Travels with Brendan

Brendan is the literal black dog who walks with me. He’s a great excuse to walk, one of the best antidotes to the metaphorical black dog of depression that, on occasion, gets me like many people. Each day I walk him, and now, each day, I notice things intentionally, walking at his pace.

This Sunday, as each one when I am not working flat out, I try to get in a longer walk. Often, I take a loaded pack, putting in a little additional resistance, training for the expedition I am due to take to Nepal in October. The idea is that by then I will be aerobically fit and primed to look after a group of 15-18 year olds and to enjoy the views of the Himalayas rather than struggling for air as I trek. Brendan is my companion on each of these long trips.

But Brendan is a young dog. We got him as a scrap, returned to a breeder by a poor woman who got him at eight weeks and shortly after received a diagnosis of terminal cancer. She kept him for the company and comfort as long as she could. She couldn’t give him the exercise or boundaries he needed. When we got him, he needed both of those things. Like any Labrador, he loves exercise and responds to it well. Like any dog too, when he’s outside, he’s fascinated by everything. Too often, I kept him on the leash and made him walk at my pace: no more. Now, we move at Brendan’s pace. When he stops, I stop too. We both take in what is around us.

At this time of year, I have to be careful with him. My black dog, like my own pasty Celtic skin, is not well suited to strong sun. We stay in the shade whenever possible.

What is very clear, however, is that the sun brings out nature’s full palette. I challenged myself on that first walk with Brendan, our usual maintenance stroll up the holloway path towards my place of work, to notice the range of colour.

As ever, green dominated. But speckled among it, the wildflowers are out and, in their subtle ways, vibrant with contrasting hues. We have, if not re-wilding, then an attempt to leave some of the more over-sown fields fallow, set aside for a while to regenerate the soil and encourage insect life back. We have swarms of bees, and the return of the butterflies is glorious.

Later in the day, with the sun high, we went out for our big walk. I wanted to move light and did not bring water or a pack today – I had already been to the dojo for a 90-minute session, so it wasn’t that big a walk. Ordinarily, I would bring water and a bowl, but thankfully, much of our path was shaded. We drank before. We drank on our return.

Below, you can see the quiet, muted beauty of the path, of earth and ground fall, mulch of dried leaf and twig. It’s easy underfoot at present, though in winter it is slick with sodden clay and clings to the bottom of my boots. This last winter though it has been unseasonably dry and I have walked since January, racking up the training.

The first stretch threads through managed woodland. There, it is easy to see the action of the seasons, of felled wood, victims of ash dieback and of land management as well as the strong storms that whip in off the coast. It’s easy, passing by each day, to neglect the sea views. Get high enough and there it is, the English Channel, a mile away, winking in the clear sunlight, the houses in a strip by it before the rising of the Downs.

Downland walks in summer are a time of crowding growth. On the tops, the farmers plant summer oats. It becomes a place in which the lapwings nest low to the ground, and swirl, chirruping when a walker passes, alerting others to the danger that the visit signals.

On these higher walks, there is little shelter other than, as Brendan found, among the wild grasses and crops. The grassland is parched a dusty yellow, the sky blue and deep, the palette of Cezanne. We could not stay out long but we both had fun; I noticed things while he charged in crazy circles through the long grass.

Later that evening, on our final walk, we went on a shorter trip up to a sloping municipal park.

While there, letting Brendan charge about, I noticed more of what I’d caught in the longer walk, a collection of benches, memorialising walkers of the past. This strikes me as a peculiarly British thing, to have as a place of memory: somewhere for a nice sit down, a little quiet time in a place of beauty. Such memorials adorn many of the paths around here. In my quiet wandering, I may collect such memories. It has been good today to notice things, to collect a few mementoes of the day. It sharpens the vision.