dog blogging

Me and Nat took a canine friend of ours, Gatsby, out for a walk at one in the morning the other night. It was the first time I have ever walked a dog, I think, unless you count holding on to a dog's lead - his name was Jack - for a few minutes during a holiday in Wales when I was a child. Gatsby is a pretty big dog, too, and I am a notorious weakling, so I was satisfied to discover that I was capable of administering a decent grip on the hound at all times, even when he became animated at the distant sight of a black shape crawling across the black grass up ahead. I held firm and led Gatsby into St. Anne's Well Gardens, where we held our position while Natalia went to investigate. Having pulled rank, I walked Gatsby back over to a safe distance and found that the object of his attention was a small hedgehog. And looking up I saw another retreating into the distance.

a hedgehog, yesterday.

Soon we were joined by one of those groups of teenage boys who perpetually hang around parks at one o'clock in the morning, and in the light from someone's mobile phone we examined the critter, who, neglecting to roll into a ball, was clearly a pretty tough character and not too intimidated. Well, I hope not. While we, gregarious from drink - we'd spent the evening in the pub - chatted to the kids (all cooed over the dog and one took his wallet from his pocket to show me a photo of his own), Natalia bent over and lifted the hedgehog's two front feet, gently, as if he were a wheelbarrow. I stroked his needles and thought of the stiff twigs and bristles on an outdoor broom. It would be in keeping with the bucolic nature of the scene if I could then report that he ambled gingerly off, but in fact the animal reached a pretty good pace as he scuttled away, leaving us wondering why we were all there standing in a big circle, our conversation finished.

Dogs - and hedgehogs - are excellent spurs for random conversations. And blog posts.