After the customary crow feeding in the park with the dog, I went for a run in my favoured fields.
It was kind of grey but dry. I met the nice couple with the three-legged dog on the way out. I found her shoes for the woman once. My dog does not like her dog so I was able to greet her dog for the first time.
At one point I found another buzzard feather and was again entranced by the coloration... all that genetic complexity in one feather. And how the tines can zip-lock together with the appropriate sort of stroking, if only one's fingers were more beak-like. I tend to smell the feathers. One had a residual birdiness about it.
As I was heading back - it's about four and a bit miles - I wanted to take a picture of a haystack. But the shot didn't work and so I carried on. At the farm building, a van had parked and a family bundled out with five dogs. I proceeded to my car. Only to discover that I no longer had my car key.
Shit, I thought. This is not good. I have to get home to write about Saudi football. What my life is like. I imagined retracing my four and a bit miles. Then I thought the key most likely fell out when I got my phone out to take the picture that I did not take. So I set off. As I got to the river, I thought, what if it just dropped out near the car, when I got my phone out again to check the emails and tell the Saudi football man that I would crack on with the writing? But I didn't want to go back and then have to re-re-trace my steps.
By this point the family and the five dogs were in the river. I pushed through the trees and asked if they'd do me a favour. The mother said, If she comes near you (a German Shepherd - Poppy, as I later discovered), you'll get wet. That's ok, I said. I told about my key and my theory about the photo and the fear that the key was by the car and I asked if one of her boys would check around the car while I went off to the haystack. Strangely, they agreed.
The mother, three boys and five dogs headed to my car. But Connor, who his mother said was 'good at finding things', came with me.
We set off at a walk. Connor started to run. I started to run. I couldn't keep up. He said that was because he'd just started out and I'd been running already. A generous interpretation for a maybe-12-year-old. He said he'd go ahead.
I watched him, walking behind. I saw he was heading to a dark thing on the track. I saw him bend down then raise his arm to the sky. I jumped up and down and shouted, you're the best person in the world!!
I also shouted to the mother, three boys and five dogs, he's found it!
Connor and I walked back. I said that I must now do something really nice for someone later in the day, because he'd paid it forward. Strangely, he understood exactly what I meant. So did his mother when I said this to her.
It turned out one of the dogs was his, Kevin. He named him. he's the only male one and is going to mate with the others. They don't have a farm but they do have a field. With sheep. Only five minutes away. He was giving me directions when we reached his brothers and mother.
It was very easy being with Connor - and it makes me think what excellent parents he must have. The mother seemed, well, not suspicious... and after all she let me take a kid... I think she gauged me. Yes, that's it. She looked at me and ascertained something that made her willing to both help and trust. She, a clear-sighted, no bullshit type of person, judged me to be ok. If a bit of a twit.
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