Notes from a small dog – Back in the fields

It’s almost worth the almost inevitable bath to be out in the fields again! The soggy mud was still frozen in the shade, but, I wanted to be in the sunshine… I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like to have proper sun on my back! Trouble is, that means squelching through the liquid mud… She wasn’t best pleased, but heigh ho… and she’s a good sport where stuff like that is concerned. Should have worn boots though maybe… Her, not me. I don’t mind mud between my toes.

She seems to mind me wiping it on the sofa though…

So this morning she shoved me in the car. I thought we were going to see my friends… but no, we parked up somewhere different and she said, ‘c’mon, girlie’ and we were off.

The birds were out everywhere, so I got plenty of exercise chasing ‘em. She wandered round oohing and ahhing at all the buds and the celandines and the yellowish bits showing through the green on the daffodils… ‘already,’ she said. Then she made little squeaking noises at the buzzrad and the kites… I don’t chase those ones. They’re a bit bigger than me. She wouldn’t let me go swimming. She wouldn’t let me near the sheep either… which I think is a bit mean. They look friendly enough.

Closest she’d let me go was a field away. I mean, did we have to go that way if she wasn’t going to let me play? Yes, she said, ‘cause she wanted a picture of where the old settlement used to be. She said the frost shadows would show it up well. Is there any point, I asked her… when it hasn’t been a village for a few thousand years…? Yes, she said. History, she said. What’s wrong with now? It is plenty interesting enough.

Ah, she said, but you can learn stuff from the past. Granted, I said… I learned lots of stuff in the past…and from it too. Like, for example, that ham is good and chewing her shoes up is a no-go area…All things that make life better today. But I wouldn’t want to live in the past. I mean, they hadn’t even invented tennis balls back then! So I don’t really get her fascination with ancient stuff.

The mud beneath my paws now tells me it is cold and has been raining. The sun on my back tells me the rain is over and the frost will melt. The birds tell me there are umpteen games I can play right now… and the sheep remind me there are things that are beyond my reach. Now’s not so bad. Especially when I’m out with her, which means we’re walking with love.

No, she says, she wouldn’t want to live there either, but it is only by looking at the past that we start to understand the value of now. She might have a point there. If I hadn’t been stymied by the rain this past winter, I wouldn’t be enjoying the spring green in the fields quite as much. And the past tells me that it will get greener and warmer and there will be longer walks… even if it freezes some more before that happens. So the past gives me enough understanding to be able to look forward to all that. But it will be another now when I enjoy it!

I can’t argue with her logic, I s’pose. Even if I would rather be chasing that pheasant now…

I still think you two-legs’ are a strange lot though.

Much love,

Ani xxx