Time has passed

More of an update than a Lurcher Tale I am afraid. We have moved again, this time to Hexham, and I have a job again, which is why the Lurcher Tales have been neglected. We have a new regular route that takes us to the Sele and back, and we have a handful of alternatives that keep life interesting, such as the walk up to Warden (with a stop-off at the Boatside, naturally!) or a drive down to Corbridge to walk along the riverside there.

Rover and Amazon are still much the same but they are getting older, though no more sensible. We are surrounded by cats here, which is not good, but there is a sensible attitude to fireworks, which seem to only be used very close to Bonfire night and not to continue after 10pm, which is a real blessing.

I took this picture of Rover recently in Whittle Dene near Ovingham, which is a walk that they have known since they were puppies and is probably about as far from us in Hexham as it was when we lived in Newcastle.

A dull day in Stanleyburn Dene

We are off on a set piece walk today but in the opposite direction because there was a letter to put in the post. Actually I think it might be an improvement because there was a bin this way and they disappear soon enough down Moor Road. 

We are heading down the public footpath through Prudhoe Hospital and the dene is opening in front of us:

Which is nice. Clearly part of the grounds of the old Prudhoe Hall which became the hospital, it suffers from Cragside envy as evidenced by the attempts to turn two minor streams into something sublime and of course the ubiquitous rhododendron bushes.

Whatever the human impression, the dogs love it. Any woodland turns them into happy little hunters, although Amazon has become very much an "at heel" dog as she has matured and leaves all the adventurous stuff to Rover - until she hears the hunting call of course! It is strange to think that they are nearly seven years old now, so in dog years my "puppies" are now older than me! I think the hardest thing about owning dogs is watching them grow older, seeing them slow down and take less risks than formerly. Rover will be the puppy for as long as he can, but Amazon, old before her time in her bid to be dominant, is showing her age.

She has finally left my side after crossing South Park - a nice little meadow this summer, now just another grassy field. She knew it was the last chance for freedom before going back on the lead on Moor Road, which is a rarely used single track lane here. She is now back, as is Rover, and it is their job to pull me back up the road into Prudhoe. 

Mush!

Northumberlandia

The lurchers and I are at Northumberlandia today which is a bit of a downer for them because they have to stay on the lead.

Initial view of Northumberlandia - her face in profile between two gateway mounds.

The idea of the place is one of landscape sculpture combined with wildlife conservation. The sculpture part is of a goddess or giantess called Northumberlandia who is looking up to the sky. You explore the sculpture by following circuitous and maze-like paths. For example we have just now walked up her arm and are passing her ample right breast.

Northumberlandia's right arm and bosom. You can just make out one of her open eyes. 

The opportunity for the landscape sculpture arose in the wake of an area of open cast coal and fireclay extraction being closed down. It is normal for the company extracting the site to restore the landscape to something like its former state, but in this case it was felt that they could create something a little bit different.

Blagdon Estates open-cast workings continue adjacent to the Lady.

Although Northumberlandia is a brazen hussy on top, she is a little more demure further down, lying on her right hip which is deep within the earth. You can see her left hip and her left knee beyond the swell of her breast below: they look a bit pointy because there are shelters there, which were very much appreciated by visitors today, with the remnant of Hurricane Bertha still being felt here in the North East of England. In this picture you also get the best idea of what her eyes look like, as the picture is taken from her brow, looking down her nose. You are not allowed to get any closer to her face than that.

View from the Lady's brow. You can just see her eyes gazing up into the clouds and the ridge of her nose. If you follow the path through her decolletageyou come to her left hip and left knee, both visible here.

Northumbriana's face from below. You can just see her eyes, her nose is prominent and the grey lump below is her mouth. Not her best side!

There are handy sight-lines dotted about the site: this one to Lindisfarne is on her left bosom.

Rather than have a single place which points out local landmarks, etc, they are instead dotted about the site so that you are rewarded with them as you explore. Her left pap points to Holy Island (above), while her right acknowledges her rival, The Angel of the North. I feel that what the Angel is to travellers from the south on the A1, Northumbriana must be to air travellers, as the site is on the eastern approach to Newcastle Airport, although I must say that I did not notice any planes flying overhead while I was there.

The Lady from the much neglected left side

The rocky bump at the summit is her hip, so I guess this is the most flattering view of her bum.

Well, I'm sorry that had so little to do with the lurchers today, but apart from getting a very long walk, they really didn't get to do much here. I had planned to take them to Plessey Woods Country Park, but I didn't have my wallet with me and the coins I had in my pocket would not have covered even the two hour stay in the car park there. It seems daft that all of the town centres in Northumberland now have free parking, but the country parks do not. Still, there you have it, for want of £1.80 the lurchers had a walk on the lead around the biggest lass in the North-East!

There and back again

How annoying! I was composing a blog on the go throughout our long walk up to Hedley on the Hill and back, I had two pictures ready to go and I lost it all on getting back home. Grrrrrr!

So, I will recap. We set out at about ten this morning intending to do a circular walk, but the walk I did ended up being somewhat different. We covered some of the ground on an earlier excursion, but this time we left the safety of the Stanleyburn area and headed up onto Hedley Fell. Here R&A encountered a partridge, which they chased. In spite of it not taking flight any great distance, it managed to confuse them and they were running around in circles looking for it. Luckily I was able to entice them into the wood nearby, which must have offered more excitement than a strange bird, so they left it and headed into Hyons Wood (or Huorns' Wood as I have re-christened it).

When we got to the top, I was rewarded with a fine view across Derwent Valley to Dipton and Tantobie. At this point I was planning to turn left to Currock Hill, then follow Moor Road down, perhaps cutting off into Stanleyburn Wood for some lurcher fun time. Instead I saw Hedley on the Hill off to my right and thought I would see what it was like over there. As I walked along the road, the whole of Northumberland seemed to open up before me, with the Cheviot on the far horizon. I thought I could even hear the artilllery going off at Otterburn, which was quite a thought given the distance.

Well, Hedley turned out to be a very nice little ... well village would be too grand a title. A very nice little ley. The OS map showed that it had a post office but it did not advise that there is also a very nice little pub called The Feathers Inn, where Amazon persuaded me that it would be a good idea to drop in and sample the ale. In actual fact I arrived about ten minutes before opening time, so R & A had to content themselves with water in a rather gritty dog bowl outside. I checked the map and decided on the route home, choosing to follow a route called Ward Lane towards High Mickley, thence along the tracks along the ridge back to Prudhoe.

When  the door opened, I went in for a refill of the dog bowl and a pint of Wagtail (Allendale Brewery), which was well appreciated, but I did not linger over it, as I had no company but the dogs. The beginning of Ward's Lane was easy to find as it was over the road from the pub, but it was a bit of a strange path, having stiles rather than gates that the lurchers had to scramble over/under, and there were a lot of horses in the fields. Now I don't have a problem with horses, I'd sooner cross a field of horses than cows any day, but Amazon was getting skittish as in every field the horses were clustered around the gate, so we headed along a track to the road, which we followed instead.

From High Mickley I found a lane leading in the right direction and followed it. I took a picture of an old land rover in a field, then a bloke came up asking if I minded going back around the corner as they were driving some sheep up the lane, which we did. R&A not bothered by the sheep as usual, so that was fine.

I then asked if it was ok to go down a track that wasn't marked as a ROW and was told that was fine, that it led to Prudhoe. I already knew that and I would have gone that way if there had been no one about, but it never hurts to ask. From there we were pretty much back on home turf, so I let the lurchers off again in the next empty field and I gave them lots of praise for waiting at the top of the rape field.

Back to real walks

We have been away for a while now, for a number of reasons which predate our move from South West Denton. We moved to Benwell last July and that was not really a very inspiring place for lurcher tales. 

Now things have changed a bit and we are living the semi rural life in Prudhoe, which is a lovely village/town in Northumberland. We are just getting used to the network of official and unofficial paths around here, so we have yet to settle into anything like a daily route. Today we crossed a field from which there was a fantastic panorama - I would say nearly 300• - covering swathes of Tynedale, Newcastle and Gateshead, as well as the near horizon which is the view from the house, of Hedley Fell and Currock Hill.

The picture is just a quick one of R and A on a path through a rape seed field near home, just to show that there have not been any more changes in the dog lineup since my last post.

Two dogs in a boat

I had the boys with me today, and the weather was fine, so we headed up to Warkworth on the beautiful Northumberland coast. In order to unbounce the lurchers for the visit to the castle which followed, we went for a little walk along the Coquet beforehand.

I knew about the little hermitage a little way out of town, but I didn't say anything about it to the boys in case it was out of bounds to lurchers. So I let them have a little romp about in the woods, then put them on the lead when we came to a field.

(Always obey signs telling you to put dogs on leads or not to enter with dogs when in the countryside, even if you are on a right of way.)

We got to the chap with the boat and asked if it was ok to cross with the dogs. The boys got in first, then I went down with the dogs. Although they were both keen to follow the boys, Rover was a little unsure about getting on the boat, and I think they both had reservations about sitting still in the boat as the bank swung out and away from them. Getting off was the  same, with Rover being unsure about getting on to land. Of course they had it all to do again on the way back.

I think on the whole they endured the experience well, it was just one of those strange unnatural things that their human pack mates insist on doing from time to time.

We saw a heron fishing in the shallows on the way back to the castle. Which was nice.

In the castle, the dogs must have thought I had gone quite mad. The boys certainly did. I know Warkworth Castle like the back of my hand, having stayed there over several weekends re-enacting 17th century life. It has loads of hidey holes and back stairs, so I was able to give the boys the slip and reappear somewhere else where they did not expect me. The only problem was that I had two lurchers attached to me, and their panting kept on giving me away, or they would put their heads round corners if they heard the boys. Ah, youth!

I hope the photo appears with this blog. Sometimes they don't if I try attaching a picture from my phone.

Hodgkin Park

Today, as a treat for both the dogs and the boys, we went to Hodgkin Park in Benwell. I have to admit it was as a treat for me too, as I misspent my childhood in Hodgy Park.
It is undergoing a major facelift; they have removed the shrubbery and left the trees. They have reclaimed the Victorian stream, though without the paddling pool. They have put in some really great play equipment and a basketball court, which was being used to play football when we were there.
The boys had great fun down by the stream, much as we did when we were their age, except it was all overgrown then and the only bridges were fallen trees.
The picture shows the reclaimed Victorian fountain. I was very pleased to see that they have set up a gravity fed system to work this.
The mallards in the picture got a bit of a scare when Amazon decided to jump in and join them. Thankfully the water was either too cold or too deep, so she climbed straight back out.

Snowy day

I've just downloaded an app on my phone for blogging on the go, which lets me take pictures and comment on them as I go out with the dogs. Here you can see the slope down to Denton Dene and the bin that the yobs have dug out and thrown across the path. You can also see that it has been snowing!

Wow, has it been a year?

I've just been reading over the last two posts from January last year and it may seem strange, given that this was always Lurcher Tales, that it should be Holly's death that stopped me from regularly posting.

So, what has changed since then? Well, Owain and Becky moved out not long afterwards, then moved again. They have another dog now, a Collie/ Chocolate Lab cross, called Ebony. They also got married in October, which was nice.

I started teacher training in August, but it was not to be. It is one thing to think that you would make a good teacher, but quite another to actually be one. So I am back at home and walking the dogs every day again while I try to find something else.

Rover has his own Facebook Page, courtesy of my daughter. Apparently he is a Public Figure. I cannot argue with that! He will probably get more Likes than my Author page on Facebook before too long.

So, today's walk, what can I say? I have to admit that there were long sections that I was very distracted, so I was a little unobservant. This largely stemmed from me playing over a conversation in my head that I missed the opportunity of having with a couple of men with Newcastle City Council high vis jackets outside Broadwood School about the ongoing disrepair of the school wall.

If I had been blogging through the summer I would have had a good few interesting observations to report. In the North East we suffered a lot of damage from a storm that the local press imaginatively named "Thunder Thursday." The day after we discovered that there had been a massive build up of water on Broadwood Road with the result that the school wall collapsed and the pent up water rushed across the playing field, following a natural low point, and cascading down into the Dene. A 10-15 metre section of wall had been taken out and the remaining wall on either side buckled inwards. The Council very quickly responded by installing a temporary metal fence on both sides of the damage, but they have done absolutely nothing since. There is a bin behind the fences that is now inaccessible and has not been emptied in months - I do not envy whoever has the task of eventually emptying it! More importantly, it is another bin removed from use and that is not a good thing for a conscientious dog walker!

Speaking of bins, I was just looking at the state of the one in the Dene next to the Number 38 Terminus (which has been uprooted again) when I realised that I still had Rover and Amazon on the lead and they were looking at me strangely. It was probably a good thing, as it happens, as they normally hare down there looking for squirrels and there was a lot of nasty large glass fragments. I walked them past these and then let them off.

I woke up a bit after that, but the snow meant that most of the time my head was down. Occasionally I would stop and look about, for the snow was just beginning to lie and it was quite a gentle fall with little wind. The Dene is too soggy and dead at the moment to really provide much in the way of inspiration, but it was nice to see the stuff come down. I always find a snow covered landscape to be so beautiful and the Dene will hopefully be so much more appealing if this does settle. The snow that fell yesterday evening was gone by midnight and the forecast is being understandably canny about whether any more precipitation will be solid or liquid.

I passed one or two other dog walkers today, mostly as buttoned up and distracted as myself. There was a little Jack Russell who always lies down when he sees Rover and Amazon and stays that way until they pass. There was a pair of Staffies who seemed well socialised and there was another small dog whose owner cheerfully announced to me "It's going to lie" - talking about the snow. Oh, and not forgetting the old shaggy dog that Amazon was very nice saying hello to.

The pair of them were well behaved passing The Alsatian House, from which there came a very welcoming smell of woodsmoke. As often as not Rover wants to stick his nose under the gate and get barked at and Amazon causes a fuss by barking at Rover and snapping at him. I put Amazon on the near side with a long  lead and Rover on the far side on a short lead. I think this may be the winning formula, but we will have to wait and see - it may have been a different matter if either of the Alsations had been near the gate.

Well, that was the walk. I don't think I will be back to daily blogging, but I might do one or two a week if anything that I find interesting happens.

In the dark

Yesterday's walk had to wait long after our lurchers' regular walkies. Cath and I had both been out all day and she was tired when she got in.

I put the one working flashing collar on Rover because he tends to go further than Amazon, then set off on our perambulations. Off we trotted, me keeping a nice steady pace, they at full pelt and many sidelong glances to reproach me for my lack of speed. It was a bit cloudy but the rain had ceased, which was nice.

It was hard not to think about Holly but I think that the lurchers are dealing with it a lot better than we are. To them she was an interloper, eventually accepted but still often annoying. She was a cute dog in many ways, but she had enormous capacity to annoy.

Down in the Dene, the dogs were off and exploring the dark. It is very unusual walking the dogs in the dark when you are used to seeing them running about - even when they manage to camouflage themselves, you have a fair idea of where they are. In the dark all you have to go by are shadows, jingles of collars and flashes from Rover's collar. I had a headtorch on in case I needed to examine the ground but it was pretty useless for illuminating the path, for although on one level it was dark in the unlit sections, on the other there is a lot of light that leaks in from either side and so the torch beam is weakened.

In the open area it became possible to see a lot further. The two of them had a polite greeting with a labrador, no bullying, which is always nice. Along the section leading to the lower bridge there were three men with six dogs., which can make things a bit anxious. It was Eric with his two lurchers with a couple of friends. Rover and Amazon know Eric's dogs, a brindled saluki cross who is absolutely beautiful and a smaller red hound (still bigger than ours), but have not seen them for ages so they were having a good run around and were making a lot of noise (Rover especially). This seemed to grow the longer I stood and talked, so in the end I decided to say goodnight and wander on. As soon as was polite, the two of them disappeared into the undergrowth to do a spot of hunting.

They came after a couple of calls and we headed home. It was the first official post-Holly walk and we all coped very well with the new reality.

A long diversion from the normal walk.

Yesterday's walk was something out of the ordinary. Cath was at work, so it was just me and the dogs. I fooled the dogs by making it look like the usual walk, then doubled back and into Sugley Dene. I wanted to see whether the Council had opened up the path through the lower part of the Dene.

Amazon got things off to a start when she spotted a cat brazenly walking through a garden, but once we were past that place, things boiled down to just wanting to be off. I knew that they would assume we would be going up the Dene, so I let Holly off the lead first so that Amazon would not hare off into the distance. I kept the dogs close until they knew that I had turned down the Dene, after which they got the message and changed direction. I thought I would go along the side of the stream rather than across the field as I had no ball with me and it would give the dogs more to do.

I put the dogs back on the lead to cross the road and had a look at what used to be the entrance to the Dene. When they first closed the footpath through the Dene there was a sign up to explain the closure, but that has now gone and there is nothing to say when it will be opened again. There was certainly no sign that any work has been carried out to improve the state of the paths through the Dene.

Well, the continued closure put an end to the walk that I wanted to make, but I decided I would walk down to Bells Close anyway. There is a tarmac path that runs most of the way down the side of the Dene, so I decided to walk along that way. The dogs were a bit non-plused by all this, as this was definitely NOT our usual walk!

I got to Bells Close, where I was thinking of giving the dogs a bit of time off the lead so that they could run down to the stream, have a drink and then come back up, but I decided that they would be just as likely to disappear out of reach, so I turned towards home. That of course meant that I had to head down a little further before I could find the grassy bit that runs up beside the A1 and finally let them off the lead.

Rover and Amazon were off like a shot. After Holly had done her "chase Amazon" routine, she dropped back to walk behind me. We were overtaken by a man and his rather mad wire haired lurcher who was much bigger than my two and he bowled into them, only to find that two little lurchers can hold their own against one bigger one. They played nicely though - lots of noise but no aggression. Then as we walked up the hill we passed a collie pup who also wanted to play, then decided to sit on my feet when the prospect of three adult dogs running around in circles became a bit too much.

We reached the field where we usually throw balls for the dogs. Here Rover decided to mount Holly, who had been waving her tail in his face for the past week. Normally our reaction is to shout at Rover when he does this, but I thought I would just let it be. He has been neutered anyway, so Holly was quite safe!

So we got back onto the paths, put on the leads and wandered home.

Little Lost Lurcher

Happy New Year Blogosphere!

I seem to have taken a bit of a break on the blog, mostly to do with the Christmas season, but as the last five of the Twelve Days of Christmas see us getting our lives back together, I thought I would put finger to keypad and get going again.

I’m going to start with a look back to Little Christmas Eve – the 23^rd December. It was a lovely day with blue skies, light winds and mild air. I had planned a bit of a change in the usual round of dog walking to include exercising our little ones as well. Some days you can get away with not exercising your children but they had broken up from school the day before and Christmas was two days away. They were in more need of unbouncing than Tigger.

So we got in the car and drove up to Whittle Dene. This is a favourite walk for ourselves, the dogs and the little ones and that day we also had Stephen with us, our second-born, back from University for the holidays. We drove up the A69, turned off for Ovington, then took a bumpy, splashy ride along St Andrew’s Lane, which is a public byway, and parked up in the usual spot at the Lane End. Rover was over-excited from the start and he grew more and more squeaky in his barks as we got closer, for he knows and loves this walk. Amazon and Holly stayed in the back, but Rover squeezed through to the middle and had a good view of what was going on.

We had our walking boots on as we know from previous winter visits that the Dene gets pretty muddy at this time of year. We had to hold the dogs back while we put on our boots and they were getting very hyper. Eventually Amazon squeezed past Cath, closely followed by Rover. Holly stayed in the back until it was opened and then ran around us barking for a while as she had not been able to do her trademark trick of running after Amazon and barking at the point that she could no longer keep up.

From the start Amazon was off doing her own thing. This is the normal pattern for this particular walk as she know that she has flushed deer out of cover in this location before, and in typical Amazon style she thinks there will always be deer to flush out. So we walked down into the Dene and waited at the bridge until the lurchers were back, giving Holly some time to feel a little more adventurous than usual.

We didn’t expect to see many people and so it was. Normally there is at least one other car parked up at the Lane End but not that day. As we headed up the Dene I noticed a couple of other dogs, one of which was an Alsatian, ranging about higher up the east side of the dene. Holly must have thought it was R&A as she sped up the hill to join them, but the lurchers were already well ahead.

This is the usual pattern of our walks here, unless we have plenty of time and are in the mood to explore: down to the bridge by the huts, wait for R&A to turn up after their initial romp, head up the valley with R&A going on ahead, wait at the upper bridge for them to arrive, climb out of the Dene and follow the bridleway that runs alongside the Dene southwards to  St Andrew’s Lane End. That day did not go according to plan.

The boys were having a great time getting their clothes muddy as they found all of their favourite climbs and scrambles. When they reached the bridge they were not inclined to wait and headed off. Holly was nearby and Rover returned to the call of the whistle, so we decided to start up the hill and not wait for Amazon as we thought she would find us as long as we were whistling for her. We made decent progress, stopping from time to time to call or whistle but there was no sign of Amazon. We carried on anyway, as we knew that she could quite happily appear at any point of the route back and still be able to beat us back to the car. However, the further along the bridleway we went, the more nervous we were getting as she was looking to be more and more lost.

Then Cath’s phone rang. I laughingly suggested that it was Amazon calling to find out where we had got to, and that turned out to be about right. It was a call from home: someone had called to say they had found Amazon “at the bottom of the Dene.”

Before I say anything else, I have to say that I am very grateful for this call, and for the subsequent help. However, we interpreted “the bottom of the Dene” to be where it comes out near Ovingham, over a kilometre from where we were. I hurried on, overtaking the boys who had been keeping ahead of us all the way. I called and whistled for Amazon from the Lane End but of course I was pointing the wrong way, as it turned out. Cath decided that she was unhappy with the information, so she called back home and got Owain to find out the number of the person who had told us they had found Amazon. She was then able to speak to them directly and learned that Amazon was near what I think of as the upper bridge. Some people walk into the Dene from the A69 and I imagine that to them this bridge is the lowest point of their walk and so would be the bottom of the Dene.

By the time we had this information, we were back at the huts. The boys were already ahead, ready for lap 2 of the Dene. As I was sure that Amazon would find her own way back to the car, I decided to go back and walk the route backwards. I ran up the slope and jogged back up along the bridleway, calling and whistling across the fields in case she was up looking for rabbits or hares. Eventually I reached the path down to the upper bridge and I called again, to be answered by Cath – they had found her.

When Amazon saw me she didn’t want to look me in the eye. She knew she was in trouble. She was wet and muddy and looking as unbounced as I had ever seen her. I decided to put her on her lead rather than risk her running off again. I know her style, as soon as she thinks she is forgiven, she is off again. Cath thought I was being mean to her, but by the end of the bridleway I was vindicated. Rover was off again and Amazon straining to be after him. I put down water behind the car and fastened her lead to the tow bar. Holly was happy to have a drink and be back in the car, but Amazon was distracted until Cath finally got Rover back.

Thus ended our double walk of Sugley Dene. Unfortunately it will be our last for some time as two days later (yes, on Christmas Day!) the timing belt went on the car and we are now without our own car, so it will be local walks only for the foreseeable future.

It's been a busy week

This week's walks have been a bit of a blur, so I won't try catching up. Suffice to say that the weather has been getting warmer and the ice patches have disappeared as the week has progressed.

Yesterday we had a bit of a Holly-induced detour from what was going to be a Standard Route, Variant A. This means that instead of going the quickest route into the Dene you walk to the bus terminus and then walk the additional length of the Dene. For some reason, R&A's camouflage always seems to work best along this stretch of the Dene and Amazon likes to explore the higher reaches of the east side of the Dene. Otherwise this is the same walk as usual.

Everything was progressing well; Amazon was off having fun and Rover was trotting back and forth while Holly took up her accustomed place at the rear. Then we started meeting other dogs. First there was a collie who Rover began playing with. We rarely have a problem with other dogs and Rover but inevitably Amazon turns up.

Amazon hates other dogs enjoying themselves, unless it involves chasing a ball and she is involved. Squeaky toys, pulling ropes, shaking anything are all banned activities as far as Amazon is concerned. She will quite happily confiscate the other two dogs' toys and sit with them between her paws, in full sight but untouchable.

This attitude seems to extend to Rover having fun with other dogs. If the other dog is playful then Amazon will bark at it and try to subdue it. In itself this is not dreadful behaviour as dogs should be allowed to resolve dominance issues. What is more problematic is that Rover then turns on the dog he has been playing with and it turns into a hunt situation with both dogs chasing the dog they have just met. Thankfully Holly does not join in. The only solution is a timely intervention, getting Amazon out of the way and on the lead.

So we passed the collie and walked towards the lower bridge. Here we met two golden labradors who we meet quite often. Not being excitable dogs themselves, they just sniff and move on; they don't want to play chasey with Rover so Amazon does not get annoyed, which is good news all round. We had a quick chat with their owner and walked on.

At this time the routine is that R&A have a quick drink from the semi-permanent puddles along this stretch before running off into the trees to hunt about again, while Holly trots along behind us doing little more adventurous than snacking on the grass at the side of the path if she feels the need.

Not yesterday. She saw another dog on the bridge and decided to introduce herself. Having done so, she decided that instead of coming back over with the dog she had just met, she would keep going. We tried calling her, but got no response. Instead we called R&A and took them over the bridge in search of our wandering old dog.

We found her having introduced herself to yet another dog, whose owner was concerned about the whereabouts of her owner. Holly did not seem at all phased by her break from routine. Rather than backtrack to finish the planned route we continued the way home on the west side of the dual carriageway. R&A looked hopefully at the Big Field but as there were no balls to throw they grudgingly plodded back home having missed out on their last five minutes of freedom.

Rover having a crazy Alpha day

Yesterday was another beautiful winter's day with absolutely clear, cloudless skies. We went out at about midday even though there were other things to get on with in the dash to get everything ready for Christmas. Yet again it was icy everywhere but the sun was doing its best to banish the hoar on the ground. We again set off for what can only be called the standard walk - across the BOF, into the Dene, around by the Lower Bridge and back.

There was a lot more activity than usual, starting with a Staffordshire Terrier who Rover brought to see us. Rover being in unusually boisterous mood then decided that this Staffy was going to be his bitch (actual gender of dog unknown. Faced with an unusually dominant Rover and Amazon being her usual self, the Staffy flattened itself to the ground and then legged it when it heard its master's voice in the distance. We called the terrible twins back so that they did not bully the poor thing any further.

Later we met a couple walking a liver coloured labrador. Everything seemed to be going well until Rover picked up a ball. Rover is normally a gentle, placid beast. However if you introduce a ball into the equation he becomes an obnoxious bully who will do everything in his power to have that ball. He also happens to be able to devote all of the limited mental capacity at his disposal to the complex mathematics involved in catching a ball. When it turned out that this ball was not "just an old ball" as I thought but in fact the labrador's ball, there was nothing for it but to tell him to "leave", put his lead on and walk on with many a longing look over his shoulder.

Rover finished this walk with a hat-trick of crazy behaviour. As we made our way back up the side of the Dene he started jumping up in the air and running around with great excitement, easily jumping high enough to "lick" Cath's face. Lick is probably not a good description of what a lurcher at high speed does, but that was plainly the intention. He eventually calmed down and again both Rover and Amazon appeared at the waiting gate without having to be called.

For the information of the owner of the Staffy, Rover has been neutered. If the dog was in fact a bitch she has nothing to fear from Rover and other than that it was just normal canine dominance behaviour.

Still icy

We had another full day today, so the poor pooches had to wait until nearly nightfall before I could get out with them today. Cath was off to work, so I had all three of them to myself. We set off to find that once again there was frost on the ground. The snow yesterday had not amounted to much, although there was a light covering on the garden this morning.

The snow clouds have all gone off to pastures new, leaving relatively clear skies with some cirrus level clouds to add a bit of interest to the sky. I don't think that the temperatures have been much above freezing today, although I did find evidence of thawing and then refreezing, as you will discover.

Very early on we had an unusually noisy encounter with a pair of huskies. We were just minding our own business when they appeared down the road and started barking loudly and excitedly. A&R decided to bark back at them. Holly, normally as good a barker as any, kept out of it. There was a big gap between us so there was no opportunity to sniff and make up, so as far as I know that is unfinished business.

Dog owners seem happier about their dogs meeting other dogs in warmer weather, I've noticed. in cold weather we all want to just get around and get back home. The dark seems to make us additionally withdrawn and suspicious, so we don't tend to talk to each other as much as we would otherwise.

The Bridge of Food had a couple of chips swimming in curry sauce at one end which I spotted before Holly could make a bee-line for. I was able to direct her away from the scraps of food before she could zone in on them but she clearly spotted them and even Rover tried to scuttle over to give them the once over. Once past this distraction I had to keep all three dogs in control while coming down the ramp which was even more treacherous than yesterday. Somehow with all three leads in one hand and the other on the rail, and I got Amazon to behave to the point where I did not end up on my bum thanks to an over-eager Amazon. The ice was worse than yesterday, even though the snow had gone. It was obvious that where the sun had been out the snow and ice of yesterday had melted but when it ran into shaded areas it had refrozen, causing larger areas of ice. However I kept my feet and the Bridge of Food faded into the distance.

I was into the Dene before I realised that I had not  brought a torch. Thankfully all three dogs had donated prodigious amounts for the bins of Newcastle, so there was only one additional call of nature for Holly and she was accommodating  in stopping where I could see quite clearly how much she had done and where it lay, so the offending article was bagged and binned.

The ice on the upward path kept my eyes pretty much to the ground as I walked out of the Dene, so I was pleasantly surprised at the top to discover a glorious winter sunset over Blaydon. The sun itself was out of sight but there was a bar of orange-gold light along the horizon and one of the planets (probably Venus) was in attendance, bright and beautiful in the sky above the horizon.

At about the same time I became aware that there was a lot of ice over part of the area that the Council have put drainage in. It would seem that their measures are fine for dealing with liquid water but no match for water that freezes as it flows, so the ice was still accumulating. Thankfully I wasn't so lost in the beauty of the sunset and the early night sky that I lost my footing. I found myself a nice bit of grass to stand on and had a quick scan of the sky. A few faint stars were appearing at the zenith but my attention was caught by a bright star high above the horizon. I drew a quick line between it, the Evening Star and the point on the horizon where the sun had disappeared and concluded that this was another planet, probably Jupiter. I did not linger to enjoy this fine sight however as it was a bit parky.

We passed a young man on the path towards the lower bridge but he had his head down and hurried past with barely a glance at the dogs. Just like yesterday, R&A seemed only half interested in their last minute sweep of the Dene as I walked up the path and they came as soon as I called. They don't have very thick fur and I think their comfy corners at home were calling to them as much as they were to me. We passed three people walking a labrador but as I observed earlier, they were not interested in social contact. That left a slightly more confident crossing of the Bridge of Food (avoiding the chips at the end again and a return home.

Just had a quick look on an astronomy website - I was right about both planets!

A teeny bit of snow.

We were off to fetch home one of the kids from Uni yesterday so the dogs were treated to a nice early walk. There was a bit of wind blowing about, there was a covering of cumulus that had been a mist earlier in the morning and it was cold. Almost immediately I noticed the odd flake of smow - not the big ones that accumulate in no time, it was the very small nearly hard ones that are almost but not quite hailstones. The ground was frozen from frost the night before, so even though it was an inconsequential amount of snow it was actually able to accumulate.

We slipped and slid over the Bridge of Food, which lived up to its name today by having half of a small chocolate bar lying there in full view. We steered Holly (and the other two mutts for that matter) away from this tempting poisonous treat. Then it was down the final slope, which was not fun as there was a noticeable sheet of ice across the path. Cath let Holly wander down off the lead but there was no way R&A would abide by that little agreement so I had to put both leads in one hand and gingerly make my way down the slope with one hand hovering over the handrail, just in case.

As we were going we saw a woman and her dog wandering along the path below us. We know this pair quite well. The woman is nervous and not very talkative. Her dog is about Holly's height but much slimmer and it always had a muzzle on and as far as I am aware it is never allowed off the lead. Cath says that she has talked to her when she has walked the dogs without me, so I'm obviously too scary to speak to. By he time we got off the bridge they had got a fair way ahead along a different path to us, so that was the dogs only interaction with other dogs today.

The Dene was a little sombre on its winter colours. The odd snowflake continued to fall through the trees and here and there enough snow had accumulated to for isolated patches of grey-white. I jokingly sang a line or two from "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" but Cath didn't pick up on the sarcasm. I guess she was too worried about snow actually building up and causing delays on our trip to Leicester. Still the snow did add to the problem of getting up the path from the bottom of he Dene. The frost was bad enough but there was enough snow to cause additional slippage. Cath ended up walking on the grass to get a bit of traction but I managed to stay on the path with a little bit of care and concentration.

The Council did some work to help the drainage on one section of the path south of the Dene. Every winter this bit of path has become a large puddle which has frozen up in the winter and been a bit of a challenge. The work involved cutting three drainage channels through the tarmac, filling them with stones and covering them over with a layer of tarmac. They accumulated large amounts of pebbles and gravel on either side and dug a channel for the water to flow away from. This meant a slip free section here, although there was still a tiny patch of ice where water has flowed down from another path and it had frozen as it flowed across our path. Seems to be a job well done!

The return leg went particularly smoothly today - R&A appeared from their little hunting trip before we had a chance to call them, meaning that we were not waiting around for them for ages. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does it is a nice little bonus. We headed back, avoiding the little bit of chocolate on the Bridge of Food, and got the dogs back just before the tiny flutter of snow began to turn into something a little more like snowfall, with a scattering of big flakes.

Fetch!

Today I decided to take the ball throwers and go down to the Big Field. I'm never quite sure when it became the Big Field, that's just what we call it. There are two other fields we go to for ball throwing, the Vallum Field and the field by Sugley Dene. I know that this caused confusion with the kids when we first got the dogs as they referred to the field by Sugley Dene as the Vallum Field because the pub called the Vallum is at the far end of this field.

We call the other field the Vallum Field (or just "the Vallum") because it happens to be the site of the old Roman earthwork of that name which is associated with Hadrian's Wall. Apparently there was a road crossing the Vallum at this particular point which makes it more interesting than most bits of the Vallum although the big tourist buses never venture down Southway to see it. It just goes to show that if you want to find the gems of the Roman Wall you have to go under your own steam.

It is a pretty grey and miserable day today, overcast with stratus clouds. The wind has dropped since yesterday and the sleety rain seems to have cleared for now, but it was definitely a day for wrapping up against the cold.

Walking along with three dogs and two ball chuckers should pose no real problems for a man of my size and in the summer I can happily claim that it doesn't. Even the inevitable complication of picking up their waste as you go poses little real difficulty. So what is it about the winter that makes this so much harder? Not icy conditions, because although cold it hasn't been that cold. No, it's the extra clothes, and especially the gloves. Don't get me wrong, I like my layers very much, otherwise I wouldn't be wearing them. Have you ever tried scooping up dog poo wearing gloves? Not only do you lose the required amount of friction with the clean side of the bag but you inevitably fail to pick a piece up, or drop what you have, or something else will go wrong. After all that you have to tie the bag up, introducing a whole raft of other issues. So, no matter how cold it is, you need to take off at least one glove. This done, you have an opportunity to allow the occurrence of what gloves do best; get lost. This nearly happened at one point today but luckily I was looking for the glove as I walked off and noticed that it was not in the pocket I had put it in. The three dogs were most unhappy at backtracking to fetch it.

Going to the Big Field means going past all those cat memories that I mentioned elsewhere. As Amazon is the main culprit I sorted out the leads as follows: Holly's over my left wrist with Holly on my right hand side and R&A on my right wrist but walking on my left. I ran Amazon's lead through my right hand to shorten it and stop her pulling ahead and let Rover on a loose lead where he would happily walk at the same pace as Amazon. Whenever we came to a cat memory I stopped for a little while to let Amazon see that there were no cats there which I think helped a little bit.

Eventually we got to the Big Field. I let the dogs off the lead and threw the first ball as far as possible and R&A dutifully chased after it. Holly had other plans, which I had to pick up. R&A chased the ball and eventually settled down to wait. Holly wanted me to throw the other ball, but I wouldn't. I need to take two balls with me for several reasons. The first is that R&A have always competed in chasing a single ball. There appears to be two objects to this game; the first being to catch the ball, the second being for the other dog to chase the one with the ball. The first throw of the day always takes the most time to resolve.

We had no luck training the lurchers to retrieve. It just doesn't seem to be in their natures. Rover at one point seemed to make some progress but then reverted when Amazon made it clear she was having nothing to do with it. They do listen to a leave command however, so if you get near them and call "Leave" they will either drop the ball or stop and put it down.

I got over to the lurchers and retrieved their yellow ball. I threw it far again and the three dogs ran after it. Holly was as usual at the tail end of this chase and soon stopped and barked at the other two. She then turned and I then threw the other (pink) ball in a different direction. I kept collecting both balls and throwing long and short until Holly lost the pink ball. You would think that a pink ball on a field of mown green grass would be easy enough to find. It wasn't. I kept throwing the yellow ball knowing that Holly would never catch it, while retracing Holly's pawsteps until I found the offending object hiding in plain sight.

The ball throwing continued for a while before I reckoned they were getting tired. The usual sign of this is that Amazon will take the ball and lie down with it either in some long grass or under a bush. I retrieved both balls and started across the field, with three expectant dogs running around me. I glanced back and spotted something blue on the ground. I had wrapped the bag with Holly's latest offering around a finger, but with wearing gloves I never noticed the bag slip from my finger. I had to backtrack again to pick it up.

I do not understand the people who pick up their dog's waste and then leave it lying on the ground. Obviously in this case if I had not looked back I would have been guilty of doing the same thing, so there may be an element of accident involved. What I really get mad about are the people who bag up the wast and then decide it would be a good idea to hang the little doggy gift on a nearby tree, ready for the poo fairy to came and collect, no doubt.

What a beautiful day!

Yesterday's Monday's walk was a bit of a blur. It was one of those days when everything had to be done in a very short time, so after going to an appointment with one of the boys and making a big batch of broth, there was only about twenty minutes to get out with the dogs.

I opted for what can only be called the usual route, one that combines speed with a good amount of running around in open space for the dogs. We set off and the lurchers were delighted to find that I was letting them go flat out and we made good time to the Bridge of Food, which disappointed Holly by being completely bare. I then reined in the dogs until we got into the Dene. It was as we made our way down through the little side valley and it was about this point that I realised just how nice a day it really was.

I knew it was warmer than usual because I had been out and I had decided to come out without a coat - although I did have a fleece top and a hat. It struck me as I strode down the path at my fastest long-shanks pace that this was really a day for a nice leisurely stroll, not a headlong dash. I'm not sure what the temperature was but I as warm in my clothes. The sky was a washed out blue and there were white cirrus and cumulus clouds in the sky but the sun was shining and the light fantastic.

Still, I was in a hurry and I had to be appreciative of the beauty of the Dene at speed. We shared the place with a jogger and his large black dog that wanted to play but wasn't allowed. Rover wanted to be friends (as usual) but Amazon braked at it and chased it, so I called her back. I know that she is just a control freak accidental alpha but some owners just see aggression. Thankfully the dog's owner seemed quite chilled out about it. He probably just wanted to get on with his run in peace.

We circled round past the lower bridge and as usual I only had Holly for company as the lurchers got into hunting mode and scooted off to look for rabbits and squirrels. This is a traditional part of the walk so I am quite used to it. There is a point on the return walk where there is a slalom gate designed to stop people on motorbikes, etc. from bombing down the path at great speed. Another of our traditions is to stop here to wait for the lurchers. The A1 is too noisy here to be heard calling into the Dene, so I usually call before I get there where I reckon the edge of the Dene is closest. If there is no response to the calling I use the whistle. Cath and I have subtly different sequences (basically I can't repeat her sequence as it doesn't feel natural to me) so the dogs are used to more than one call.

It was definitely a whistle day. Rover appeared on the path quite quickly and ran up. This is another tradition. Rover almost always turns up first. Amazon takes her hunting very seriously and is never happy to be called away from it. Just as I was considering another call on the whistle, Amazon turned up ahead of us. She had obviously been quite far back along the way we had come and decided to cut the loop by running through the little housing estate which sits like an island between Dene and the bypass.

That was almost the whole walk. As I was still in a hurry I got into trot mode. If I am by myself with the dogs I sometimes decide to run with them. This is impossible on the way out as R&A are too excited and just decide to try going flat out, which means that I am not running so much as being pulled along and pulling the dogs back. This is not a good situation as it empowers the dogs and means I am not in full control. On the way back the situation is different. The mad energy has gone and the dogs will quite happily let me trot along at about the speed that they trot at. It's not quite jogging and we can make quite good time. Even Holly likes this pace, although she misses out on all the interesting sniffs and chances to snaffle abandoned food. We kept this up for most of the bridge of food area, although I slowed them to a walk when I saw a couple walking towards us on the bridge. We were almost back to civilization when I saw a woman and a small dog ahead, so we slowed down to let them pass. The dog ran towards us and I saw that it was the little hairy Jack Russell that lives on the corner. It was quite happy and playful and Amazon ignored it until we got around the corner, at which point she had enough and started barking. The dog wouldn't go back to its owner, so he scooped it up. As R&A were on the full length of their leads, they took this as a cue to jump up, which I had to then stop them from doing. With that little episode behind us we walked the last bit home without any further excitement.

An atypical start

I was hoping to start with an introduction to the usual route that we take on our little perambulations but yesterday we were anything but typical. For a start we normally get ourselves out at some point in the morning, but that didn't happen. I probably could have got out sooner but there were other things on like tidying the house ready for Christmas, so our patient pooches had to make do with the back door being opened for them periodically.

When Cath got in, things were starting to look bleak on the walkies front, as we all settled down to vegetate. I think it was the vegetating that led to a decision to go and get a meal from the chippy and rather than take the car we could walk the dogs.

Normally our walk starts off in the direction of this particular chip shop and then turns away to go in a big loop back to the beginning. If we had attempted this walk we would still have two highly strung and decidedly unexercised lurchers to keep in check while we waited for food and then the food would have cooled down too much by the time we completed the walk.

So instead we went for an occasional route which would let them have time off the lead before we got to the chippy. We stayed on our side of the A1 and walked through the estate to a footbridge which would take us into the Dene at a point well below our usual crossing point - at the furthest point away from home on our usual walk. This meant that we still had the full length of the Dene to walk before we got to the chippy.

It was dark when we set out, so we dug out the flashing collars, to find that all but one had dead batteries. Rover was selected for the honour of wearing the collar of red flashes and we set off. The dogs were puzzled when we missed the usual turn but this walk was not without precedent so we proceeded on our way.

There is a very good reason why we rarely go this way and that reason is feline. Although we love our lurchers to bits, they really are not the brightest of dogs. Excellent memories but lousy cognitive ability. If they have ever seen a cat in a particular place, they are convinced they will see it again the next time they go that way. And the next time. And the next time. They are very tense and excited when they go on a normal walk but this seems to be nothing compared to the anticipation of seeing a cat. This street has had numerous cat sightings over the years so there are a lot of memories overlapping each other and they basically look for a cat at every gate and every turn. This is not a fun experience.

Nevertheless we survived the street with only a single cat being sighted and we agreed that it was not nice to chase cats, so we reached the bridge in one piece. This particular bridge leads directly into the Dene so as soon as I can see clearly into the grassy area at the top I will unleash the hounds. I have one rule when it comes to letting them run and that is that I will not let them go if they tug to be away before they are unleashed. As Amazon had actually been behaving herself, I was about to release her when she tugged, so I left her waiting and let Rover off. By this time Cath had let Holly off, so she did her strange chasing thing. Amazon got off the lead fractionally after Holly, so she paused long enough to let Holly get onto Rover's tail before setting off at a dainty run which changed to a sprint as she reached the open grass and she could get away from Holly.

Holly has a fascination with chasing Amazon. She will chase Rover too but Amazon is more fun. Rover just runs very fast and gets clear, leaving Holly breathless and trotting back to us as if she had really achieved something. Amazon, however, reacts to the chase. She will pretend that she is not in a hurry, glance back at us, trot around in circles, anything but let herself be chased. Last night she got a clean break away from Holly and could run as fast as she liked. Holly gave a desultory "Worra Worra Worra!" and trotted back to us.

The Dene has some lighting but it is not exactly extensive, so we promptly lost track of our little hunters. Even Holly kept trotting off away from the path. I think that they get a completely different feel and smell to the place when it's dark, so even familiar places become more exotic. Occasionally we would see the flash of Rover's night collar or Holly would appear to trot along with us but we might as well have been walking alone.

At length we reached the top end of the Dene which is a bus terminus and well lit. As if by magic the three dogs reappeared. There was a brief bit of confusion as we did not leave by the gate that they were expecting because we had yet to walk the extra 200m or so to the chippy.

I waited outside with the dogs while Cath bought our suppers. An old friend known as Mel stopped for chat. He was on his way to town where he DJ's at a rock night at a pub we used to frequent when we were all  much younger. I think he referred to it as LYH which I think is Legendary Yorkshire Heroes, which used to be the name of an off-license from the same period of time (the Eighties if you must know).

We said goodnight and wandered back with the food. Holly seemed extra inquisitive regarding every bump or discarded wrapper. Cath thinks it was because she could smell the chips and was becoming conviced that everything she could see was unclaimed chips. Holly is an expert at snaffling food from the ground and it can be quite a challenge keeping her nose out of a discarded kebab or bag of chips. Nothing was forthcoming for her, however; even the Bridge of Food let her down. The Bridge of Food is a feature of our Usual Route that Holly loves because she often finds food there. I will probably have more to say about another time on Lurcher Tails

About Lurcher Tails

Hi, my name is Kevin Futers and almost every day I am out walking with my two lurchers and the lodger dog. When I am out I often see, hear or imagine things that are to do with the seasons, the weather, other dogs, other dog walkers and so on. The purpose of this blog is to let me share with the world (or the half dozen people who pick up on this) a brief part of my day spent with my dogs.

The regular cast includes my wife, Cath, Amazon the neurotic alpha bitch, Rover the happiness dog and Holly the Lodger Dog.

Amazon and Rover are lurchers with a mix that includes blue merle collie and either greyhound or whippet, we just can't decide. The problem is that they are much smaller than greyhounds and they are much bigger than whippets, so they are, I suppose, collie sized in height. They both have brindled markings on parts of their body but these are broken up by their splodges. Amazon had a lot more tan in her colouring, Rover is very grey and black with hints of tan. They are about four years old now. They came to us free from a lad in Ashington who had rescued them from a neighbour who was giving them away without any thought of the sort of home they were going to. We only set out to get one dog - Rover - but when we got there we found out that Amazon was not going to the person that said she would take her, so we got a bonus dog. Rover got a well thought-out name, Amazon got an on-the-spot name based on the box we had brought to bring Rover home in. It all worked out well as the pair of them are inseparable and love running around together. They keep each other company and that is good for the times that they are alone in the house.

Then came Holly. She belongs to my future daughter-in-law and came to us from her home as her mother was  moving into accommodation that did not allow dogs. Holly looks mostly like a short legged border collie and we are fairly sure that she is crossed with a fox terrier. She is now about twelve years old and is starting to have senior moments but at other times she acts like a puppy.

When Holly arrived we had a little trouble sorting out the pecking order which was eventually won by Amazon. It must have been a close-run thing, because Holly remains insubordinate and does some things that almost seem like top bitch actions. Rover realised pretty quickly that he was in no place to challenge either of the bitches. I mentioned earlier that he is a happiness dog. I am fairly sure that his happiness derives from never striving for the top - he is an underdog and quite happy with that, thank you!

I think that is enough information to be going on with. The next post will be the first walk.