November 6, 2007: Some Down Time at Last.
It's been a quiet week or so...thankfully, as the dreaded cold and flu season finally caught up with us. Perhaps it is well-timed as we start gathering again soon to get the 'count' done, and then tupping season will be underway. Jet and Angie are going to be doing the tupping stint, although Roy, Meg and Blade will no doubt get their turns too.
This week we had a visit from Davie Graham; a diminuitive Scotsman whom we first met at the Scottish National. Davie is a sheepdog enthusiast of the first order. Some would say he is a groupie, although I suspect the word groupie was invented long after Davie became a sheepdog trial spectator extraordinaire.
Davie is a former miner and multistorey housing complex manager who, upon his retirement, not only took up going to trials but also started writing poetry. You guessed it, some of these poems are about going to trials. Davie has never owned a dog, and, consequently, never run a dog in a trial. Well, you can't come to visit us without the obligatory time outside to play with dogs. Davie can now say he has tried handling a sheepdog. Blade did the honours of inducting Davie into the 'new handler' category. Perhaps, one day, we will see Davie at a trial running a dog. But, more likely he'll be the one sitting in his car thoroughly enjoying watching others.
Davie's neighbour, Jimmy, also came along for a visit. Jimmy is a retired shepherd who spent a good chunk of his life living just a couple of miles down the road from our home at 'the Sheil'. For the last 2 years he lived in the valley, he stayed in the very same house we live in today. What a treat it is to get to know Jimmy and have him relive a time some 17 years ago. Of course, the house has changed a lot since Jimmy's time. I still can't figure out where his cow lived... but I do know where the pigs were hung!
Now I'm not sure if we'll be able to coherently articulate a thought, perhaps a feeling, about what it is like to have Davie and Jimmy come to visit. It seems that by virtue of the fact that we live at Dalzean we 'mean' something; perhaps to only a few, but to someone nonetheless. It is like we have become part of the social and historical fabric of this small community, forever to be mentioned in the same breath as Jimmy and Richard and Mark and James and the many others who have lived at Dalzean before us. In what seems like an increasingly impersonal and detached world where people are treated as if they are 'nothing' or mean 'nothing,' Jimmy and Davie are reminders that such callousness has not permeated the remote Scottish hills. It is this spirit, this small gesture, that makes our community such a great one to live in. We are truly fortunate.
Here is one of Davie's poems.
The Raffle
Noo Charlie and I, we are a pair,
We go the gither everywhere,
From Border hills tae The Western Isles,
We love tae watch the sheep dog trials.
Noo the place we love tae go the most,
Is Girvan oan the Ayrshire coast,
They haud a trial there each September,
There’s yin o them I’ll aye remember.
It’s no jist the trials that they haud there,
When the dogs have run, they hiv lots mair,
They haud a raffle and an auction sale,
Their efforts for charity never fail.
They auction tatties frae local ferms,
Rounds o golf, hotel meals, hairstyle perms,
Kennels, pups, a black faced ewe lamb,
Herd’s crooks, hame bakin, aw kinds o jam.
Noo Charlie thoucht guid will he’d foster,
For the raffle, he’d donate a toaster,
He’d anither yin, but hadnae swapped,
It was still in the box, no unwrapped.
What a day we had next to the shore,
Sun shone as it had not shone before,
A grand day, everything sublime,
Hame tired and happy at bedtime.
Entered Charlie’s kitchen, shock o shocks.
We’d handed in an empty box,
On Charlie’s table for aw tae view,
Bright silver sparkling, the toaster new.
On the Sunday morning, we put things right,
Were back at Girvan before daylight,
Tell’t committee o oor awfae gaff,
Aw they could dae, wis sit an laugh.
By Davie Graham
Archives:
| October 26, 2007: A Day Out at the Tup (Ram) Sale. |
| October 22, 2007: Pheasant Shooters. |
| October 15, 2007: Trials, Trials and more Trials. |
| October 2, 2007: Back to Work. |
| September 17, 2007: The International Sheepdog Trial, Ireland |
| September 12, 2007: Foot and Mouth Again |
| September 4, 2007: Blackies go to the Beauty Salon |
| August 25, 2007: Sheep Spa and Nationals |
| August 14, 2007: Roy goes Gathering for the First Time |
| August 7, 2007 Foot and Mouth Scare |
| August 3, 2007 Country bumpkins go to London |
| July 28, 2007 Whales and Wales |
| July 21, 2007 Blood sampling ewes. |
| July 16, 2007 A week of gathering sheep |
