Ice upon ice, night after night, until the landscape is bright and white with hoar frost. The cattle laying on the flat seem oblivious to the chill; they lay chewing their cud frozen condensation like a sparkling blanket across their backs.
Tendrils of steam rise from the cattle nostrils as they watch me curiously. I am worthy of their interest; my behaviour would pique anyone’s curiosity as I prepare to open the padlock on the chained gateway.
I know well in advance it will take more than a key to spring this latch. The padlock is frozen. Iced up both outside and in and the quickest, most efficient way to remedy this is to clasp it between warm bare palms and to hold on tight. This is going to hurt!
It does hurt. The frozen metal sears, burns like fire, but I hold on still. Only when the lock is warmed through do I release my grip and insert the key. It turns, and with a vigorous jolt I spring the lock and enter the frozen forest for a morning of piggin fun.
I’m not here to conquer the world. I don’t want to tussle with a mighty Boris, I don’t want to remove farmland pests or to bring home the bacon. I’m just here to run my dogs. All four of them, at once, then go home, job done.
It is so bloody cold my hands clasp each other involuntarily, like a six and a nine, lovingly intertwined. I hunch into my oilskin vest, nose dripping, eyes watering. The dogs are happy though. They appreciate the Sunday fun run – the sniffing of urine of those who’ve passed before them, adding to the scent trails with urine of their own and a strategically place pooh or two.
Pigs will be where pigs will be, but sun is a number one, so I climb high in search of the days first rays. Up onto the ridge where the iced vegetation has begun to thaw and to drip. My two male dogs, father and son, quietly vanish into the Never Never. My two girls, great-grandmother and wee pup, remain.
Far away I hear a distant squeal. The boys have found their quarry and I hope that Pearl, the old girl, will hear them too.
In an ideal world all four dogs would end up together and a pig would pay with its life. Goal accomplished. Run and done.
Instead, Pearl encounters the hot scent of the distant squealer’s bed mate. Unfortunately, it has scarpered through the saddle ahead of me and it has a lengthy head start. Unperturbed, Pearl puts nose to dirt, pedal to metal and smokes off with four wheels burning rubber. Little puppy is so impressed she follows suit.
“I’m with you Great Grand-Nan!”
Okay, on one hand I have two dogs far distant to the west, in the other I have two dogs accruing metres at a furious pace to the south. Supposedly I’m managing this exercise programme, but I’m a part of neither team’s thought process.
The boys, they will be alright. The girls? That wee puppy is barely out of nappies, she’s literally a babe in the woods and she’s trying to stick hard on the heels of a Grand-Nan who will try, try and try. I opt to hike south in cold pursuit.
Later, as sweat melts away the chill, I pause to consult my tracker. Both boys are question marks a kilometre to the west. Both girls are question marks more than a kilometre to the south. It’s fair to say the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.
I murmur to the gadget in my hand, “sheilas to the left of me, jokers to the right. Here I am stuck in the middle with you.”
The gadget does not respond. I press on.
Out here Pearl has looped back and forward, hard and fast, a figure eight on the ridge end and then another loop over the initial one. That pup, that wee baby girl, she is sticking like the proverbial excrement to a woolly blanket. Fifty metres behind but never losing the scent trail of her mighty granddam. I am closing on them, just 300 metres for the intercept.
I’m not fantasising about heading off their quarry, about laying it low as it bolts past with tail and hackles high. Nope, it deserves its freedom. I just want my girls back, safe and sound.
Once I have them, footsore and bloodied, we veer west. Westward question marks stutter into two tracks upon my cold trail. The boys are coming our way. Loyal and loving they run southward, following my prints in the frost.
Then I have them. Four dogs and I all regrouped. Their pads are worn and torn, their muscles tremble and they pause at every culvert head and weed-filled ditch to quench their raging thirsts. Together we limp slowly, heads down, but there is a quiet sense of unity between us, a bond that is not broken by momentary separation or small hardships.
The new kid on the block? The wee pup who shouldn’t be here but was just along for ‘the walk?’ She’s a keeper. A remarkable youngster who’ll inspire us all to greater things in future. Welcome to the team Coral.
