The Terrorist and the Slip-Way

Those who have read my earlier musings about my Terrorist will know that 10 minutes’ walk from where I live is a golf course and beyond that, woodland where the little monster can run to her heart’s content.

Today, I took her off, aiming, not for the golf course due to all the rain we’ve had recently. I was not going to have her rummaging about, up to her ears in mud (Terrorist A.K.A. The Muck Magnet).

Before getting to the Golf Course there is an artificial lake. This lake runs approximately East to West with a dam at the Eastern end. It is quite large, in fact Sir Malcolm Campbell used to run tests of ½ scale models of his Bluebird water speed record boats on this lake back, I believe in the 30’s.

The dam was modified last year, raised and strengthened to prevent the flooding which happened 3 years ago, and now resembles the Eder dam. The one 617 Squadron only did damage to as it was so strong.

So off we go. Up the grass hill to the car park overlooking the lake and down again to the pathway that runs all the way around the lake.

Walking across the top of the dam, I decided to let her off for a run. First mistake. Off the wandered, never far away, but far enough to feel free I suppose.

At the side of the dam there is a spillway. This allows the excess water to run off down a local stream. It can be opened and closed as needed to ensure that the amount of run off does not cause flooding. At its mouth (where the lake comes up to it) there is a concrete ramp, down which the excess water runs. This spillway causes a current through the lake, the result of which is that all the detritus from the lake (leaves, sticks, feathers, dead fish etc) ends up there.

As we walked round past this spillway, the Terrorist was down there investigating. She looked over and, seeing the concrete spillway and the mass of rubbish floating in front of it, she must have assumed that the concrete extended all the way out.

So down she goes. One jump. Must have looked easy as it’s only about 3 feet.

By the time I got there, there was a clear area in all the rubbish (where the terrorist had crashed through) and I could see her slowly sinking, little legs all out wide, ears back and not moving at all.

I wondered what I was going to do, as I know the water there is over 20 feet deep, when suddenly she seemed to recover from the shock of hitting deep water and the four little legs started madly paddling, pushing her up towards the surface.

She surfaced close to the hole she’d originally made, what looked to me like part of a dead frog on her head and made a bee line for the side of the spillway.

The edge, as I have mentioned is only about three feet and so, as the Terrorist wears a harness, it was a fairly simple matter to reacj over, grab it and haul her, now very smelly, little carcase out of there.

So, home, bath, dry, a bowl of food and, as I write this, she’s laying in her bed under her blanket and looking very sorry for herself.