A quick re-cap and another funny tale…

The re-cap...

I hope you enjoyed my review of The Solstice Baby & Other Stories by J.M.Langan last week. Here is an adapted version of my blog post on Amazon, where you can get a copy of the book for yourself:

https://mybook.to/SolsticeBaby

I have also linked her blog (How I like my coffee) onto my page permanently along with the other blogs that are featured here too.

Another funny tale...

You could say that trouble follows me around…

A couple of summers ago, I went for a walk with a friend on the fields behind my house. We’d been walking for about ten/fifteen minutes when we cut through a small woodland and then came out to other side.

    We then heard a dog bark and I said, ‘Well I'm glad I'm not in the woods now!’ because it was quite a harsh bark. We carried on round past these thick, dense bushes and we heard it bark again.

    Instantly we turned to each other and said, ‘That doesn't sound quite right!’ 

    I thought that the dog was perhaps lost and my friend, X, thought that the dog was hurt. I do love dogs but I’m nervous if there is one that I don't know – especially if they aren’t on a lead, whereas my friend is so kind and loves all animals. She’s also very brave and part Super Woman too! 

    In reply, I said, ‘Yeah maybe it's got lost, or caught or tired up or something…’

So, because we couldn't see it (the area was really thick with brambles) we decided to go round a different way as I knew a cut through.

    The overgrown bushes made me take a couple of attempts to find the cut through and I was like, ‘It's here,’ (it wasn’t) ‘it's here,’ (it wasn’t) a few times which was making us laugh. BUT… as we could still hear it barking oddly – such a piercing sound – it was more of a nervous laugh from us both.  

We found the cut through and carried on. At this point, the barking was clearly moving, and the dog wasn’t in the location that it was in before. X was worried that it'd been dumped or was injured, and I'm thinking maybe its lead has got caught around a tree…

    All of a sudden, we heard it again and we knew that it’s nearer as we heard its collar too. Again, the bush is too brambly and dense to get in…so we keep walking along the path to see if there is a clearer part when I see some people coming; they've got some dogs. I wave to get the girl’s attention - thinking maybe it's theirs/maybe they can help, and her dad moved to nearer to us.

    I said ‘There's a loose dog, we think.’

    He said, ‘Oh yes, we heard it but we didn't like the noise so we walked a different way!’

After, X and I thought this was a bit strange!

    I then said, ‘Well it doesn't sound quite right so we're going to have to phone the RSPCA.’

    At this point there was this other lady standing behind them, and they said they’d help try to catch it. So, I said if they walk one way, we’d walk the other way and then we’d all meet in the middle. Typical bossy (teacher) me organising everyone – lol!

    The three of them carried on with their dogs, and we carried on round the other way. X Googled the RSPCA phone number but hadn’t given it to me as we were talking about why the people had walked away from the sound initially: Was it their dog? Had they dumped it? Was it ill etc?

    We still agreed that something didn’t feel right…

Next, we made our way round the other side of the trees again as we could still hear the dog. At one point, it came so close so my friend just shot in and was between brambles in a slightly more open clearing. I told you she’s Super Woman!

    I decided that I didn’t want to go in because I felt nervous and I had started to realise how much ground it was covering and that it likely wasn’t on a lead. I didn’t have the number for the RSPCA  (I don't use data on my phone so couldn’t Google myself), and I am now worried about X as she is out of sight amongst a load of brambles and an unknown dog!

    I then decided to phone to our local warden as she's possibly in the area... Nope, she’s not long left the area – typical! But, she asked me to explain what was happening. 

As I was explaining, the people with the dogs – the man and his daughter - came back around. He said, ‘It belongs to that woman!’

    I asked if he meant the lady that was behind them when we first spoke and he said, ‘Yeah, yeah.’

    I said that we had assumed that she was with them! She hadn’t been – odd as she had heard what we were saying!

    He then explained that they had just walked past her and that she was sitting down round the other side (I’m not sure how she got ahead of them unless they did the long loop round). He continued and said that he asked her if she had heard the dog and that she replied, ‘Yes it's mine it and likes to do this, so I let it run like this every day!’

    He then said to me, ‘I'm not being funny, but I've been over here for twelve years, twice a day, and I’ve never seen it.’

    My reply was that I go over there lots at different times and that I haven’t ever seen or heard it either.

    He went on to say that he thought she was a bit crazy, and they then went on their way.

Still on the phone to the warden, I repeated what he had said, and she said that the dog warden needed to know. The local warden also said she’d received a call yesterday about a dog barking (same area) but that nothing had come of it as the dog warden doesn't come out unless you can catch it! Cos we all go for walks with giant nets with us – don’t we?

    I said I would phone the Council, but that my friend was still in the bushes and I have missed a call from her, so I’d better get onto her first.

At one point I heard the dog run slightly nearer to me, so I stepped back a bit as I didn’t want a bite on a bottom cheek and X was nowhere in sight!

I hung-up, phoned X and we met back up. She was covered in cuts, scratches, leaves and thorns from the area she had been in! Bless her. The dog had seen her but ignored her and then continued running. She had taken some videos. It was a hound and was sniffing/digging.

Next, we went into a clearing, out of the hot sun, to phone the Council. Once I got through, I had to explain everything that had happened, and my friend had to describe the dog/its actions.

    Then, the lady asked us to see if the woman with the dog was where the man said she was...

    Nervous that she had already heard me (and my big mouth) say I was going to phone the RSPCA – yet chosen to ignore me when she’d been behind the man and his daughter – when we located the woman, I whispered to the lady at the council that I was going to pretend to be on the phone to someone else! I talked utter nonsense as I walked past the woman who was sitting reading a book, and X was pretending to text and managed to get a photo of her. Go us! Super spies!

Out of sight (and earshot) we looked at the photo and were asked about what we had seen! The photo really helped as we were asked if there was any proof of ownership – yes, a dog lead around her neck and a bowl on the floor for water (for which there was none, but that could’ve been in her bag).

    We both explained – phone on loudspeaker – that we had felt the need to report this because of the welfare of the dog, and even the woman. I also said about children that play out on the field, safeguarding etc. Even though the dog had ignored X, children might antagonise it and it may, therefore, react differently as there was NO WAY the woman could even see it from where she was sitting.

    The call ended with the lady laughing and saying that I am in such frequent contact with the council that I’ll be invited to their Christmas party at this rate! Backstory - I had called them about two other things recently (once being a noisy neighbour complaint and the other reason, well…keep your eyes on future blog posts for these tales as there is going to be a series of three of them)!

Anyway, fast forwarding now and cutting out a couple of bits before this is an essay, not blog post, my details were passed to the dog warden.

Then, the next day, the dog warden called and says she needed some more details – I’m not sure how much more I could give!

    Basically, there had been another report of a barking dog, this time during the night, and they caller couldn’t locate where it was coming from so she wants me to send a map of where we were, where exactly the bramble area is (she isn’t very familiar with the area – h e l p f u l,  hey?) so I then annotated some maps and sent them via email. I was also asked to get my friend to email the photo of the woman and the videos of the dog that she took whilst in the bushes!

Luckily my friend took it all in her stride (pun not intended) as an adventure, and said, ‘Blimey, even going for a walk with you turns into something!’

Yep, typical me! ISLA and her adventures!