Seacliff in Summer

For weeks now, I’ve been hankering after a trip to North Berwick.

I like to go there at least once a year – “to blow the cobwebs away”, as my mum puts it. Unfortunately for me, though, the weather this summer has been so bad that those cobwebs wouldn’t have been blown away so much as they’d have been drowned in the non-stop rain we’ve been having for weeks now, so I’d pretty much given up hope of a trip to the seaside. One day last week, though, the weather forecast informed us there was to be a brief break in the downpour, and as that seems to be the best we can hope for this summer (I mean, “sunny and warm” would be nice, but you have to be realistic, you know?), we packed up the car and headed east. Which is where this happened:

Don’t laugh. Or, at least, don’t laugh too much, because yeah, this IS a dog in a stroller, but it’s an older dog in a stroller, and that makes aaaalll the difference, trust me on this. See, the thing is, now that Rubin’s getting older, he hasn’t been able to walk as far as he used to. Oh, he’s still very enthusiastic about his walks, and he’d try his best to walk for as long as we’d let him, but, well, that wouldn’t be very fair, obviously, which means he’s been having to miss out on most of our recent adventures. I’d been talking about getting him a doggie stroller for months, but Terry had firmly put his foot down on that one: I dunno, I guess pushing a fluffy white dog around as if it was a baby just isn’t his thing or something? *shrugs*

Anyway, as I said, lately we’ve been having to leave Rubin behind if we know we’re going to be doing a lot of walking, and even Terry had to admit that a little pushchair would be just the thing to solve that problem, so, luckily for us, my parents very kindly stepped in and bought this for him. I think they secretly quite enjoyed pushing him around in it, too: I know I did – and so did Rubin, for that matter, who has never had so much attention in his life. When we arrived at North Berwick, we decided to go for a quick walk along the high street: Rubin actually walked all the way, and it was only when we decided to turn back that he started to get a bit tired, so we popped him in his pushchair – LOLS! – and almost instantly he was surrounded by random passers-by, all wanting to pet him. He sat there like a little king, thoroughly enjoying the attention, so I guess you could say it was a bit of a hit.

(Oh, and because I’m unnecessarily embarrassed by all of this, I just have to add that the neckerchief isn’t just for show, either: as I mentioned in this post, he has a skin tag on his neck, which the vet is reluctant to remove, because it would involve giving him a general anaesthetic, which would be risky at his age. It doesn’t bother Rubin in the slightest, but it IS quite alarming to look at – plus he has a tendency to catch it on things, and make it bleed – so rather than have people lean in to pet him then recoil in horror, we’ve been covering it up with a selection of little neckerchiefs. I’m pretty sure quite a few passers by will have assumed I’m one of those women who pretends their dog is a baby, but I swear to God, I was only, like, 15% pretending he was human, and the rest was pure practicality, honestly. Ahem.)

(And Terry bought him the most recent set of neckerchiefs. Ha! I dunno, it’s like, one minute you’re all, “God, I would NEVER treat my dog like a child: how tragic!” and the next, there you are, wheeling him around and wondering if the gingham neckerchief would’ve been a better match for the pushchair? WHO EVEN AM I?)

What was I talking about? Oh yeah: the seaside! After our stroll around North Berwick, we got back into the car for the short drive to nearby Seacliff beach. Sing it with me, people: “Seeeaacliff! It’s me, Cathy, I’ve come hooooommmeeee…. ” Wait: that’s not right, is it?

Seacliff is just THE BEST, seriously. It’s an awesome beach any time you go (even when it’s absolutely freakin’ FREEZING...), but this time it was even more awesome, because there were horses everywhere. There’s a riding school nearby, which brings its horses down onto the beach at regular intervals – my inner 12 year old has never been so jealous in her life, seriously.  It was lovely to watch the beautiful horses cantering along the beach, though, and we spent a lovely couple of hours there, eating our picnic, and just watching the world go by, before coming home to perform the usual ritual of looking up property prices in the area, and then whining endlessly about how TOTALLY UNFAIR it is that we’re never going to be able to afford to live there. Well, I did that, anyway.  Terry just came home and went about his business as usual, but one of us has to bring the crazy to the party, and it looks like it’s going to have to be me, huh?

Seacliff, we love you: and I promise that one day I WILL become a multi-millionaire and buy a house right next to you. Until then, here’s a slightly awkward photo of me and Terry, for you to remember us by. You’re very welcome…