footpaths are still a mystery, though. Mum says our feet will bring the paths back. What!!! The only things my feet bring back are lumps of sticky mud on wet days, and bits of grass on dry days. How are my feet going to bring a path and where will they bring it from? Humans can be so confusing. And so wrong sometimes!

Comments

Colour, Delacroix, flochetage and why don't we all have a go at inventing words

Yes - it is a real word. Flochetage. Well, a real-ish word. One invented by the painter Delacroix, when he found the dictionary cupboard bare and required a word to describe his technique of layering different coloured paints, using lightly pulled brush strokes to create texture and pattern and thereby enhance his base-layer colours (... lost? - stick around, read on and all will become clear. Or perhaps muddier ...). Flochetage implies both stringiness and threadiness. Apparently. And it sounds good - in a filling-the-mouth-with-sound sort of a way. Try it ... flochetaaaage. Not that I speak French. So I am probably mis-pronouncing it. Nor am I an artist. So what do I know about painting techniques - except that I think this one works. What I do like is the concept - you invent a new technique in whatever it is you do, hunt around for the vocabulary to describe it, find the dictionary is lacking, so make up a word of your own and announce to the world what it means. Delacroix isn...

Holiday cake and old friends

Chocolate cake. Most of us who bake probably have a favourite chocolate cake recipe - the one that always works; that forgives being made in a rush or once without eggs (added to the cake tin five minutes after it was initially placed in the oven ... even I didn't think I'd get away with that one); that tolerates the fickle heat of different ovens and different tins and without fail, at first sniff of it baking, brings back delicious memories of old friends and old holidays. And picnics and sand between toes and laughter and blustery walks and holding hands and eating too much and wind in your hair and squinting in the sun and dancing in the rain and dragonflies hitching a ride and castles and hill-tops and freezing cold lochs and a long walk with a black and white cat. This is my favourite chocolate cake recipe. Written by the dearest of old friends, on this scrap of paper, over twenty years ago. (Annotated by he who should have known better and me. He was right abo...

Life as bramble thicket

Life passing in a fairly content fog of gift wrapping (mild panic - omg, have I got enough for everyone; will they like it; have I got the right bridge pads for mother-in-law?); cooking (friends all being extremely helpful with offers of puddings, mains and starters - apart from the big event, may not have to actually cook much at all); decorating (post fire, post building work); planning of meals with friends; entertaining (music recitals already being rehearsed by Littlest and sister); feeding the dog; ordering startlingly expensive turkey; walking the dog; feeding hungry mouths (eating me out of house and home - realise just how significant a role the school catering staff play in their lives); gardening with dog; and shopping (again ...), when unexpectedly hit by devastating question of what mark if any will I leave on the planet (assuming that I want to leave a mark, which I think I do, because there has to be more to life than working hard, otherwise what is the point of anything...

Walking The Dog

Search This Blog