Monday

The Dog Rambler E-diary

To 27
August 2012
Walk Dogs on walk Circling Winton House Length 6 miles

Dylan, Jolie, Lucas, Otis, Tim, Struan, Talaidh

Who stole summer? An autumnal spectre cloaked the sky with dark ruffles of cloud. Firmly shutting out the sun. Its bony bare fingers like the leaf stripped branches of trees threw coldness down to the ground. An eerie light cast over the ground the gold of the corn fields fading into a dusky light. It was not a day for shorts. Oh well too late now. And some thin gloves may have been nice. Oh well again. The whiteness of Jolie, Otis, Struan and Talaidh stark and ghost like in this dim light. Darker Dylan and Lucas almost disappearing into the shadows. We blundered forward into this night like day along the dead end road to a farm and cottages and onto the old track between dense and darker trees to join up with the old railway line near Ormiston. A deep roaring coming and going. Rising in intensity and then falling away. Behind it a constant humming droning on, silencing the sound of birds. It was getting louder. We were approaching the source of this sound. Hidden behind the trees, its growl reverberated off them. Then as we turned onto the railway line it revealed itself. A great silver coloured

building with numerous large open tubes coming from it like the arteries of a heart. The building itself beating with the noise of its labour. Producing in its own way a life sustaining force. A modern mill grinding and processing wheat, barley and other crops. Diggers and other machines feeding its vast appetite. Lorries coming and going with new raw materials and powder like ground and milled produce.

Fighting against the dimness Jolie pushed at Lucas, then danced in front of him slightly awkwardly like a paper bag caught in the wind. He gave a half hearted chase, one that Tim did not even respond too. Before they fell back into the stroll under the oppressive sky and through a field of un-harvested crops. More still to feed the beast of a mill. Leaving the noises to drift away in the distance. We headed toward the stately Winton House climbing onto a bank of trees. Each holding firm in the damp ground sloping away from them. A battle with gravity which some of them had lost, tumbling heavily downward crushing plants and bushes beneath their broad trunks now like amputated limbs. No one was setting off on a race. All the dogs happy to wander along at a steady pace on the muddy track slicing though the trees above some low lying fields to the left and beside some unseen fields to the right just lost behind the continuing rise of the bank. Nearing the house, a pallid white painted ghost of a building, half concealed by the trees so it is easy miss, we dropped down to a stream. A chance for a paddle and a drink before finding a swaying wooden bridge on which to cross it and a short rest by the old stone road bridge with three pointed arches beneath. Here we turned and headed back this time staying beneath the bank of trees and beside low lying fields of wallowing cows. Long grass brushing against our legs. Back to the sweep of the path beside the pale field of crops and the once again rising sound from the mill sweeping all other noises away. In what felt like even more fading light as though it too were being sucked into the silver sheds, perhaps being used to burnish it colour, we made our way back toward the farm

lane. Even though it was the middle of the day the snatched sun was missing and it felt like dusk. It was as though the dogs energy had been stolen with the sun and they huddled closer together as we neared the end of the walk and car which sat near the end of the lane. Nick

Photo slideshow from the walk

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