The short cut…..or maybe not.
An eventful dog walk which started by going down onto the beach at Reculver. Its the stone horse beach where the animals are created and Cosmo has just legged it up from the beach to the top of the cliffs. There is a special passage up the cliff face; we have often used this as a short cut. But it is a one way short cut, Cosmo has never managed to reach the beach going down it, the last section too steep for him.
He can however, get up it in jiffy. I can do it both ways, except now in the mud. I can see Cosmo waiting for me at the top in the usual way, this is the third time I have slid back down with large cakes of clay/mud stuck to the bottom of my wellies like snowshoes. I now try a different tactic by trying to get him back down to the beach with dog treats and lots of enthusiastic ‘come on boy’s’. I even walk along the beach leaving him up there thinking under pressure like this; he will have to follow me. This does not work either, so I’m forced to climb up this wet clay cliff face. I have failed another half dozen times and the last one I got into the key part of the climb ‘The Gully’, but no grip nothing to hold onto and its the longest distance I have fallen. The epaulette on my jacket has collected some mud on the way down as I land on the beach upside down and head first. I know I’m not going to get badly hurt however many times I have to slide from the bottom of the gully to the beach.
Cosmo is getting agitated and barking at me. I am pretty muddy all over and realising this, I think of course…… its ok to press any part of my body to the sides of the gully for traction. I’m not worried about how dirty I get anymore. Got to get in the gully and up it, then the rest is a formality. And I’m in there again now with my knees, elbows, the small of my back, everything pressing onto the sides for grip. The mud….. who cares, it is actually a nice orange colour, reminds me of an earthy red oxide pigment with an orange bias called sinopia or sinoper, which was used for the under layer for fresco paintings. I was being dainty about it before. I’m taking the weight on my knee and pressing my shoulder in and it’s not that difficult really. I had to compromise by getting dirty so what, and at the top Cosmo is running around the cliff top in figures of eights as I get there. Something I have seen him do before. It has taken me 10-15 minutes to do this, he did it in about 10-15 seconds and basically he’s just run up it. In this mud? That’s pretty impressive.
