It’s Father’s Day today, but my first experience of the day was waking up from a horrible dream of being taken before sunrise, to a wine farm, which was closed, and at which there were over 50 beagles.
It could have been the virus I’ve got, but there were cold sweats all round.
Then I realised that this wasn’t a dream at all. The wine farm really was closed and there really were more than 50 beagles in attendance. This was a Beagle Run, and we were in the midst of it. With a beagle.
The cold sweats returned. And they were very cold, because Paarl is very cold on June mornings before sunrise.
The Beagle Run is a fortnightly (or so) opportunity over winter for Beagle owners to get together and wonder why the hell they got a beagle allow their dogs to run as a pack while chasing a scent trail. Which is basically what beagles are meant for.
Some beagles are very good at this. Those beagles win prizes. Other beagles (and here I include our beagle) are less good at it, and cower pathetically on the start line as the pack heads off, before glancing up half apologetically, half questioningly at you as if to say “Well, that was quite an exciting moment, wasn’t it? So what do we do now, then?”
What we do now is walk, beagle in tow, to meet the beagles that have done things correctly, and then repeat the process four or five more times until – covered in mud and disappointment – we get back to the car.
It was good exercise, in fresh air, with wonderful views. And then we came home and I got showered with Father’s Day gifts. I’m still a bit (very) bleugh from my virus, but I’m lucky to have such an amazing family, and the beagle is very lucky to have us too. Other families would have left it at the closed wine farm in disgrace.
Most of the photos were taken by Mrs 6000 because I was trying to find the beagle most of the time and the light was terrible.