Taking the dog for a walk

A walk, for the dog, consists first of noticing that you're donning outside gear. He may have been asleep (or pretending to be asleep) up until that point, but suddenly he's wide awake, desperate to go out, racing round in mad circles, scrabbling at the door.

The next stage is seeing how soon it will be, after we get out of our gate, before he suddenly feels the need to evacuate his bowels. Sometimes it's so soon I simply march back inside the property and dispose of the little bag of goodies before we go any further. (Why he can sit inside all day holding on, I don't know. It's not as if he's incapable of getting himself out through the dog door.)

Anyway, at any point after that we're actually heading home. I may not know it, but every step we take away from the house, is, for the dog, part of the return trip. And by the time we get to the gate again, whether it be twenty minutes or sixty, he will be desperate to get inside the door.

And yet, no sooner have I removed his lead, than he takes one look at it and assumes I'm taking him out for a walk again.

Physio

Back to the physio today, after ten days of not seeing him. I've improved and then gone backwards, and then improved and then gone backwards. Several times. A bit erratic, you might say.

I put my back out over a month ago, was in agony for a day, sort of came right, but my right leg played up as a result, and when I got an appointment with the osteopath on the Monday morning (friends in high places) he realigned me, but it didn't fix the leg. Sent me to the physio in the same clinic.

Apart from sticking several needles in me in an acupuncturist sort of way, and manipulating various muscles, the physio has given me different exercises which I've been doing quite a bit. They've helped, there's no doubt. But I think he's been taking it quietly, not wanting to overload me.

Dog in shades due to Dunedin sun

Today I went for a walk with the dog before heading down to town to see the physio. It turned out to be a disaster on one hand, because my leg, which has been behaving itself increasingly, decided to go on strike, and I struggled to get back home from the walk. The dog was very patient with my extraordinary slowness. On the other hand it meant I was able to pinpoint more readily exactly where it hurts when this walking problem occurs (it doesn't happen every time I walk, for some reason) and that was useful. For me, if not for the physio, who might have wondered if I wasn't conjuring a bunch of new pains up for him, to keep him happy.

I don't really think that's how he saw it. But he introduced a couple of new exercises, both of which involved staring at myself in the mirror while trying to do what he asked. The mirror made things doubly uninspiring: seeing some old bloke struggling to do something relatively simple is embarrassing. And I seemed to be at cross purposes with him on one of the exercises in particular - what he called forward seemed to me to be backward. Anyway, hopefully I've got the hang of it now.

Came home feeling somewhat better but worn out. Time for an afternoon kip, I think.

Slipping, sliding away

One of the things I dislike about getting old is losing elasticity. There's nothing much you can do about it; even spending all day at the gym won't stop muscles from becoming less springy and vital (I haven't actually tried this, but I suspect it's the case). Things just wear out, and you kinda have to get over it, I guess.

I remember seeing the fourth in the Indiana Jones series of movies - which was made much later than the others, at the time Harrison Ford was around 65 or 66 - and noting that when he was required to leap upwards from one crate to another, he plainly found it difficult. Why they didn't use a double I don't know, since he was seen from the back at that point, as I recall. But I sympathised with him not a little.

Recovering your balance is part of this issue. A while ago my wife and I (and the dog) went for a walk and found ourselves, somewhat by accident, walking alongside the railway track at Caversham. The path, such as it was, was fairly rough, overgrown and brambly. We decided, on hearing the train coming along the track, that it might be wise to move up the bank and away from the tracks. I headed up first, full of my usual youthful confidence, grabbed at a bush to haul myself up, missed my hold, tumbled backwards down the slope, with my head towards the tracks. It wasn't that I was in any danger of being run over, but it was embarrassing being seen sliding headfirst down an easily-climbed slope by a trainful of passengers. My wife was more concerned than I was; I hadn't actually done any damage to anything except my dignity.  It didn't help that I was trying to hold the dog's lead at the same time, and wasn't sure where he'd got to in the melee. 

What was painful to discover, however, was the fact that I just didn't have the means to avert the fall. In the past, once I'd lost my grip on the bush, I would have saved myself from falling by swivelling my body around, or doing some other adjusting manoeuvre [manoeuvre isn't a word I can ever spell easily]. That just didn't happen.

Yesterday, while I was out weeding the garden, I banged my head on one of the struts that support one of the two heat pump machines we've got outside. Why these struts have to stick out and catch unwary elderly people I don't know - it's not the first time I've been caught. Fortunately I had my hat on and that saved any really serious damage. I think.

The problem was that instead of reacting by stepping backwards without any problem - except that of saying Ouch or something equivalent - I toppled backwards, couldn't recover my balance, and fell into a gooseberry bush. Yup, a gooseberry bush, which obliged me by prickling me wherever it could. In the past I wouldn't have come into contact with the bush, and I wouldn't have yet again lost my sense of dignity (not that anyone else was around). But for some reason known only to my legs, they just gave up the fight and dropped me in a heap. Very unfriendly of them, though perhaps the fact that I've been running and walking on them for nearly 70 years has something to do with it.

One could offer the advice: don't grow old. However, like it or not, I have, and plainly I'm going to have to work out ways to avoid sliding, falling, banging my head or otherwise damaging myself. May take a bit of effort.

A slightly longer - and steeper - walk than intended

The rain has been threatening on and off all day, and has now arrived, and brought a very cold front with it. 

When we were out walking this morning, around nine, there were some heavy black clouds, but they didn't come to anything, thankfully, so we managed an hour and twenty minutes stint.  It had started off as just a moderate walk, with us intending to stay on the flat in South Dunedin. I suggested doing what we used to do with our kids (in the car, usually) of taking a left turn then a right then a left, and so on, and seeing where it took us. We parked in the road parallel to Burns St (where Carisbrook is being demolished), turned towards St Peter's Church and then hived off into the wilds of South Dunedin, eventually coming out onto Forbury Rd. Allandale Rd beckoned, and my wife, now enthusiastic to get as much exercise as she could, turned up there. The next left took us towards a No Exit, but there was another little street that brought us into Norfolk St, and there, ahead of us, were the 279 steps leading up what's known as Jacob's Ladder. 

So we climbed them, twenty or thirty at a time, having a breather every so often and looking at the views, which became increasingly spectacular the higher we got. Halfway up or so, there was a gate - presumably a back gate to a property that had its frontage on a real street.  Someone had attached a painting to the gate, and somehow this painting has withstood the weather.  [See top picture.]  The artist is someone M. McNeill and it looks as though the picture was painted in 1970.  If that's the case, it's got a very resilient sealant on it.

At the top of Jacob's Ladder, in Allandale Rd (again) we stood and checked out the view (again), chatted to a couple of dog owners that passed by (while our dog chatted to the dogs) and discovered, a little further down the hill, a lovely house with a wonderful garden - a huge garden in a kind of scooped-out bowl in the hillside.  Magnolias, rhododendrons, blossom trees, and a host of other delights; a little bridge over a little stream, and cacti growing in the glasshouse.  Walking certainly allows you to discover things you've never known about in over sixty years in a city.

We also found that there's an enormous old brick house at the end of Coney Hill Rd.  I presume the road was originally just the driveway leading up to the house, which commands wonderful views over St Clair and the ocean.  I don't know anything about this house, but no doubt it has some history.  

Back to the car, by a similar route, with sore thighs and feet.  But very satisfying. 

The photo of Jacob's Ladder comes from an online album - it was taken by someone who only identifies himself as Gary.

Dogs

Some time ago, Richard Beck, who writes a blog entitled Experimental Theology (it was a blog I used to read daily at one time), posted a series on happiness.  In one of these posts he wrote that if you're unhappy because relationships seem to pass you by, then there are three things you can do.  The third of these was get...A dog or a cat that lives inside with you. The research is very clear on this. People who have pets, particularly people living alone, are less stressed, more healthy, less depressed, and less lonely. Now, I've known about this research for years but it never really dented my skull. But I get it now after having become a first time dog owner.

I became a first time dog owner when I was 65.  My wife had owned a dog when she was young, but not since, though she'd often talked about getting one. When we were both on the verge of retirement we made the rash decision one day to get a dog.  Apart from occasional issues, such as all dog owners will experience at some point, we've never looked back.  

The other day I read somewhere that a dog's delight on seeing you is akin to the rush a lover gets when he sees his beloved (or vice versa, one hopes!)  You don't have to have been away for months (as have the soldiers in these videos*); being away for half an hour is enough to send our dog into paens of rapture.  And he's protective: he's just raced out into the dark, in the pouring rain, in order to ensure that no burglars or other nasty people are lurking out in the back garden (in the dark, in the rain). To frighten them away he makes a noise like a honking goose. Apparently this is very effective, if what he tells us about this is to be believed. Certainly geese find it effective: we haven't seen one in years. 

We talk to our dog all the time - whether we're at home on our own, or together.  And of course he talks to us.  He has this kind of high-pitched voice (he's a small dog, after all): it's a tenor verging on castrato, I think.  He seems to have a kind of quirky humour - not unlike my own, although sometimes he takes after my wife.  Of course he doesn't have to talk all the time. His tail gives his true feelings away; in fact sometimes his tail seems to be saying something different to the rest of him.  And when we mention the word 'car' he's at the front door like a shot, scraping away, desperate to get out, without a word.  Why he thinks going in the car is all the great I don't know, but seemingly it's an opportunity to get out of the house for a while.  'Walk' is another word that rings a bell in his brain, and he'll dance around the kitchen - often on just his hind legs - with enormous anticipation.  He can understand 'toy', though sometimes he just takes the initiative and brings the toy to us, expecting us to play immediately.  He doesn't have to say a word at that point. There are a number of other words in his vocabulary too, but I won't bore you with them all. 

Since this dog arrived in our house, I've become far more relaxed with other dogs.  I've got a better understanding of where they're at, and don't take fright so readily at them, or bark back at them if they shout when I go past their house.  While I think I prefer smaller dogs - they don't take up so much room on the couch or the bed when they decide to snuggle up to you, and when they leap at you you're far less likely to suffer a major injury - I've even found some bigger dogs to my liking in ways I wouldn't have in the past.  

But it's not really an issue of whether I now like dogs as opposed to previously not being so keen on them.  What I'm trying to say is that there's something absolutely amazing about the love of a dog for its master/mistress.  Disciplined well when a pup, they'll pay you back in spades (and occasionally some other less pleasant options). I would never have credited that a dog could give so much.  I'd read about it, but I'd never known it for myself. We've been blessed as a family time and again over the years, but one of our greatest blessings has been this ridiculous little dog that seems to think we're somehow the elephant’s adenoids, cat’s miaow, ant’s pants, tiger's spots, bullfrog’s beard, elephant’s instep, caterpillar’s kimono, turtle’s neck, duck’s quack, duck’s nuts, monkey’s eyebrows, gnat’s elbows, oyster’s earrings, snake’s hips, kipper’s knickers, elephant’s manicure, clam’s garter, eel’s ankle, leopard’s stripes, tadpole’s teddies, sardine’s whiskers, canary’s tusks, pig’s wings, cuckoo’s chin, butterfly’s book, bees knees and the cat's pyjamas.  Well, maybe not that last one...

And if dogs truly descended from wolves, how did they come to a point where they think that humans are worth their weight in gold? 


*I suggest you turn the sound off with some of them; the spouses ongoing commentaries get a little tedious unfortunately.

A jaunt before the first coffee of the day

Just been on an hour and a half's walk up around Queen St, the street that really doesn't do much honour to anyone royal, since a few hundred metres of it is stuck down on the flat by Woodhaugh Gardens, a chunk climbs up umpteen steps to the top level, and then it's divided in two for quite a way before finally settling down into being one actual street.  In the section where it's divided in two, there are two lanes side by side, both part of the street, and both of these are no exits as far as cars are concerned....unless they want to do a plummet over the cliff into Malvern St.  There are steps and lanes and more steps and houses so much higher on one side than the houses on the other that the roofs of the lower ones are substantially below the basements of the other. 

The walk (which comes from Paul Hayward's Further Intriguing Dunedin Street Walks) took in various other bits as well, of course, with more lanes and more steps (we didn't go up Khyber Pass, which was something) and the discovery of the Cosy Dell Tennis Club, which I didn't know existed.  We also found that the area has perhaps more large mansions and houses per hectare than most other parts of the city.  Some of them, in Regent St, for example, sit so far above the actual street than another house could be fitted in comfortably below them.  That's not an area I'd like to be in an earthquake...

My wife says I should mention that I got rather irritable on the walk.  It may be because I'm now yet another year closer to seventy, or maybe it was because the dog was more frisky than usual and not listening to instructions (he says that's definitely not the case) or it may be that I found Hayward's instructions for this particular walk a little obscure in places (unlikely, but possible).  Anyway, I'm now in recovery mode, having my first coffee of the day.  Which reminds me that I gave the world premiere performance of one of my new piano pieces last Saturday, at the fundraising concert held at St Peter's Church in Hillside Rd.  It was a piece called, (somewhat long-windedly), Rachmaninoff has his first cup of coffee of the day.

Keeping fit

Recently I wrote about a walk in which we discovered Braeview Crescent; it was just one of a number of decent walks we've been doing of late, walks that may be up to seven kilometres long and/or an hour and a half (or more).  Some of the time we've used the Intriguing Dunedin Walks books, but over the last three days we've done walks that we've just discovered for ourselves.

On Thursday we left the car opposite where the Monarch is berthed, down at the wharf, and did the old Crowl family trick of turning left, then right, then left again and so on. Nearly seven kms later we'd got all the way to the University area, walked around some of it and come back to the car via a different way.

On Friday we did a rather more adventurous - and more exhausting walk.  (The Thursday one had been almost entirely on the flat.)  This time we parked near my son and daughter-in-law's place in Helensburgh Rd, climbed up the street to discover that Wakari Rd ran across the top, walked right along that road for quite a distance (doing detours into Caleb Place and Joshua Place - yes, I know - and discovering that one of them had a little walk through a private garden that was open to the public).  Then, in due course, we went down Polworth Rd towards Burma Rd, which runs through the Ross Creek reserve.  We thought we'd give ourselves some variety and go through the bush, but the track we were on dropped off a small cliff in two different places, which wasn't ideal - so we backtracked onto Burma Rd, found the usual track that we've been on before and climbed back through that until we reached Cannington Rd.  Thought we'd be clever and take a shortcut through the golf course - and managed to, though with the dog in tow it seemed likely we might suddenly get thrown off the green.  Managed to find a gate to climb over and then did the relatively heavy climb back up to Helensburgh Rd.  Had a cup of coffee with our daughter-in-law after around two hours walking...

Today went out to Tomahawk, and climbed up it until we reached Centre Rd, which we then proceeded to climb until we'd done 3.5 kms of climbing.  What views!  The sea on one hand, the lagoon on the other, Saddle Hill in the distance, Brockville at the same level, fields, cows, horses, sheep (pong!).  All made all the better by a glorious sunny day.  Plainly the wind is strong up that way, however, as the macrocapras were bent almost completely over in places.  We were going to climb up to the monument that sits on one of the peaks, but there didn't seem to be a road to it from Centre Rd, so we went as far as the bend and came back again.  Got in the car and went back up to the Tautuku turn-off, and discovered the most wonderful old stone house down at the water level.   We'll have to do the Tautuku walk another day.

1. I talk to a horse (but he don't listen to me....)
2. Celia at the highest point we reached.
3. One of the views from on high.

Bit of a walk

One of the advantages of living on the hill in Dunedin, is that it gives you ample opportunity to go for reasonably strenuous walks with the dog.

Today, we headed up the gentle slope of Mitchell Ave, into Elgin Rd, along to Mornington Rd until we reached Netherby St.   Netherby heads steeply downhill for a little, then there are steps down to the Balaclava School - probably around 150 of them.   I didn't count them today, but will another time. 

Down past the school into Barr St, briefly, across the road and up Shirley Place, which has a steepish path and then some 30-40 steps.  Along the street to Kenmure Rd and then a quick dog-leg into Bryant St (had to put in that bit about the dog-leg to keep the dog happy).  Along Bryant St, which is an up and down meanderer, and then up the steep path leading to Kenmure Rd - except that you also have to climb 220 steps (I did count these today) before you reach it.

Down English Ave, across Elgin Rd again; down into Crosby St and up the 25 or so steps at Lesney St.  Back into Maryhill Tce and home.  

All up, forty-five minutes.   That should deal to some of the muffins we've been eating that were left over from my grandson's birthday party....

More on quirky places

My wife (not wearing her moissanite earrings) and I - and the dog - (that's not him on the left) went for an hour-long walk this morning, along to the end of the street, down winding, narrow, steep Lancefield St, into Caversham village, stopped for a brief chat with our neighbour who was having a smoko outside her work, and then back up the hill via the Glen, up Reynolds St (at least as steep as Lancefield), up a track leading towards 165 steps (and up them) and up into Avoca St, Appold, Vickery, Maryhill Tce and home again.

What was quirky? Apart from Lancefield St, off which the Assembly of God Church had once owned a property where they thought of building a church (that was quirky) I'd never known there was a track between Reynolds and Avoca - I've come down into Reynolds from Maryhill Tce before, but didn't know that was a route opposite that went up a different way. It's virtually rural up there. (In fact, there's a black llama in a property just down the way in Glen Rd - that's a black llama in the picture, but not the one we saw.)

Any of these walks up and down this side of the hill will lead you to all sorts of oddball mini-streets, streets so small that two cars can barely pass, or streets that turn into steps or tracks or suddenly disappear altogether. I'm not sure that I'd like to live on them, but people do.

As we were walking along in the wind, we found several of the new DCC recycling bins had blown over, so found ourselves doing a bit of civic duty and picking up the papers and cardboard and so on that had spilled out. Not only did it show that these bins aren't terrible stable, especially in a wind, but they must also be a bit of a nightmare to collect in some of the narrow streets I mentioned above.

Photo courtesy of 'Shutthedoor'

Ross Creek Art Gallery

My wife and I went for a walk this afternoon on the Ross Creek bush tracks, and I was reminded that more than a decade ago, in my lunch hours, I used to wander around the local art galleries (Dunedin is blessed with an abundance, all within spitting distance), and build my imaginary art collection.

I allowed myself a large sum of money per month (it was at least ten thousand dollars, and may have been more) and with this figure I would 'buy' whatever took my fancy. These days, of course, it's possible I could actually (quietly) photograph the works and keep track of them on my computer, but at that time there was no such thing as a cellphone with a camera, so I used to take notes about the paintings (sometimes sculptures) and draw little sketches of them... An alternative method these days would be to forgo visiting the galleries live and collect/view the pictures on the Web!

What has Ross Creek got to do with this? Is this another one of those posts full of ellipticals? (And I don't mean cross-trainers - elliptical doesn't only apply to that recent acquisition of the word.)

Well, Ross Creek is the site of Dunedin's oldest, and still functioning, reservoir. It's a beautiful spot, with a walkway out to a delightful little 19th century valve tower which presumably had something to do with water control in the past - indeed, it may still do.

Opposite the tower is a second, smaller piece of water. My plan was to 'build' my art gallery there. In fact, as we walked around today I got excited about the whole idea again, and the way in which this building could be designed. Somehow it should meld into the landscape and yet be distinct. I envisage a huge glass wall on the reservoir side so that visitors, when they've had enough of looking at my fine collection, would be able to sit and contemplate the wind making light waves across the surface of the water, and a few ducks puttering around feeding their faces or followed by their young.

The building would sit over the second lake, straddling it in such a way that the lake was still visible, and of course, inside there would be temperature-controlled rooms to protect the art works. It wouldn't be a large place; the paintings and sculptures would be shown on a kind of rostered basis.

And here's something else - if possible, I would rescue the men's toilet room from the old Art Gallery at Logan Park and install it in my building. It was a work of art in itself, particularly the urinals!

(David Hood's picture is from flickr.com)