Me and my new friend out picking blackberries

A hound was happy to fall into step with me on a recent walk — and to share some of the blackberries I paused to pick along the way.

LAST week, I wrote about having a stick for a companion when I went rambling. As I said, while a stick is most useful when ascending or descending on rough tracks, I find it an encumbrance because I have other accoutrements to carry.

But a dog?

Well, it’s a long time now since we’ve owned a dog — in fact not since our Springer, Nicky, disappeared one day when we were out together on the Seven Heads in West Cork. I later discovered that she had fallen off a clifftop; her body was washed up, her fur gleaming white, 36 hours later at a strand seven miles across the bay.

I had looked for her at the bottom of the cliff, suspecting an accident, but the tide was in when she disappeared. I thought she’d gone home alone, but when she wasn’t at the house upon my return I went back to the cliff and climbed down. I could find no trace of her on the rocks, uncovered as the tide had receded. My sons and I spent all afternoon walking the nearby fields and woods. And then, two nights later, we got a telephone call from a man who had found a dog washed up on a lonely Howe Strand. It was Nicky.

So, it’s seven years since I’ve had a dog for a walking companion, but the other day, this unknown friendly hound latched onto me, and amused me with its company for an hour, eventually following me home, but returning to its own place of residence when I reluctantly, but determinedly, closed the door in its face. It was still smiling up to that moment — I do believe dogs smile or, at least, show pleasure in their expression. We’ve all heard of a ‘hangdog look’, so why not a ‘happydog look’?

This, perhaps elderly, dog certainly looked happy as we rambled, and it found I was a good companion, indeed.

It began in the “I’m a good sport, let’s go for a walk!” mode, not intruding but simply accompanying me, walking ahead, behind or on the other side of the bohreen.

It clearly wanted to stay with me, waiting while I fiddled with my camera, taking pictures of hoverflies on briars, carder bees on fuchsia, butterflies on brambles, the harmless nonsense that for me enhances a stroll, attempts to capture the brilliance of the latest flowers to open, the shiny cheeks of crab apples in the autumn sun, fields of ripening barley, russet and black cattle sheltering under trees. It would sit in the shade and wait patiently, and then leap up, relieved, when I set off again.

But then, I came upon a hedge laden with ripe blackberries shining darkly in the evening sun, a feast for free which I absolutely could not pass. Blackberries are the best possible excuse for delay and, at this time of year, in this glorious weather, they delay me inordinately; I stop at every second bush.

My newfound companion watched me, cocking its head on one side with a questioning expression. I gathered it might care to try a blackberry, too. I dropped one on the ground and, after a cautionary sniff (after all, it didn’t really know me) its tongue shot out and lapped it up and it chewed, and then swallowed. Then, standing back politely, it gazed up at me with the look of a fellow creature who really wanted to be my friend.

After that, for every few blackberries I ate, I tossed one behind me and, Snap!, my pal caught it in mid-air. In fact, in a while, I simply backhanded the berries and, without even turning, knew, from the snap and slurp, that it had been gratefully received. And so we proceeded, my friend’s grin growing ever wider. We walked a mile together and then I turned for home, where circumstances dictated an unavoidable parting.

Swallows were on the wires (and starlings too) out on the headlands and townlands with the marvellous names, Turkeyland, Ballymacshoneen, Travara.

One could tell young birds from old by their tails; the adults had long, needle feathers, not yet developed by their offspring. There were many swallows, and they would soon be gathering to go south, but not yet, it seemed. Why would they follow the sun, when it is here?