Night Adventures
They’ve built a new piece of public footpath through the school playing fields near here, the idea being to encourage more people to walk downtown.* And I mean built: hard core** footing and proper hard paving overtop, kerbs, even streetlights. It was fun watching the process of it going in, including all the bits and pieces, the landscaping, the wheelchair-friendly slope from the playing-ground level to the road . . . no zebra crossing though, drat it; you still have to play chicken with the traffic.
I love it, however; the grounds are pretty long and the new path runs lengthwise through, which gives hellhounds and me a generous extra zigzag for our town hurtles where hellhounds can rambunctious*** out to the ends of their leads should they so desire.† We’ve been using it more afternoons than we don’t since it opened.
And then the flipping clocks went back and it’s dark by teatime. Hellhounds are now unlikely to have their second hurtle in daylight again till March. Grrrrrrr. Especially since ‘afternoon’ is a flexible concept to someone who tends to get to bed around gmmph a.m.
Last Sunday evening we were hurtling back to the mews at about 8, so not exactly what is usually encompassed by the term ‘afternoon’, but 8 isn’t late. This is, however, a small town, and it’s mostly tucked up in front of the TV by then.†† There are two ways in to the school grounds, both of them grotty and dubious enough I’m surprised the new footpath hasn’t included doing something about the entrances; the exit has a gate. So we turned down the pitchy black alleyway with the potholes. There’s a sort of rough parking area at the end of the alley, just before you turn onto the glossy new footpath; there are often rather . . . unsavoury little groups gathered there. If my misspent youth is anything to go by, this is a good spot for acquiring illicit substances.
Last Sunday quite a big group of teenagers were at the end of the alley as we turned into it, and they turned into the grounds, onto the footpath. They got as far as the first streetlight, and sat down, in a circle and started passing . . . well, I leave it to your imaginations, but I recognised the smell. I thought their choice of location was a little odd but . . . as hellhounds and I detoured around them, one of the girls said ‘sorry’. Snork. Polite malfeasants. My favourite kind.
None of this was disturbing. But as we passed the group blocking the pavement I saw another group coming our way. This was about half a dozen young men, all of them large. They were when I caught sight of them at the far end of the grounds, and we’d just turned in the entrance. And they were moving in that purposeful, Gunfight-at-the-OK-Corral way, all spread out sideways in a front, with plenty of space between them so they could lumber more effectively. Unh. And furthermore as they moved slowly but steadily in our direction one of them was stopping at every streetlight and shaking it till it went out. Obviously they don’t make streetlights like they used to or he’s a warlock with mysterious powers over electricity. But this meant we had half a dozen large lumbering resolute young men and a wave of darkness rolling toward us. Unh. This is, however, as I say, a small town, and what was I going to do? If this were anywhere but a small town I wouldn’t be walking across school grounds in the dark in the first place—and have I mentioned the thick hedgerow of trees, shrubs and brambles on either side of the grounds? I also have eighty pounds of hellhound accompanying me, which at very least is moral support.
The wave of large young men and darkness broke and swept around us—toward the group sitting on the pavement, I assume, although I didn’t turn around to look. Hellhounds and I proceeded on to the gate no faster (or slower) than usual and turned back up the road toward the mews.
That was last Sunday. This Sunday we were walking back to the mews at about 6 o’clock (it was still dark). We turned down the alley; there was no one there. We turned into the school grounds; there was no one there. Very pleasant. We ambled††† down the length of the grounds, turned the corner to the fancy shiny new exit. . . .
And the frelling gate was closed and locked.
(*&^%$£”!!!!!! (*&^%$£”!!!!!! (*&^%$£”!!!!!!
Now, obviously, any sensible person would merely have turned around and left the way we came in: a few extra minutes out of our way, not a big deal. I am not sensible.‡ So first I stood there and bayed at the moon for a minute or two—and then I checked the sign. This footpath is so glossy and dignified it has a sign. The sign says ‘open daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.’ It does not say ‘Monday to Saturday. On Sundays it closes when we feel like it closes.’ It says ‘open daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.’ So the next thing we did was scamper along inside the frelling fenceline a hundred feet or so, which the hellhounds enjoyed very much and I didn’t so much, remember the thick hedgerow? But when they put up the gate they also mended all the holes in that particular stretch of fence such that generations of large lumbering young men have made in school fencing all over the world.
But we were not yet driven to retreat. I hadn’t realised how well I know those school grounds, even in the dark‡‡ We came hilariously round the corners of a couple of buildings and headed for one of the main gates where more large lumbering young men have beaten down, for informal ingress and egress, a corner of the fencing hidden at the top of the bank under some yew trees, because this is what young men do.‡‡‡ I had to lift my hellhounds over the wire because I don’t trust them to jump over it §, I am all bent over for this deed because the branches sweep very low there and well braced because this is a very steep bank with a very narrow top. We then skittered down the incline and . . . were back on the road, which had been the plan all along. I seem to have only one bramble-slash across my face, which is pretty good going, all things considered.
And I may find someone to ring up tomorrow and inquire politely about the status of the new footpath.
* * *
* I have two 10-kg bags of cereal-free hellhound comestibles waiting at the pet shop downtown which I keep failing to pick up because I keep failing to find a parking space. I can carry a 22-pound bag of dog food that far—from the pet shop to my cottage—I could probably even carry both of them^—but I don’t want to. But I’ll have to soon or they’ll refuse to order them for me again. It’s a small pet shop.
^ I could certainly carry Darkness, who weighs about 44 pounds, that far, but he folds up better than two large rattly bags of kibble.
** Okay, what’s the American for the broken-up builder’s rubble that goes underneath roads or building foundations or similar? It’s ‘hard core’ over here, and I’m a little hesitant to pursue definitions too closely on the internet for fear of exposing my computer to things I do not wish either it or I to be exposed to, and my British dictionary doesn’t give any alternatives.
*** It is so a verb
† Of course this also makes it prime territory for canine-related human feeble-mindedness. I met a particularly graphic case of this yesterday: this creepazoid was walking past us saying ‘heel! Heel!’ to the ugly brute^ beside him, which was clearly not going to pay any attention as soon as it got within x of hellhounds . . . and it didn’t. It wasn’t even wearing a collar for the jerk to grab it by when it went for us.
^ No, not all dogs are darling
†† I worry about all the dogs that don’t get walks. There’s some appalling percentage like over half of the dogs out there don’t get walks. I hope the pollsters had a particularly unfortunate run^ of lazy sods and it’s not really this bad.
^ Or rather non-run. A sessile of lazy sods.
††† Cough cough cough cough. Ambled. Ha.
‡ You have perhaps noticed.
‡‡ I have got to start remembering to take a torch. I go through this every year when the clocks go back and I have to start picking up hellhound crap in the dark.
‡‡‡ There are a few situations where greater physical bulk and sheer cussedness are an advantage. Knocking hell out of material objects is one of them.
§ You know how dogs tend to kick off? I don’t let my guys jump over wire, even when it’s well within their sproinging range, for fear of their getting a foot caught.
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