Bilberrying
I went bilberrying with my collie-dog about five or six years ago to a local beauty spot* where there are lots of bilberries to be found. After picking enough as I could carry, we set off back down the hill and came to a field of Shetland ponies.
Shetland ponies aren't vicious - but their owners are. They'd padlocked the gate closed and even though I could get over, I couldn't get the dog to jump the wall. We were stuck. The ponies began to crowd around us, sniffing the bag of bilberries and backing us up against the gate. They kept coming closer, and closer, eventually standing on one of my feet. After I'd been creeped out enough I edged as near to the wall as possible, and decided that I'd have to launch the dog over the wall (no mean feat given that I weigh about the same as the dog - he didn't like being launched at all) and make a getaway.
But that wasn't the end of the adventure - about quarter of a mile down the road, a grey-haired, yellow-eyed dog slunk out of a farm driveway onto the road and started to stare at us. It growled as we advanced, warning us to keep away. When we were ten metres or so from it, it dashed towards us - we leapt over a fence into some tangled woodland to escape. The wood was so thick with brambles and thorns we couldn't move - stuck again. As we moved through the wood the dog followed our progress on the road - we couldn't get back. We just waited in the wood for it to go away, except it wouldn't.
Eventually, we were saved by a farmer's wife who was wielding a sickle ('to clear the ditches and drains'). She sent the evil dog home and we were free again.

Suprising, I have been back there to pick bilberries since - the evil dog must have died since it's been replaced by a collie. That's another story though.


* The carpark to said spot is closed now because it was being used for dogging
( Peapod Has returned to the fold on, Thu 24 Apr 2008, 22:26, Reply)