Tuesday

The Dog Rambler E-diary

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January 2012
Walk Dogs on walk

A windswept railway walk Gina, Lucas, Maggie, Solo, Tim

Length

6 miles

Woke up to very high winds this morning. Indeed woken during the night by the windows rattling and bins being blown along the street. As I got up it whistled around the skylight in the bathroom and I was sure the house lights were gently flickering. The lights downstairs in the kitchen too appeared to flicker. Maybe it was just my eyes and me still waking up. But it was confirmed by my partner who was wrapping up to take our two dogs out for their morning stroll. Later than normal as he is still on holiday. Perhaps given the weather I should be! The same thoughts had flickered through my mind last week when we were confronted by the wind hitting hard and some lashing rain. Nothing compared to todays wind though. I reached Maggie without any trouble. Just a bit of slaloming through Portobello where the bins skidded across the road. A sign of things to come was the sight of a broken chimney pot smashed on the ground from one of the houses next door to Maggie. On the journey to Tims up and over the hill of Craigmillar Castle we saw tree branches were scattered all over the road like a forest floor. It was as though the forested land of fairies was breaking through the barriers to the land of people blurring the edges of our roads and their woodland, intertwined. Nature and the constructions of man tied in a battle to win the

land. But it was from Tims to reach Gina and Solo that the worst was to come. Too late on the radio I heard that a tree was down and across the road near Dobbies Garden Centre. Sure enough ahead of us a long queue was beginning to form. I turned and detoured back to the A7 and toward Sheriffhall Roundabout. Before reaching it another tree was half across the road. People were beginning to clear it and directing the traffic to squeeze around the one third of road still passable. On we went only to be scuppered again on the road to Eskbank. This time a police car had closed the road and another diversion through Dalkeith was required. At last we reached Gina and Solo neither looking to too keen to head out in this. Once out the door and in the car they perked up. A fallen chimney stack above the Ship Inn had closed part of Dalkeiths town centre road but we got passed and made it to Lucas with no further trouble. Where to in these dreadful conditions? We headed for the railway from near Carberry to Ormiston. Some shelter from the rolling fields, rising away either side of the old railway. Now a walkway. Not too many tall trees either to land on us. Plenty of branches and twigs along the track. Great for Gina, Maggie and Tim to play with. Lucas not so sociable was hard to shift from clinging to my leg. Partly the wind and certainly partly the noise of it as it tangled with the bushes and the few trees along the way. More so when it whipped into the high power lines whinging like an Arctic blast and then screeching through the pylons themselves like the heavy long scream from the breaking wheels of a train. Solo in big brother mode kept a close eye on Gina. But the wind was not bothering her. She had play to get on with, be it chasing Tim or wrestling Maggie for a stick. The wind behind us quickly pushed us along the track. Clouds racing across the sky a mirror of Gina with her coat fluffing up alongside Solos. Few people out today. We only passed three people, heads down pushing themselves into the wind. Their hello snatched from their mouth and thrown backwards by the wind. My voice chasing off after theirs barely a chance for their ears to catch it. A good excuse for Tim and Maggie to go rolling off to meet the other dogs when they should have been

walking to heel. What, you called my name? Well Im sorry I did not hear it in this wind. Yet another fallen tree. This time near the road bridge into Ormiston. Across our walkway and not the road. It was near our turning point so did not disrupt us. Now it was head down for us into the wind and the long haul back to the rocking car. Gently rocking the dogs off to sleep as I got us ready to once more take on the roads to deliver them home. Nick

Photo slideshow from the walk

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