Dusty's Cross

One of my sons is moving into a new house.

Well, I say a new house but in fact this house is very old. So old, it has a newspaper from 1902 stuffed into a gap in the wall. So old it stinks of damp and mildew.  But it’s got potential. Bags of potential. And a couple of apple trees in the walled garden.

It’s about an hour and a half from my house. So Dusty and I went down there today, taking lunch to the workers ripping out the old walls and floorboards. We perched on beams balanced on breeze blocks, munching chicken sandwiches and laughing. Dusty meanwhile squatted behind us, ready for more. Ready for the walk that always comes when she goes somewhere in the car.

So eventually off we went. My youngest son and his wife, and Dusty. We dodged traffic for awhile on a very narrow country road, before we got to the path leading to the top of the hill. The muddy path. Which paralleled the waterfall. To Dusty, it doesn’t get any better than this.

Throwing sticks into the water for her enthusiastic retrieval, she brought out a cross – two sticks fastened together to form a cross. And we all laughed as she took up her cross and trotted in front of us, joyfully exuberant.

Then it got too heavy for her, and she left it behind on the path. We encountered a couple of horses in a field, through which we had to walk, and they wanted to come with us. One of them even seemed to know how to work the country gate, which gets pushed to the corner, lets the walker through, then gets pushed back the other way. Whoa. We didn’t think the owner would be too chuffed.

Dusty grabbed her cross again on the way down. But again, it grew too heavy for her to carry very far.

I know there’s a meaning in here for me.