Heating Up

Ruth and I went to Aldeburgh yesterday to have lunch and watch Barry Lyndon at the cinema. But the day was too perfect to sit inside and so we spent the afternoon on the beach, and in the garden of the Wentworth Hotel having tea. It was lovely to see the town restored to its normal self, no longer a holiday resort but a quiet, calm seaside place once again. Oh it wasn't without visitors, but I'll wager that not one of them was under 70. "I hate being around old people," Ruth said with a sigh. Ho hum. They didn't consider themselves to be old, with their queueing up for ice creams, baring tanned, albeit wrinkled limbs, wearing jaunty hats against the baking sun, and laughter. Who knew how much fun retirement was going to be? What bad luck for our counterparts a few generations back who grew old gracefully, and firmly at home. The dog was a big hit as we tried to make him curl up small and sit in confined spaces while we drank chilled wine. I don't mind him sitting, lying, resting on my feet, they chorused from the tables either side of us. He's gorgeous. And impervious to it all he slept, or tried to as I continually hauled in his ever-expanding legs.

In the morning Penelope had come over, she who is going to be Hugo's foster parent along with husband Roger. She's a lot of fun, and we ended up going for a walk so that I could show her where some plump sloes were growing, to be turned into delicious sloe gin. Back home in the evening I returned to that field to collect the huge blackberries I had spotted earlier, and left Hugo to potter around by himself. It seemed to be empty, a yellow expanse that hasn't yet been put to the plough, and the dog amused himself chasing birds. But then a large, sleepy hare stood up and stretched not 50 yards away, and as Hugo raced towards it there was no sign of urgency from it. Within seconds the dog was inches behind, but then the hare put on speed and began its life-saving zig-zag action across the vast field. I watched helplessly as they vanished through a hedge, knowing there was a lane beyond the next field but feeling fairly relaxed as I could hear no traffic, no sounds at all. As I waited I counted no fewer than seven hares in various stages of relaxation, some quite visible, and some very obvious though the boy, the sight hound, hadn't spotted any of them. After a while the little black chap appeared again, and trotted gently back to me, sides heaving from the effort. Stay where you are hares, I prayed. Please don't stand up. And by some miracle they didn't, though they must have been super aware of imminent danger. Hugo was seriously out of breath, and so I put his lead back on and continued to pick blackberries as he walked and waited patiently beside me, gradually cooling off. He was asleep almost as soon as we got in, opting for his soft brown mat on the garden room sofa to collapse on. He has a bed in every room downstairs, but it doesn't stop him climbing onto a guest bed if I forget to close the upstairs doors. Prince Dog. Emperor Dog