Home Front
Our Greek rescue hound Destry mostly ignores us on walks.
Poor recall is a problem shared with many other owners of Greek rescue dogs. I know this because they are always comparing notes about it on an online forum and bemoaning the fact that they can never let their dogs off the lead.
Every so often, the charity we bought him from have a reunion walk for all Hellenic hounds and their owners in Hampshire. Betty keeps asking if we can go one day to see if Destry’s siblings turn up (she wants to know if they are as weird as their brother). But I’m not madly keen, much preferring to wander lonely as a cloud with just Destry.
Walking in groups has in our neck of the woods become almost customary in recent years. I know several women who will never properly walk their dogs unless they have a companion. And then there are those large dog-walking groups, which dear old Lupin – Destry’s predecessor – used to find slightly terrifying. You see them on the North Downs, formidable regiments of stay-athome mothers appearing in the distance like something from a zombie apocalypse, the sheer size of the pack turning their otherwise placid dogs into feral maniacs.
I’m also averse to the way other owners on the forum refer to their dogs as ‘fur babies’, as though they are cuddly toys from Hamleys. Besides, anything less like a fur baby than Destry is hard to imagine. With the National Trust’s plague of infantile signage, it may be only a matter of time before they too adopt this childish name: ‘Please keep your fur baby on a lead when moo cows are in the field’.
For the past few years I have been mentally compiling a list of infantile NT signs and pointless embellishments at properties around Surrey.
A 20ft banner proclaiming the daffodils to be in bloom (obscuring the view of the daffodils).
An unsightly post erected in the middle of a wild meadow telling us what birds, flowers and insects to look out for. (If
people are interested, they can find this out for themselves.)
Painted on a downstairs wall at Vaughan Williams’s old house at Leith Hill: a life-size mural of Vaughan as a boy, balancing books on his head (something he was apparently made to do along that corridor). Why not leave visitors to imagine this scene for themselves? To signify the composer’s time on the Western Front, the guided tour was accompanied by the sound of trench warfare. This is inappropriate, as well as comically absurd (especially when the volunteer guide kept having to leave us to sort out the malfunctioning sound system).
A sign on a café table at Polesden Lacey: ‘This is a Chatter and Natter table!’ I guess this is the NT’S attempt to combat loneliness in the community. Well-intentioned, perhaps, but clumsy and cringe-making.
Attached to a fence overlooking Polesden’s rolling hills, an ornamental wood carving proclaiming, ‘All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking’ – Friedrich Nietzsche.
I am reliably informed that Stourhead has a sign with Alexander Pope telling you what to think. What next? Aleister Crowley quotes in a mushroom field? As my friend Patrick put it, ‘Once the NT goes nuts, it’s all over.’
The only signs you used to see on NT walks were for missing dogs. So far we have been lucky with young Destry. He goes AWOL from time to time but there has always been a network of fellow walkers who have helped me find him.
And because he is handsome, people tend to make a fuss of him. The only exception was the woman who lashed out at Destry after he went over to greet her boxer. When I politely asked her to stop shouting at him, she turned on me instead. The ensuing row resulted in her calling me a ‘stupid f***king cow!’ (proving my theory that the only thing in this country besides Brexit to turn otherwise civilised strangers into monsters is disputatiousness over dogs).
The following day, I saw my enemy and her unhappy-looking dog again. Anticipating another row from the set of Eastenders, I decided the only option was to be as charming as possible. So, channelling my inner Margaret Rutherford, I chirruped, ‘Good morning!’ No response. ‘Good morning!’ I repeated rather wildly. ‘Morning,’ she said begrudgingly. When we passed each other, we even exchanged a smile (though hers was a bit sarcastic). A victory of sorts – though I don’t suppose we shall be sharing confidences at the Chatter and Natter table any time soon.