Up to trix

I'm sure by now you are probably fed up seeing photos from my walk - but the light was so lovely yesterday afternoon.

Autumn browns and golds with strong black shadows. A poem something like this was coming into my head..

mushrooms and leaf mould
shadows long
and autumn gold

I did this walk both days over the weekend. Today my visitor and I were accompanied by the local farm dog, called Trixie... and Tricksy she is too, with a capital T, as she decides to adopt whoever she sees walking past who might entertain her with a walk up the lane, with some stick throwing to boot.

With that determined fascination that only an elderly border collie can maintain.. she looks at the stick no matter where you are until you reach it, but the eyes don't go off.. until it's thrown. The first time she accompanied us, I assumed, being human, that I had the superior brain, and we would entertain her whim until we got to the gate and then we'd 'lose' her. However when we got to the gate and with firm voices said "NO!" (as in 'you can't go up the hill, there's livestock, and we don't own you') she just pushed her head under the fence and with a bit of a belly flop, emerged stick and all, trotting merrily up the path ahead, with us realising we had been duped!

So now we have become accustomed to her company should she feel like a walk. One day I noticed a couple coming up the lane who Trixie had adopted. I smiled at them and asked "Has she followed you?". "Not our dog!" replied the lady, in an attempt to disown the single-minded collie. Trixie had done her trick and gone under the gate again, when she realised that the couple had not intended climbing the path, and had continued up the lane.

Moments later I heard a bark, and she scampered after them, stick in mouth - as if to say "YOU are going the wrong way!"

I sometimes worry when I see other dog walkers that she might embarrass us with some inappropriate doggy behaviour, but she has always been courteous - as long as the visiting dog knows this is her hill. She probably says as she passes "look at these waif humans I have adopted", but as we near home, she trots off - our mutual duties done. Yesterday I saw her sitting under a neighbour's trampoline as the child and ball bounced ontop. Her face was delight, tongue lolling to one side, at the indentations that came and went above her head.

Comments

[sallyanne]

What a great dog, and such a beautiful walk. The photos look as if they should be part of a romantic film, a Jane Austen maybe, or a Thomas Hardy classic, such wonderful scenery.

[suzanne]

I love the quality of light you get in the Autumn afternoons here. Autumn is well and truely here - Bonfires and baked potatoes!

[Pipany]

Hello Caireen. you have captured that magical autumn light perfectly. Lovely pictures x

[melissa]

lovely, lovely photos. the leaf-mould one is my favourite! i'll never get tired of coming along on your walks. :)

[Susan]

And as recorded in the film Amalie, there are truly cats that like to listen to children's stories. I got here via the compost photo, searching the phrase "strange beauty"