Our Morning Walk
Thursday, July 11, 2013 at 1:49 PM 
6 a.m. We're on the moor before the heat of the day. Soft cotton grass shines fluorescent. White foxgloves spire tall. Rabbits breakfast.
The Big Pond has shrunk small. Joss wades in. Begins to fish. And retrieves, after only a few minutes, a bright green frisbee. Still whole. He carries it proudly, wet face at an angle, and drops it by me. Heads back for more loot.
A plane cuts through the empty blue above. How odd! It leaves no jet stream.
Joss is pawing the water. He's patient. Searches slowly for the toys other dogs can't be bothered to retrieve.
A bee zig-zags by. Off to work. Distant traffic. People off to work, too.
Joss emerges with a second treasure. A black, nylon-covered wire circle with windmill spokes. Another kind of frisbee? He leaves it close to the first one and resumes his watery investigation.
The morning light is hazy pink. Or perhaps my sunglasses make it so. Small chunks of glass glint on the parched ground. Like fragments of ice, abandoned by the winter pond as it receded to summer size.
My pirate dog is back again. With a squashed plastic bottle this time. Dripping mud. Today's has been a good haul.
But it's time to go. Before the grass begins to release its daily pollen. Ah! Too late. Joss is sneezing as he snuffles through the long growth. I keep to the sandy path where there are scraps of red felt (a former tennis ball, perhaps?). A horse has passed this way this morning. The mementoes he left steam still.
As we saunter by the daisy patch, a man comes up behind us. He's wearing a sunhat and wielding a stick. He has no dog. I'm wary. He gestures with his long beard in Joss' direction: 'He looks as knackered as I feel!' His voice is a growl. And I'm puzzled. What makes this youngish man so knackered at 7 o'clock in the morning? He strides into the distance.
The moor is warming like an oven. Back by the car, the yellow iris are in fleeting bloom. My sneezing is now as constant and rhythmic as Joss' panting. And I'm hungry for breakfast. Like the rabbits.
Reader Comments (3)
This is such a beautiful piece, both the prose & the images. You really took me with you on your morning meanderings on the moor - I can feel the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings of your walk. Very lovely!
(And I'm very glad Joss had such a good time!)
So pleased to catch up with you and Joss and your latest escapades. He certainly keeps you busy. Enjoy your walks while the weather is so lovely. It will make up for all the rain drenched days you spend on the moors.
Good question about the young man....maybe you should write a story about that?