Blogtember: Being afraid, being very afraid

Hello chaps and chapesses!

Today’s topic is a story about a time when I was very afraid.

To be honest, I’ve struggled to think of a time when I felt really, genuinely frightened – maybe my subconscious has blocked out any traumatic memories – so here is the closest I could think of.

Our dog Toby likes to think of himself as a bit of an Action Dog (and he’s enthusiastically egged on by Graeme), and he loves going swimming.   What tends to happen is he’ll leap into the water, we’ll throw a stone for him and he’ll swim towards the point where it splashed, to try and retrieve it.  Then we’ll throw another stone, which will splash in another place, and he’ll turn around and aim for that one.  This continues for a long time.  It also means that we can guide him in whatever direction we like, by throwing stones in one direction or the other.

One weekend this summer we took Toby to Bangor-on-Dee to go for a swim in the river Dee.  As usual, he ran straight into the water, full of gusto.  The part of the river bank where we were is a pebbly shore, so there are loads of great pebbles to steer Toby with. 

On this particular day, Graeme was in charge of pebble-throwing (he usually is, I throw like a girl).  After the first three or four throws, Toby had swum out into the main current of the river, which was moving quite fast. 

He’s a strong swimmer, and was swimming against the current, giving it 100%, but wasn’t getting anywhere.  If anything, from where I stood watching, his little head seemed to be getting smaller and smaller as he drifted away downstream.

This made me a bit panicky, as I had visions of Toby being swept away and ending up out at sea somewhere.  I could just imagine us in years to come – “remember that time Toby got swept away?”  “I wonder what happened to him”  “maybe he’s still out there, sailing the seven seas”.

Graeme wasn’t remotely concerned, but did eventually throw some stones a bit nearer to the shore so that Toby would change direction and get himself out of the current. 

Once he’d proved to me that all was well, Graeme then went on to steer Toby back into the fast current another three or four times, just for the enjoyment of winding me up.  Cheeky bugger.