Page 21 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #04

OPINION

from an From CHRIS PACKHAM
English SCRATCHY AND I REMEMBER OUR CANINE

COMPANION AND CONTEMPLATE OUR
wood PRECIOUS TIME SPENT AMONGST THE TREES.

s a nipper I’d have been panting to try to express
in its crown in less than a my connection to
minute, with green-stained this place, but that
knees, twigs in my hair and a connection was not
Amuesli of barky bits down my mine, it was forged
shirt. The oak is squat with a fat belly and by the three of us
brawny arms, opened sideways, trimmed because I have rarely
in a rich velvet of mosses and lichens – been alone here. But
medieval in fashion but younger in years. I feared I would be
Its sprawling form tells me it spent its alone by now.
youth in a field, but it is now cocooned in a I’ve never felt as
forest, overreached by an upstart pine and much at ease as I
jostled by an impatient throng of irritating have amongst these
birch. Soon after we began to explore trees, on these paths,
these woods it shed a limb, a giant python in this mud, in the
which curled across our path and which I mist, the frost, the
wrestled to one side. When we next passed, snow. I’ve slept,
I noticed that this ancient spur arched to I’ve scampered,
offer a perfect seat. So I sat. And Itchy took I’ve dreamed,
this cue to bounce up for a cuddle, and so I’ve stumbled. I’ve
the ‘cuddle seat’ was christened. run and jumped
Every foray we made was punctuated but not yet fallen.
with a stop and a caress. In sunshine and And although
shower, in cold and wet, at dawn or dusk, ‘treat seat’. The sun is sharp and silvers we’ve left our marks here, they are all so
he stood on my knees and licked my face. the fuzzy outline of my expectant friend. justly temporary. We are just butterflies
If I was late he would wait there, if he got In the weeks that followed Itchy’s death who’ve fluttered through this ancient
lost we would meet there, if I pretended to it was difficult to get him to walk, so I temple for a day.
forget he’d stand indignant and then leap introduced titbits – four, given at regular Our time was not limitless – we were
twice as high and lick thrice as hard when points, including that broken bough gifted a finite number of walks, and we
I returned to perch on the cuddle seat. where we had always rested and loved. counted them all. We knew death was on
And then he was gone. The following So ‘cuddle’ became ‘treat’ and when I its way, that it would creep through the
morning I had to go there, and sit there arrive his gleaming chestnut eyes follow black summer shadows and snatch at us,
and just be there… for Scratchy. But when my hand and his tongue and teeth tickle so we barked at the moon, chased rainbows
Scratch plodded up to that rustic pew, my fingers and his nose wets my cheek and when we felt brave we snuck glimpses
he spun and he stood and he stared up as we kiss. Then we sit and sometimes he of this woodland’s magnificent foreverness.
the path, scanning, waiting for his twin. still searches for his brother. We’ve played for a moment in a bigger
I called him and pulled him over, but I I didn’t imagine writing this. When game. We expect no marker, no grave or
couldn’t break his watch. After 10 minutes I began these essays on the pretext tomb or other vanity to record our folly.
he sat but remained fixed upon the way of composing a monthly cameo of an But what fun we’ve had! Each time I’ve
we’d come. That’s when he realised it oak wood in the New Forest, I thought unclipped that gate I’ve pulled the pins from
was just us. And in the my life would be my joy grenades and watched them explode,
clammy grip of those WE KNEW very different this running for the sheer joy of running,
broke what was left of ` DEATH WOULD morning. I hope it enriching my life and gifting me an ecstasy
callous winter trees we
that couldn’t be supped or stabbed.
was immediately
obvious that they were
CREEP THROUGH
I stand. He shakes. The treat seat was
our hearts.
Illustration by Owen Davey/Folio filigreed with vivid THE SHADOWS as much a eulogy to wet. I walk, he trots. A great tit titters
Today the floor is
my lost companion as
and the sun makes a million leaves fizz.
SO WE BARKED
an autistic insight into
moss, and wilted violets
Ismile.Theend.
the intense sensory
and scruffy anemones
AT THE MOON.”
CHRIS PACKHAM’s book Fingers in the Sparkle Jar
line the arcade from
experience the setting
was recently voted Britain’s favourite piece of nature
‘carcass corner’ to the
BBC Wildlife
April 2018 provides. I wanted writing. Chris will return with a new-look column. 21