Autumn Walk

For most of November I have been dog/house sitting in South Somerset, near the Dorset border. I was here at this time last year, too, and it’s a lovely place to be as Autumn draws in – an AGA in the kitchen and log burner in the lounge, so that you can soon feel toasty warm after a walk in the damp and cold. It has been very damp here, for the most part, but I would like to take you on a morning walk with Vesper, the Doberman, and me:

Now, a lot of dog walkers walk ‘meaningfully’ - striding out (or even jogging!) with their trusty hound at their side, walking purposefully and quickly. Me, I’m more of a ‘mindful’ walker – ambling along, completely immersing myself in my surroundings so, come along, what are we waiting for? The morning beckons, it’s dry, it’s sunny, it’s relatively mild!

Vesper wears a harness and sits while I pop it over her head and do up the straps. Last year I used the extending lead and spent a great deal of time feeling that my left shoulder was being pulled out of its socket but, this year, my friend, Emma, showed me a different method, using a double-ended lead and clipping one end to the ring on the chest part of the harness and the other on the ring on the back, thus, effectively, giving you a set of reins. When she started to pull a quick left hand/right hand tug was enough to unbalance her and stop the pulling! It’s amazing, and has made walking that much more pleasant.

The first part of the walk is along the tarmac lane and Vesper must be kept on her lead, for two reasons: firstly, even though it is a dead end, with only a couple of farms further on, it can be surprisingly busy with cars and vans and secondly, because Vesper has a very strong ‘chase’ instinct, she cannot be trusted around livestock, and there are both cattle and sheep along the lane. So, we tend to do a bit of ‘meaningful’ walking here (especially if it’s raining!), with me keeping a careful eye on the way ahead to try and spot any squirrels before Vesper does. Even with the new lead system, I doubt I could hold her if there was a squirrel in close proximity – last year I became an accidental tree-hugger when Vesper chased a squirrel into a large oak tree at the side of the lane!

Down the hill we go, above us the sky is a clear, washed-out blue, with a few high cirrus clouds looking, for all the world, as if they have been combed; the sky is reflected so clearly in the puddles that I can almost imagine falling through them into an alternative world (a bit like Alice Through the Looking Glass!). Faintly, I can hear the drone of an aeroplane, perhaps heading for Exeter airport, and the distant ‘thwack, thwack’ of the local hedge-cutting contractors as they ready the field boundaries for winter. Away to our right there is the distant hoot of an engine, as it rounds a bend, followed swiftly by the rumble of the high-speed train as it makes its way to Penzance or Paddington.

The lane is bounded, on each side, by ancient hedges with, every thirty yards or so, a ‘standard’ – in this case mature oak trees – which stretch their canopies across the lane and down the lane to meet their neighbours. These were grown, originally, to provide shade for livestock in the summer and wood for the fires of winter, plus being an absolute boundary marker that could not be moved, but must be an absolute bane to the modern-day hedge cutter with his vicious flail.

As we near the end of the tarmac, I can feel Vesper tense – she knows that she is about to be released and there may be squirrels in the spinney that she can chase, if she’s quick enough!  The small area of woodland extends away to our left at the bottom of the hill and contains a mix of native deciduous trees. Some, mainly the ash and hazel, have already lost the majority of their leaves, owing to the rain and strong winds, but the oaks are still vivid with green leaves, turning golden and brown, and the field maples glow golden yellow in the low sunshine. There are jays squabbling in the wood, their harsh cries in sharp contrast to their beautiful plumage, and a squirrel scolds, angrily, from the safety of an oak tree, as we pass by.

At this point the tarmac runs out and the track splits in two – one track goes straight on to a couple of farms and the other, turns right, between high hedges, and runs for a further half mile, before petering out at another farm. This is where Vesper is allowed to wander, off-lead, as it is relatively dog-proof and there are no animals in close proximity to the track. This is where I can start to amble and really concentrate on my surroundings.

The air is so still that I can hear faint, far off traffic noise and closer the cawing of several rooks, mobbing a lone buzzard that has had the temerity to stray into their territory. They hound him for several minutes as he twists and turns away from them, until they decide that he has left their airspace and return to their roost in the oak tree.

The faint, rank odour of a fox still hangs in the air where it has emerged from one hedgerow, crossed the track and disappeared into the other hedgerow, probably some time ago, but the air is hardly stirring between these hedges, so it hasn’t been dispelled yet. Out of the corner of my eye I can see flutterings deep in the hedge as small, brown birds go quietly about their business, a blackbird shrills its warning cry as I pass and wood pigeons crash, ungainly, from the branches above my head. A few, brown oak leaves spiral gently down to land amongst the others on the track and acorns sit amongst the mud and puddles.

The hedges themselves are full of variety, with traditional hedging plants: there are field maple, ash, sycamore, hazel, hawthorn, blackthorn, privet, spindle, dogwood, bramble and briar, each with their different shaped and different coloured autumn foliage adding to the wonder of the day. Thick reed-like sedge grasses grow in the ditch at the side of the lane which, after all the rain, is overflowing with water, gurgling and tumbling over and round rocks and broken branches. There are still rosehips glowing a dull orange in the hedge, and the deeper red of hawthorn berries, but it is the shiny scarlet berries of the bryony that really catch the eye, as they glow like strands of red beads, festooned along the hedge and, here and there, are the startlingly pink spindle berries, bursting open to reveal their bright orange seeds.

We reach the crown of the railway bridge and from here I get an amazing view of the beautiful, rolling countryside of south Somerset, stretching away into the distance, with small copses and spinneys crowning the hills and majestic oak trees standing proud in the middle of the fields, where the beef cattle graze. A sudden movement, nearby, brings my attention back to the field next to the railway track as a roe buck, probably startled by the proximity of Vesper (who luckily hasn’t spotted him!), leaps from the hedge bottom and bounds away to the shelter of the next hedgerow.

About a quarter of a mile further on we have to turn for home as the track finishes at another farm. Vesper tries her luck one last time, by wriggling under a gate into yet another piece of woodland, and disappearing from view. I call and whistle and get no response, but then I hear the indignant cry of a cock pheasant as it hurtles into the air, and a few moments later she’s back, tongue lolling, tail wagging, and we turn to retrace our steps.

Halfway back along the track I hear some chittering calls as a small flock of birds burst from one of the oak trees and fly away in front of me – those hips and haws will not be in the hedgerow long – the fieldfares are back for their over-wintering stay! Now I know that winter is really on the way, another season to look forward to, or endure, depending on your viewpoint; a time of quiet reflection and planning for the new year ahead.