The Curious tale of the Dog and the.......

Hullo ma wee blog,

I sit in the car waiting for the lovely G  to come back from her shopping, idling away the time by people watching. Close in front of the car is a bench seat and a fairly young mother is sitting there with her back to me. A push chair type of buggy with a very young child in it is in front of her and this is getting all her attention. A small blond haired boy of maybe six or seven is sitting beside her but separated by a couple of feet and at his side is a Labrador dog. It’s facing him and is paying him rapt attention.

As I watch another young mum comes along and they greet each other as friends and start to chat. Greetings are exchanged with the wee boy and then the two ladies bend animatedly over the buggy, getting deep in what can only be baby talk. The little fella beside them is clearly bored by all this but possibly he knows that he shouldn’t interrupt and he certainly seems to know to stay by his Mum as he doesn’t try to get away or even mindlessly wander from her side. He looks off to one side and seems to sigh and I imagine him resign himself to being here for a while as the conversation continues and he now returns his attention to the ice lolly he has in his hand. His free hand reaches out to stroke the dog’s head and in doing this the dog moves it’s head out of the way of his hand to keep a clear view of the ice lolly. The head movement is expert, soft and gentle and the boy understands that what has made his pet sway is it’s determination not to lose sight of the lolly. He sticks it back in his mouth for a long and no doubt enjoyable second before taking it out and moving it slowly, like a hypnotist’s watch, in front of the dog’s face. The dog’s head responds by following the motion, the head and shoulders swaying slowly from left to right and back again in a matching rythm to the ice lolly and as it does so, it's mouth partially opens. You can almost see it drool. {I'm almost drooling myself}  The boy's shoulders tighten and it looks like, just as I am, he’s having a quiet giggle to himself as he repeats the manoeuvre two or three times with the same result.

As dogs sometimes do, there appears to be a realisation that they are sharing a moment together and with a pleading look on it’s face that says ‘ Come on buster - stop messing around! You know I want some of that.‘  the dog raises a paw momentarily onto the boy’s knee and shuffles slightly closer for emphasis. Almost without hesitation the lad offers his lolly to the dog who begins licking enthusiastically. After more than a few licks he pulls the lolly away from the dog and sticks it in his mouth with the same enthusiasm the dog showed. After a moment the move is repeated; the dog gets a few licks and then he has a few licks. It's repeated again. And again.

I hear a familiar voice in my head. So long ago but so clear. It's my exasperated mother.

"Alistair! Don't do that! Put that down!"

In my till now long-forgotten memory my Mum grabs the ice-cream that I've been sharing with my dog for the few yards we've come from the ice-cream van behind us and drops it down in front of a delighted Wendy, a gold and white cross between a Labrador and a boxer, who is my constant companion when I'm not at school. Wendy scoffs the lot in about two seconds and I'm left on the brink of tears as Mum explains that it's not the done thing to share your ice cream with the dog by trading licks. She does that thing Mums always used to do by wiping my face with a lipstick and perfume scented handkerchief she always seemed to have literally 'up her sleeve' for occasions just like this one. To me it seems part remedy and part punishment, either from the indignant embarrassment of having your Mum do that to you or from the smell of that lipsticked hanky.

It strikes me years later that this probably wasn't that hygienic either!

Memory fails to remind me if she bought me a replacement ice cream, but I'd like to think so......

As G gets back into the car and I turn the key in the ignition, I have the memory of the scent of that handkerchief so vividly in my mind I can almost taste it. I just manage not to groan but I can't stop myself from screwing my face up the way I used to when Mum would wipe my face.

Yuk!

But thanks for the memory all the same wee man!

Listening to.

So long Paw and thanks for all the fish!

Hi there my wee blog. Not posted for a bit. Been away for a couple of weeks on holiday in Switzerland. Great to see the extended family again, to leave our cares and woes behind for a while and to see the lovely G unwind and step back into speaking the language again.
What a magical place it is. Once more we can come back with hearts full of memories and smiles and our batteries charged for another dose of real life. We did lots of travelling with our pre paid travel passes which meant free travel on trains, trams, buses and boats and most of the cable cars too.

I'll post some photos of the holiday soon but today my heart is full of thoughts of Mum and Dad as my side of the family got together yesterday to scatter their ashes. Dad died a couple of months ago aged 83 and we hadn't yet, for many reasons, let go of Mums ashes after she died nearly 2 years ago. Uncle Bill, Dads twin, had come up from down south to stay with Aunt Helen, the youngest sister, for a short holiday and therefore we thought it would be right to bring forward the tentative arrangements my brother Gordon and I had made so that Uncle Bill could play a part too. Dads older sister May was 86 yesterday but is too frail to make he journey from Moray.

As per Mum and Dads' wishes we took half of their ashes and scattered them at Glen Trool in the spot where for many years they went with their caravan. The campsite, next to Loch Trool has been closed for a few years now but we were all able to all get to the spot. No mean feat for Aunt Helen who is 80 or Uncle Bill at 83. So at their spot we scattered their ashes which we had mixed together and gave a short prayer of thanks. Then we walked down to the side of the loch to their favourite spot which they would visit every evening, weather permitting. Its the site of a fallen tree, down more than 30 years now, where the uprooted base and the fallen corpse of the tree have managed to survive and also to throw out new growth, with new branches sprouting out vertically from the prone position of the main tree. Its a lovely spot, right next to the edge of the loch.

{ Dad would have said "at the water lip" with the A flattened to sound like "waa-ter". God I miss his voice! Thinking of how he would have said that made me hear him just now } and the view is quite serene, quite lovely. We took a few photos, or rather Aunt Helen did as she was the only one who thought to bring a camera.

After a while, and having been fiercely attacked by the famed Scottish 'midges' we moved on and prepared to release the rest of Dads ashes. { We are keeping the remaining portion of Mums so that her last surviving sister can be with us when we scatter her final portion of ashes over her Mum and Dads grave}

We drove for an hour back towards home, and stopped for a family dinner at the Hollybush inn, which was one of Dads favourite restaurants. The meal as usual was great and after dinner we drove the last few miles to Gadgirth at Annbank, where Bill and Dad, and indeed the rest of the siblings, had been born and brought up. The twins had always been fascinated by water, prompted no doubt by the river which flowed at the back of the row of four 'room and kitchen' houses. So it was to the bridge at Gadgirth that we went to scatter the last of the ashes.

We went down to the side of the water where uncle Bill said a short prayer and we put the ashes into the water. A grey smudge floated off downstream, and as this happened I noticed the dust which the air had caught was going upstream. As I watched it go, low over the water I felt peaceful, as if I was getting a visual message that as the body goes in one direction the spirit is free to go in another.

Daft I know, but it felt comforting.

I looked back at the spot where the ashes had been tipped in and I saw that there was a lot of ash lying on the river bed and again, I felt comforted as if I was being shown that part of Paw would always be there on that bend of the river he knew so well, and in the very spot where Bill and he often played as kids. I looked back upstream for the small cloud of dust but it had disappeared.

It felt good, and I smiled.

There were of course a few tears shed among us but in a few moments we had begun to reminisce about Paw and his early days here on the water, living at Gadgirth and working at Crawfordson, the local farm. The boys had done this from age about 11 or so and continued to do work for the farm for several years being paid in kind by the farmer. No doubt what they brought home helped the family survive and it also gave them a taste of work and in both of them, a life long respect for nature and farming. Uncle Bill shared a few stories and quite naturally I began to look about the shingle beach on the rivers edge and picked a stone to skim over the water. Soon we were all looking for stones and had a great time and a good laugh for 5 or 10 minutes as we skimmed stones just like the boys had done there so many years before. I'm sure anyone passing would have thought we were daft. 6 grown ups between the ages of 40 and 83 skimming stones, shouting and laughing like loons in the evening sun. It was a good end.

All too soon G and I had to leave as we had a 2 hour drive back across country. G had a headache and was soon asleep in the car which left me to think of Paw as I drove home past so many of the places connected with him. The evening light was stunning and the journey seemed like minutes instead of hours. I found myself looking around as I drove in absolute awe of the beauty that lay all around on the journey back home. Even Glasgow, which only Weegies can surely think of as beautiful made me look and appreciate that it may not be the dour dismal place I always feel it to be.

Maybe Paw was a passenger too, he always made me look at things differently.

So long Paw, and thanks for all the fish......................

"Though your soul may set in darkness

it will rise in perfect light

For you loved the stars too fondly

To be anxious of the night. "

All in all, a good day.

Listening to........ Horse, " The first time ever I saw your face"

The photos are of operation Manna - a food drop into Nazi occupied Holland in April 1945. Dad, who was a tail gunner in a Lancaster, took part in this and was so proud to have been able to drop life rather than destruction out of the plane. In one of the quirks of life, one of the people in the Hague who watched the lancasters flying in very slowly and at zero feet to drop the food and who ran to gather it would become the father of a boy who in turn would become a university chum of my older brother and this earlier connection would only be discovered when the two fathers met in the 1970's several years after their sons had become firm friends.

see you soon...........................