Latest / UK Column Radio / Walking The Dog - Episode 2

Transcript

Walking The Dog - Episode 2 · UK Column Radio

0:02
Come on, Poppy, let's be having you. We've dressed for the weather
0:09
today because I think my previous predictions about spring approaching have disappeared, so we
0:21
didn't get that one right. It's very very gray today and misty, missy,
0:27
and there's quite a bit of light rain coming down, and that very
0:33
fine sort of drizzly rain. So I'm here with the full foul weather gear,
0:40
as it was called in the Navy. The dog didn't want her coat
0:45
on. I'm a bit iffy about this because Poppy's missing a little bit of
0:50
fur in a couple of places and she can get cold, but she also
0:56
doesn't like wearing a coat. So I gave in and Poppy is here commando
1:03
and we'll see how we get on with the walk. I'm feeling quite pleased
1:10
with myself because I've been sat indoors doing some UK column work. I'm not
1:19
allowed to say what it is. Well, I probably could, depending on
1:22
the future programming of when material goes out, but I got on quite well.
1:30
I was also pleased to receive a couple of packages from one of those
1:34
companies that delivers stuff, and I was very pleased with the young guy that
1:42
dropped the little packages off because he actually did ring my doorbell. And this
1:49
is a big deal because a while ago we thought it was a good idea
1:53
to have a doorbell because we didn't have one, and having selected one and
2:00
fixed it by the door and an appropriate height where people could see it,
2:06
I was then stupid enough to expect people who were making a delivery to ring
2:12
it. But I quickly found that the delivery men, for whatever reason,
2:19
would always knock on the door, which we can't hear, and they would
2:23
fail to ring the bell. So possibly I need a big sign actually saying
2:31
ring here, but I don't think we're going to do that. Well,
2:36
anyway, a few birds out, and I wonder whether you can hear this
2:40
one. Well, we've got the birds singing, but that was a dove
2:51
cooing sat on the gate, looking at me with some suspicion. And there's
2:58
quite a few doves around here, and it's quite nice to see them all
3:04
grouped up. And yes, as you walk past, they look at me
3:08
with this sort of suspicious look on their faces, cocking their head to one
3:15
side. Now, I'm really pleased that a few of you have come back
3:20
with me, because I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen with
3:25
my first walk with a dog, and I have to say I was absolutely
3:31
amazed when the YouTube views got up to thirty sorry, three thousand, a
3:42
little bit over three thousand, but I was delighted with that because it's been
3:46
a long time since we put stuff out on YouTube. Because of course,
3:52
YouTube decided they were going to censor the column and the main site was taken
3:58
down. So, as I think I said in episode one, I know
4:02
that I've got to think about what I'm saying at certain times. But nevertheless,
4:09
it was great to see you all there. And I've looked at most
4:14
of the comments. There might be a couple now that I haven't and yeah,
4:19
a lot of really nice comments, which is a big boost because you
4:25
do what you do and you're not too sure how it's going to be received.
4:29
So it was really lovely to see those comments coming. In a little
4:35
bit of fraw with a couple of people over the fact that it was audio,
4:43
and I had people saying, oh, well, it should be video
4:46
and you should have a selfie stick, and I'm thinking, no, no,
4:49
I don't want to do that because the moment you start videoing, how
4:55
to just wait for this lorry to come down part of this track. The
5:00
moment you start videoing, you have to concentrate on the video, and that
5:06
means that I'm not having an enjoyable walk with the dog. And so I
5:13
thought, yep, the best thing to do here is audio. And I
5:17
did like the fact that a couple of people said to me, yeah,
5:23
Brian, it was great because I was doing other things. I think one
5:26
of the lady said she was making lunch or a meal. So we're going
5:32
to stick with audio. And I'll just say nicely, if you were one
5:38
of the people who said, oh, it's not a video, just stay
5:42
with me for a bit and see whether you can enjoy the fact you can
5:46
just you know, relax in a chair or you can be driving or walking
5:54
and we can do this together. And it is good. It's great you've
5:59
come. And I see that a few of you have come properly prepared with
6:03
the welly boots and you're going to need them. Yeah, So there we
6:10
are. Poppy's just what you up to, Poppy. Yeah, she's having
6:15
a good sniff around today. I mentioned the squirrels previously and Mike, goodness,
6:20
that would seem to be alive with them at the moment, so she's
6:26
happy to keep a watchful eye out. And yes, where were we Well.
6:36
The other thing is that I was able at home to sit down and
6:40
watch the UK Column News and UK Column Extra, so it was Mike with
6:47
Vanessa and Charles Mallett. I don't know whether you've ever seen UK Column News,
6:54
but if you haven't, i'd encourage you to watch it, and you
6:58
need to go to UK Org to do that. I'm having a bit of
7:03
fun here, but I know, of course that many people watch stuff on
7:08
YouTube and we don't actually get near websites. They don't actually go and look
7:14
for the source material. But it's always nice to be able to sit at
7:20
home and watch the news. And yes I do try and join in the
7:27
chat box when I can. But I was also surprised when I saw the
7:31
time because I did another piece of work and sent a couple of emails and
7:39
then I discovered that it was twenty past three, so I thought i'd better
7:44
come out. And here we are, coming down to the river. Hello,
7:53
I'm actually recording a little bit of audio here, so I'm meeting you.
7:57
You don't give me any names, but tell me about your dog.
8:01
Oh, is this Molly. She's thirteen years old, only are three tick
8:05
and very slow, but she still likes to go out. She's well traveled,
8:09
excellent, She's been to Dubai and back. Really she lived on Channel
8:11
Islands for two years to buy a bit hot. It was awful. She
8:16
came back after six months. Right, Okay, that's absolutely perfect. Thank
8:22
you, very thank you very much. I wonder I've got it up on
8:26
YouTube. It's just called Walking the Dog. My name is Brian, Brian
8:31
Gerrish Walking the Dog. So I did the first episode. I think it
8:35
was about ten days ago, and I got three thousand views on it,
8:43
which was pretty good, and a lot of people have said that it's just
8:46
nice to be able to listen to something that's well. One person said it's
8:52
a bit likely listening to the radio years ago when those things. So I
8:58
walk along, I talked to the dog, and I've spoken to a couple
9:03
of people. No names is all anonymous, and yeah, people seem to
9:09
have enjoyed it so much better than doom scrolling. Want to talk well,
9:15
unfortunately we also do a bit of that. But this is why I decided
9:20
for this one, you know, just to keep it upbeat Okay, well,
9:31
there we are. That's fascinating, isn't it. I wonder what will
9:37
happen when that lady goes and if she does go and have a look at
9:41
episode one. And also interesting because she talked about doom scrolling, which is
9:50
the expression I haven't heard before, but I know what she means. So
9:58
I thought i'd just bring you down to look at the river because it's well,
10:01
it's dropped a bit, but it has been very high over the last
10:05
few days because we've had some really extraordinary rain, and so I just stood
10:11
here watching it go down towards the old railway remains of the old railroad bridge,
10:20
which I've talked about. But it's all looking very wintry again today,
10:24
and little beads of rain clinging to the ends of the smaller branches, and
10:33
yeah, there's this little bit of mist which swirls around. But I thought
10:37
we'd we just go in a slightly different direction. So I'm I'm going to
10:43
head up through some farmers fields in a minute and we'll come back down the
10:50
back lane and it's generally a loop. Of course, I'm walking. Well,
10:58
I do want to get home at the end of it, but it's
11:01
one of the lovely things about where I live is that there's a lot of
11:07
wonderful places you can walk a dog. You know, you haven't got to
11:11
go too far from your from your home, and you can generally do circuits.
11:18
So we have a joke amongst the dog walkers. You meet and you
11:24
say, ah, you're on a clockwise circuit today, and then of course
11:28
sometimes they'll go and do an anti clockwise because that tends to make things more
11:35
interesting. But I thought for Poppy this afternoon, we'd come out head out
11:41
in a different direction to the one I took took you guys on before.
11:50
I also, yeah, Pops Pubby Probby. I'm also trying added a new
11:58
device here, which I hope is going to work okay, because before my
12:03
little microphone, I had a soft pad over it foam pad, which does
12:13
cut out a bit at the wind noise. But because it's very windy today,
12:18
I've got a little furry cover over it on windscreen, as they say,
12:26
But this is just a it's like a little ball of soft fur which
12:33
is hello, stuck at the top of my jacket compots and it looks like
12:41
a small creature. To be honest, we'd see whether we get me comments.
12:54
I hope you can hear those birds. I'm not sure what they are
13:03
there we are there's a challenge to my audience. What are the birds making
13:11
that sort of repeated chirpy noise. A little bit of an interesting garden.
13:24
I've watched a bit of work go on with some garden sheds being built.
13:31
We've also got a house here. It's recently been up for sale and it's
13:35
quite incredible. I don't think it's very big. It's probably only got three
13:41
rooms in it. I wouldn't like to say when it was built. If
13:45
I guessed, probably the nineteen twenties, and I suspect an elderly person's lived
13:52
in it for quite a long time, because this is the first time I've
13:56
seen it on the market. I said, last time there was a bit
14:11
of heavy breathing because I did have a pretty bad cold these days that time.
14:22
Today, I'm okay, but it is a bit steep. It's a
14:26
bit steep this bit give it so some different little bird he's there. It's
14:41
really wonderful to hear them. And I love it when when the weather's better
14:46
and you come out and it's like the birds are all chirping because they're,
14:52
you know, happy, the weather's dry and the sun's out. It's great
14:58
m now if you can hear the sound, it's amazingly squidgey underfoot. It's
15:15
a little bit of path, but when it's rained a lot, the uh
15:20
rain builds up here and you almost get a stream down the middle of the
15:24
foot path. Very strong smell of horses here. I think I know which
15:33
ones those are, because there's some little ponies which I think are kept purely
15:43
as pets, cause I don't even think they're big enough to to ride on.
15:56
So we just need to keep an eye on Poppy because this is a
16:00
this is one of the sheep fields, but I don't think there's any sheep
16:04
in here today. She's pretty good, actually, she didn't really show any
16:12
interesting farm animals. And we walked through a field with some cows the other
16:32
day and one of them showed a bit of an interest in us and ended
16:37
up coming quite close, and that spooked Poppy a bit, and all she
16:42
did is woof, and then eventually the cow went and joined joined the others,
16:48
so we survived. But no, she doesn't really chase sheep, which
16:56
is good, and we try and respet. All the rules are walking in
17:03
the countryside and shut the gates and stick to the path. So this is
17:18
a lovely little bit here. I'm up on a yeah, I'm really up
17:25
at the top of a little tiny hill. So it's a great big field.
17:30
There's another big field on my left over the hedge, but this one's
17:33
the sheep field. And you've got a wood on the right. Again with
17:37
the sort of old trees that I've described, a lot of these, we've
17:42
got this heavy cover of ivy. I can see when I walk around that
17:48
somebody seems to go round and chop through the stem of the ivy to give
17:53
the tree a chance. But a lot of them are pretty heavy with it.
18:00
There's a lot of pretty old oak trees in there as well, and
18:03
I can say with confidence they're English oaks. And I only recently learned the
18:11
difference between the English oak and the European oak. Essentially, the English oak's
18:15
got a lot more wiggly branches, and of course will be superior timber.
18:23
Well maybe not. And yeah, you come down off the the slight slope
18:33
and then the field opens up, so it's actually an l shape with the
18:40
foot of the l off to my right, and when the weather's clear,
18:45
you end up with a lovely view back through. I'm going to say another
18:52
of the valleys, because I realized talking to you the other day, when
18:56
I was talking about a valley, it was almost as though this sort of
19:00
one big valley, but you're walking in a valley that's got other valleys contained
19:06
within it. This is really what makes Devon so special. You've got this
19:11
amazing rolling countryside, and yeah, I love it as a county. I
19:19
mean only it ended up here because of the Navy, really, but I
19:25
do love it. You've got beautiful coastline and cliff walks, You've got some
19:32
wonderful beaches, and of course you've only got a hop in the car for
19:37
sort of twenty minutes, and you can be up on Dartmoor and you know,
19:42
summer it can get busy, but even so, there's much a Dartmore
19:47
where if you walk off for twenty minutes half an hour, you will be
19:51
on your own in some absolutely spectacular scenery. So this is another place that
19:59
I I thought I might take you, but only if you're well behaved,
20:06
and actually most of you were last time, So I'll give you I'll give
20:10
you gold stars for episode one. And we're just coming up to the hedge
20:19
here. Everything is autumn. It's still autumn colors, so the hedgerows are
20:27
this ready orange color with dark greens because there's quite a lot of holly around
20:36
here. And this bit of the field is interesting because there's there's obviously a
20:41
stream comes to the surface and the grass which is all pretty thick and lush,
20:49
but it's also got the tall spiky grass. It's the stuff when you
20:56
look at an Ordnance Survey map and it says bog or Marsh, it's always
21:00
got a drawing of these little spiky grasses that have got round sort of like
21:07
a tube. The leaf comes up, leaf comes up like a tube,
21:12
and they're quite thick in this bit. And it's also very very muddy here.
21:22
Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Poppy stay Stay. So this is a
21:27
style, a wooden style which obviously the farmers put in to keep the sheep
21:32
in. But the moment you've gone through the style, there's a fantastic stone
21:37
style, which are these big steps which go up over the bank, which
21:42
forms the sort of basis of the of the wall of the field. If
21:49
you like, really massive stone, so some big lads put those in place,
21:57
and they've also, you know, got wonderful moss growing on them.
22:06
So there we are now, don't it. Did you hear that? I'm
22:14
not sure whether I've talked over it, which is a pity, but we've
22:17
definitely got some pheasants around here somewhere, pretty distinctive with air. They're sort
22:29
of clucking noises and they're always very pretty. As I mentioned last time.
22:36
The estate, well, there's a couple of estates which breed them, so
22:41
normally the pheasant population is pretty high until the shooting season, which is a
22:49
sad thing really, but that's life, isn't it. If you can hear
23:00
this, so this is quite fun. So you've got at the edge of
23:04
the road, there's a lot of mud and leaves and stuff, and then
23:08
you've got a low stone wall about eighteen inches which is completely grown over with
23:15
all sorts of plants, grasses and plants and ivy and various other things.
23:21
And then the other side of that it drops down about four feet and there's
23:26
quite a vigorous little and there we are. We can hear it, a
23:32
little stream flowing down. It's almost like a culvert isn't it. I suppose
23:37
you might call it. And that's going down the side of the road.
23:44
It is quite a fun thing you occasionally see. You see youngsters who have
23:48
been lowered down in there with their welly boots having a splash of along it
23:55
as their parents walk on the road. Good to see the little things still
24:00
keeping keeping people happy. And we have some color here, well, we've
24:18
got several types of color actually, and we've got some oh my goodness,
24:25
I want to call them out, some little We've got some snowdrops, they're
24:29
not too many of them. And what caught my eye was these daffodils,
24:36
which somebody's planted or they've planted themselves on top of this quite high bank,
24:42
and they're all here looking really lovely. Daffodils. I've always liked as a
24:48
flower, and I like them traditional. I don't like them when they've they've
24:52
been bred, so they got, you know, really sort of fuzzy petals.
25:00
Those are really beautiful and they're always great in a big clump because you
25:06
then get this really big splash of color. It was the primrose that was
25:11
the name that had gone out of my head. So the other thing about
25:15
Devon is that in the banks, primroses just grow in profusion, and it's
25:26
always the case. You can be driving along and you will suddenly see a
25:30
big splash of color from the primroses, which is nice. Sow, there
25:51
we are. There's a bit more of that stream really coming down. The
25:56
water looks, you know, very clear. Uh. It goes over quite
26:03
a sort of rocky bed to the to the stream itself, so the water
26:07
looks really clear. What can you see, Poppy? She suddenly got very
26:37
inquisitive at something or other. We got a couple of big fields here.
26:48
I'm not sure what's growing. What is growing? I think it could be
26:52
cabbage or kale, something like that, but joinormous fields. And of course
27:00
that's something you notice in a country district that even over my lifetime, the
27:07
tractors have got bigger and bigger and bigger, to the extent that there's a
27:12
lot of sections of road that if the tractor comes through, you just don't
27:18
have a chance. And I think you have to be reasonably good at going
27:25
in reverse in Devon because most of the lanes you're going to have to do
27:29
it at some stage or other. And I can see some really spectacular blossom
27:40
coming out, but I'm not sure. It's just around the corner. What
27:42
tree that is. I've got another lovely field on my right here which sometimes
27:51
we go into and walk around. And this is another one which I think
27:55
you'd absolutely call a meadow. So the lambs and the sheep are brought in
28:03
here for fattening up. And yeah, it's just a beautiful place because it's
28:08
quite sheltered, and I think the little sheep at least come and have somewhere
28:18
that's well. There's a lot of food for them, and it's pretty nice
28:23
place to be. It's got the river on one side and a big stream
28:27
on the other and if you walk through, it'll take you to a path
28:34
where you can go back into the woods again. Hello, come on,
28:47
Bobby. So another dog walker out there. That's a man I meet from
28:56
time to time. I haven't I haven't spoken to him properly, so I'm
29:02
afraid I don't know what his name is. It's a joke of the dog
29:07
walkers that there's a lot of people you don't know their name. You don't
29:11
know their name, but you know the name of the dog, and you
29:15
know the type of dog they've got. So the person is always described by
29:21
the dog they have and we've got a big flooded rope. Well it's not
29:34
very deep, but it's quite wise. You can hear this road is completely
29:37
flooded and you get a lot of mud collects in this bit. Actually,
29:48
I think I might have said, welly boots, but I've got welly boots.
29:52
I've got straight probably got straightforward walking boots. And it's the only disadvantage
30:03
is that if the water's deeper than the you know, the ankle of the
30:08
boot, you're in trouble. But we seem to have survived, so pop
30:17
he's gone back on the lead. Because although this is a little country road
30:22
here, there's kind of a few cars come along. You also say a
30:30
lot of them go too fast, but that's that's the way it is at
30:33
the moment. So narrow Stone Bridge, little stone walls either side, and
30:42
it's got a sort of buttress bit where you can you can actually stand and
30:48
have a look out at the river, which is very nice. But we'll
30:52
get away from that because there's another there's another car coming and I'm coming into
31:02
a little car park area where there's a couple of cars, and I suspect
31:14
there'll be cars from people who are training you know, professional gun dogs,
31:21
sorry, professionally training gun dogs, and that's quite interesting to watch depending on
31:26
what they're doing. But I suspect they'll be in the woods. They've normally
31:33
got a little it's almost like a little squidgy sandbag, which they either throw
31:40
for the dogs to retrieve, or they hide that little package in the in
31:45
amongst the undergrowth of the trees, and the dogs have to go in and
31:48
find it. So I presume that's training them for recovering birds that have been
31:56
shot or going into flush them out. And I know there will be a
32:04
few people sad at this, but really I'm describing a bit of country life
32:09
that's been going on for a long time. So we've got lots of catkins
32:30
here. Although they're looking some of these lookers are, they're already going over
32:34
a bit because they're a bit they're a bit brown and forlorn in the damp,
32:39
and we've also got some brown balls beginning to spring up. They will
32:45
be covered in blackberries in due course and people will be down here picking them.
32:52
And then there's a lot of trees these days that all won't covered in
32:58
liking them, they do look particularly happy. I've never found anybody really to
33:06
ask whether that's normal. And we've got a lot of trees that are suffering
33:10
with something. There's been a lot of ash trees cut down because of the
33:16
ash disease, which ash die back, which certainly Devon got hit with a
33:23
lot, and that's a shame because of course the landowners were keen to get
33:31
those trees out because they're good timber, so they could sell them on for
33:35
firewood. But it does mean, you know, there's a there's more of
33:42
a sort of an attack on trees. When I was a boy and I
33:46
lived in Gloucestershire, we had Dutch elm Dutch elm disease and I can remember
33:57
the trees starting to die with that. They were I believe the figure for
34:01
Gloucestershire was that they lost six hundred thousand elm trees and a lot of other
34:07
counties in the country were affected by it. So that was a bit of
34:14
a shame. I think. A question I asked myself is is that sort
34:19
of stuff normal? Did it always go on or is this some form of
34:23
transfer of disease for trees which comes about because of the products we ship between
34:31
countries? I lived in Holland for a couple of years and have to say
34:37
I enjoyed my time there. I don't think they're bad people, so I
34:43
don't really think they would have sent over some special tree disease package, but
34:50
you never know. So well you can hear it now. We've sort of
35:01
done a loop round and we're backed by the main river again. So it's
35:07
quite noisy here because the floes coming down over a couple of big boulders,
35:14
and this is on the other side of the river. To me, this
35:17
is one of the areas where the sheep come down to drink, so it's
35:22
a lot of it is worn into the banks, worn down into a sort
35:25
of gentle slope that they can navigate and and uh yeah, get a drink.
35:37
We've got a solitary daffodil here, that's interesting, just one. And
35:42
on the other side of the river we got some more clumps. So I
35:46
don't quite know how it works with daffodil. So I know that once people
35:50
plant them, they seem to spread all over the place, but the interesting
35:55
thing is they're quite dispersed. Hello, you're very smart dog. So we
36:15
got a wooly coated white cream wooly coated dog with a very very smart red
36:22
raincoat. But we're being quite lucky at the moment because I think actually the
36:28
sort of missy driveled missy drizzle is eased off. And we've got a special
36:40
bit here. Just give that a cunk. There's a big bit of a
36:45
couple of big bits of tree. The tree came down in winter gales many
36:52
years ago, and they chopped it in order to free up the path,
36:58
but they then used the the biggest sections of the trunk to reinforce the river
37:04
bank, and so these one bit of the tree here is embedded right into
37:10
the side of the path. The other one, I think the flood stream,
37:16
because the river was pretty high about a week ago. I think the
37:20
flood stream has sort of lifted it and partly dumped it back on the path
37:23
again. But that's all part of the cycle of the river. It's probably
37:38
time to comment on something. And there's a little bench been put in here,
37:45
which is really nice because you can sit on it and it's got a
37:46
little bit of shelter behind it and you're looking over into the sheep field and
37:51
down the river and part of the path, and next to it is a
37:55
very fissiou sign which says in Environment Agency Danger Weir, and it says this
38:05
sign has been provided for your safety by the Environment Agency and for further information
38:10
please telephone three seven eight five six five oh six. Well, the interesting
38:19
thing is that the dangerous weir was created by the Environment Agency because previously this
38:27
was just a section of a normal section of the river. But many years
38:32
ago the Environment Agency got very excited with volumetric flows of the water, not
38:40
only on this river, any other river they could get near, and they
38:45
decided they needed to measure the flow of the river here. So they effectively
38:53
put in a concrete section. It's about i don't know, forty foot long,
39:00
so it's like a big culvert that they forced the river to go into.
39:05
And they did that so they had a known cross section and they could
39:09
then send a little probe out on a piece of wire which would measure the
39:15
speed of the flow. And so they built that. Then they built a
39:22
little wood cabin, and then they decided the wood cabin needed a fence around
39:25
it, and then it needed a few signs to say what it was and
39:30
to keep off it. And then they decided that to power the whole thing.
39:36
It was best to go green, and so it's now got its own
39:43
little windmill and solar panels. So I'd just like to say the warning sign
39:51
for the weir should be completely unnecessary, because the only people who caused a
39:57
problem and any danger is the Environment Agency. And the other bit I'll add
40:02
is that I've bought this path for a very long time, but I've never
40:08
ever seen that probe in the middle of the river, and I wonder whether
40:15
that's the case with a lot of other Environment Agency projects. I am a
40:22
bit cynical these days, but I just stick up for myself and say it's
40:25
age related. And I've never really been able to stand crap, and I
40:35
think that's what I'm looking at. Yeah, ah, here we go some
40:42
we got some high quality catkins here. These are i don't know, three
40:47
inches long, quarter inch wide, and they're all on this little tree,
40:52
fluttering in the breeze. I don't know what it is with them, but
40:58
I've always liked them, always found them interesting, and I can remember seeing
41:04
them when I was a very very very young child, and yeah, the
41:10
catkin thing has stayed with me. It's funny what you remember. So the
41:27
thing I forgot to tell you, was that the car park which I mentioned
41:31
where the cars were for the dog trainers. One beautiful sunny morning, many
41:38
many years ago, I was walking the opposite way to the way I was
41:44
walking now. I was walking down river towards that car park, and you
41:51
can't sort of see into the car park until you get to about the last
41:55
twenty yards because there's some trees and bushes. But I were coming down.
42:00
It was beautiful morning. I think it was quite early, well reasonably early.
42:05
It was about eight o'clock, and I was just thoroughly enjoying the walk
42:10
and not really paying attention to anything. I was just enjoying walking and listening
42:15
to the sounds. And then the next minute I came around the corner into
42:22
the car park and it was like I'd gone through a time machine, because
42:31
there were all these people in eighteenth century dress. The ladies were there,
42:38
and there tight waisted hips to the ground, hooped dresses in beautiful colors,
42:49
blues and greens and reds, and there were men in their breeches and waistcoats,
42:55
and I think one of them had a icon hat on. And it
43:04
was marvelous and incredible at the same time, because you just didn't expect to
43:09
see that, and it literally was just like going back in time. And
43:15
then I realized that amongst them were other people in modern clothes. And when
43:24
I got the opportunity to talk to a couple of the people, they were
43:28
there with a film crew and they wanted to film the scene where these people
43:36
were going to be on the little stone bridge that I've been across. And
43:40
if I was one of the girls who did most of the talking about what
43:45
they were doing. But what I can't remember is if she even gave me
43:51
the name of the film. And I also know that I never did ever
43:59
find out where that film clip was used, and I'd really love to because
44:05
I'm sure if I saw saw those people in their brilliant colored costumes standing on
44:14
the little bridge, it will be a fantastic memory. So there we are.
44:21
If you're somebody who enjoys film and theater and that sort of stuff,
44:25
it's very powerful how costumes and all of the theatrical stuff can really make an
44:34
impact on you. Yeah, contrast those beautiful people because I've got my I've
44:45
got my yellow high viz rain jacket on today and you might be wondering why
44:58
they're just brilliant because you go and buy stuff from various places. I might
45:04
have mentioned this before, but I mentioned it again. And you can pay
45:07
quite a lot for supposedly waterproof jackets and stuff, and they never seemed to
45:13
last very long. So a friend said, just go in the local builders
45:17
merchant and get yourself a yellow jacket because they're half the price and they last
45:23
twice as long, and you know they've got a lining, so it's not
45:30
just a rain proof jacket. And I did this, and the best thing
45:36
I ever did. So the number of advantages. One is if you work
45:43
walking early morning or mainly in the evening winter time, you can actually be
45:51
seen by cars if you're getting near the road at all. But the other
45:55
thing is if you wear it when you're driving your car, it's like you're
46:00
in a big bubble of sunshine, your own personal sunshine, and it doesn't
46:07
matter how great the day is. You get in the car with your yellow
46:10
jacket and there you are, your own private, private nuclear furnace. So
46:21
that's two reasons. But the other reason for enjoying a yellow jacket is you
46:28
get respect. People give you respect. And I'll give you an example.
46:36
I went to see some family the other weekend and they were taking their youngsters
46:49
to do a bit of football training on a field. Actually it was a
46:53
girls team. It was a girls team, and when we got there was
47:01
a few parents, one man who I initially thought, you know, was
47:07
the sort of instructor. Becaus we arrived, the guy looked at me and
47:15
he said, are you the guy running the place because some of it isn't
47:22
open? And I said, no, I'm not the guy running the place.
47:28
I'm just the guy wearing the yellow jacket. Well, in the end
47:31
there was a bit of discussion between these parents and they said, well,
47:42
actually the place isn't open at all because the little coffee place isn't open,
47:45
and this and that and should we be here? And I'm pleased that one
47:50
of the parents said, well, look, why don't we just carry on
47:53
and run it? If somebody comes, will stop. And so they ran
48:00
the training session. But I'm pretty sure that when they said to me was
48:07
it okay? If they stayed, If I'd have said no, they would
48:13
have absolutely not run the session. And why would they have followed that simply
48:20
because I was wearing a yellow jacket. Of course, if you really want
48:25
to spook people out. You wear the yellow jacket and you need a clipboard
48:31
and preferably some sort of walky talkie, and then I think you can do
48:37
a lot of things, including maybe some things which yeah, because the establishment
48:45
a few problems. So I'm here just approaching the church tower. Poppies had
48:59
a really good, good walk. She's actually been well ahead of me for
49:05
most of it, so she's doing all right here, pobby dog pops,
49:13
what are you doing? So i'd just come away from the path a bit
49:28
because it's one of the ladies I spoke to earlier, just coming past and
49:37
not being antisocial. It's just that there's only so much talk to yourself you
49:42
can do without people really having concerns about you. I'm reflecting a bit,
49:50
actually, and what that lady said to me, you know, what was
49:52
I doing? And I said to her, well, it's just about walking
49:55
the dog and keeping it like that. And I wonder whether that's what I
50:05
should do. Should I keep walking the dog to be something very chilled because
50:09
really, when I'm doing this, I've got all sorts of stuff going around
50:13
my head and I'm wondering whether I share that with you, because obviously a
50:17
lot of it will get onto the topic of the day. So there we
50:22
go. Now I know this lady, so I wonder whether she'll speak to
50:28
me. Hello, I'm recording a little bit of audio here without telling me
50:32
who you are. Would you chat to me just as you come up here.
50:37
It's a little thing which I started called walking the Dog. So I'm
50:40
out walking, I'm talking, I'm describing things, I'm meeting people, and
50:45
I've got a very good response to it. So this is my second episode,
50:50
right, and I'm going to say I think I know you well enough
50:53
to say, go on, okay, So who's your dog then? And
50:59
what sort of dog's? No? Key? It is? All? Okay,
51:06
that's that's good. So you're out for the afternoon, wander around.
51:09
It takes a lot of walking. And do you do all the walks?
51:14
Yes? Okay. I've been talking to people about the circuits and the fact
51:20
that all the dog walkers here we never we don't mention the place or the
51:23
All the walkers here either go clockwise around the clockwise depending on what day it
51:30
is. Yeah, what you do? Yeah? So what do you think
51:35
of this little village then? Because you've lived here for quite a while,
51:37
I like it. It's nice and quiet out yeah, I think, so
51:44
you can get places, but it's out the way. Your dog's heading towards
51:47
Australia yet, so yeah, no, So were you born here then?
52:04
All right? Okay, okay, can I be cheeky and asked when that
52:10
was? Then? So forty years now? All right, so it's the
52:15
same time as us. Actually, So I grew up, came down here.
52:20
I was here to sixteen and moved into town and moved around, and
52:23
I came back here when my daughter was five and she's now twenty five.
52:29
Right, Yeah, it's pretty amazing that we've been having a big huck out
52:34
of all the stuff in the roof. And it starts, you know,
52:37
with toddler stuff, toys and duwplow and prams and everything else. And it
52:44
was so bad. I said to her, if the only way we can
52:47
deal with it is just start and bring a bit down at a time.
52:51
So lots of books have gone off to the charity shops and probably sixty percent
52:58
the way through. But I've got a lot of papers and junk and stuff
53:00
like that. Well this is true. Yeah, Well we kept a lot
53:05
of it because we thought the children might might want stuff, but they said,
53:08
I don't want any of that junk in our house. They asked my
53:15
daughter to say, no any of it. Yeah, I give stuff from
53:17
when I was in school about ten years ago. Yeah, certificates and scrapbooks
53:22
and yeah, yeah, that's good. Anyway, thank you for that.
53:30
All right, we'll see you bye bye. Well there we are. You
53:40
see, this is what makes it difficult, because if we end up putting
53:45
a little bit of political stuff into a walk with Poppy the dog, we
53:51
could we could upset some of the people who've agreed to talk. Oh my
53:58
goodness, life is difficult to it these days. So can I throw that
54:02
back at you. You've come along with me today, if you come for
54:08
a second one, there must be a reason. So I'm going to ask,
54:13
what do you think. Should I keep walking the dog as a as
54:19
a relaxing thing where we mainly concentrate on what we're seeing on our walks and
54:27
how we're just how we're feeling in a nice sort of way. Or am
54:31
I allowed to bring in some of the other stuff that gets into my head
54:37
about what's happening around us. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to put that in
54:44
a comment under the ah, I nearly said video. Well, I am
54:49
going to put this out as a video again, but of course what it
54:52
really is is a podcast. But the thing about youtubeer is you can is
55:00
the premiere system, which is good. So have a think about it and
55:07
tell me, tell me what you think should happen, and I'll make a
55:15
decision. I do enjoy chatting with the people, and I've been surprised actually
55:23
at how relaxed most of them have been. When I just say I'm recording
55:30
that lady. That lady was a little bit nervous. Yeah, but she
55:43
she did it in the end, So there we are secrets out. She's
55:47
been in the village for forty years, so have I. And yet when
55:52
we came here initially, it's pack. When we came here, initially we
56:00
thought probably we'd only be here for a couple of years because her navy families
56:07
very often you move different locations depending on you know, where you're based with
56:15
the military. But we made the decision to stay in Plymouth because it gave
56:23
my wife and the children some stability. And so time went on and then
56:31
all of a sudden, you've got younger people in the village stop you and
56:37
they say, what did it used to be like? And this really makes
56:43
me smile because this is the question I used to ask my neighbors. They
56:50
in those early days, of course, were much much older than than I
56:55
was. But now I've got the youngsters in the village up and asking me
57:00
the same thing. The passage of time. I've just come through a little
57:12
back bit here which I haven't talked about. I have to tell you about
57:15
that in due course. It's raining now, so I'm going to be quite
57:22
happy to get in and have a cup of tea. Yeah, interesting little
57:30
day, interesting day. Okay, Well, it's been good to see you
57:45
again. I hope you're relaxed, and let me know about episode two and
57:57
what you should think I should do. And if you're a video person,
58:04
chill out and listen to a bit of audio. Well done, dog,
58:09
most of that's probably gone on the wall. Okay, I'll say bye bye.