Musings from the Merse
Saturday, September 26, 2009
(Dog) CRAP TOWNS REVISITED
Huttonian is loathe to return to this distasteful(npi) topic but it is No 1 worry in the community (dis)satisfaction survey recently published by the Scottish Borders Council and every time I go to Spitall-Northumberland's most depressing seaside holiday destination-known to many as The Last Resort-I think of Dog Poo.
Ostensibly the City Fathers are doing some thing about it-hence the rather fierce warnings but to what effect? Has anyone been fined a thousand quid? I doubt it. Spitall is where dog owners go before they die and they are thick on the ground. And it is not just one man one dog; its lots of dogs per person. Yesterday I saw a guy with four dogs on four leads; between his fingers on one hand as well as two leads he was clutching a small transparent plastic bag. One smoldering turd, fast asleep, lay within it. Good man. But how did it get there? Put there before he left home to show willing, one suspects. There was no way he could hold onto all his curs and scoop up an offering to bag it-and sure enough as we followed his progress there was evidence of fresh droppings; reminiscent of marking the elephants progress in New York every 17 March but the St Patrick's Day Parade Marshalls had armies of clean up Crap Collectors, with scoops to follow the parade and do the needful.
Verb Sap: the only safe place to walk in Spitall without having to dance the Northumberland Two Step: Do Do, Do Do, Do is on the beach. close to the sea, at low tide.
On a Monday Morning.
2AM
Labels: Crap Towns, Dog Poo, Spitall
Thursday, April 02, 2009
DOG OWNERS WARNED TO CLEAN UP THEIR ACT
howls the banner headline in today's Berwickshire with the titivating sub heading that the Scottish Borders ''Local Team' cleans up 335 pieces of dog dirt in Coldstream in just one steamy day*. Gory details here
Coldstream seems to have been a particular target for the Dog Warden's squad as they 'rapid response' the 'First Toon in Scotland' (Or the last depending on direction of travel) The story relates that some one fed up with excreta smeared footwear is hitting back with poisoned pellets which is a trifle OTT (Misguided says the Berwickshire) perhaps.
I don't think we have such a problem in canine anal retentive Duns. There are no statistics on the number of dog owners in Duns out of the 5,205 who were formally warned of their responsibilities in the Borders in the last 8 months in 2008. Most of the local dogs seem to enjoy their walkies in Duns Castle Park beside the well named Hen Poo lake-although it is the Ducks (rather than Hens) and the Geese which are responsible for most of the droppings encountered on this road.
I would be interested to see a similar breakdown (npi) of Dog crap in Spitall. The DP capital of northern Northumberland. With all this talk of international cooperation here is a splendid opportunity for a bit of technical assistance from good neighbours in Berwickshire.Plastic bags and fixed penalties across the Border, sort of thing
Thanks to flickr for the image. No sure from where
* Who is counting? They are apparently
Labels: Coldstream, Dog Poo, Dog Waste, Spitall
Monday, March 16, 2009
The Muse has Landed (from Paxton)
Huttonian is pleased to report that the first contribution for the anthology of Berwickshire verse due to be published in October and to be sold for local charities has landed on our doorstep. A stirring ballad of 8 verses entitled 'The Summer of 2008' it is setting a high standard for the rest of the contributors. If any. The author, who lives not a million miles from Paxton has pointed me towards a 1930s collection of mostly poetry:
"Folk Tales of the Borders" which has a splendid opening line ;
'I stood open Eyemouth Beach and what do you think I saw?'( Bloggees are earnestly asked for suggestions...) Had it been Spitall Beach the answer would be noisesomely predictable.
A title for the anthology is needed. Some one suggested ' Musings from the Merse' but that's, er, taken. (There actually is a 19th century collection of Borders Poetry called Merse Musings which I only heard about well after I started the blog)
The editor would welcome ideas on this as well
(The image is of Eyemouth Beach. NB hopefully continent dog. Nevertheles, if standing on it, be careful)
Labels: Berwickshire Poetry, Eyemouth Beach, Spitall
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Dogged Doings Revisited
Coming back to the Merse a couple of days earlier than scheduled for complicated reasons not unconnected with sore teeth another reference to the burning topic of dog waste caught my eye in the letter columns of the Berwickshire
, - I write on behalf of Duns Amateur Football Club to appeal to the dog owner(s) who have recently been allowing their pet(s) to foul on the football pitch at Gavinton without picking up their mess.
I am sure that the culprit(s) will already be aware that it is against the law not to pick up after your dog(s) and that the irresponsibility of their actions can also have serious consequences to the health and safety of others.
Please put a stop to this disgusting practice, pick up after your dog(s) and have more consideration for the many adults and children who share Gavinton football pitch.
Reading between the lines I suspect that the writer has a suspect or even suspect (s) in mind who may have one incontinent mongrel or a number of cur(s) . Its actually quite rare in country parts and unknown in Spitall to have one man, one dog, and the professional dogwalkers can have up to a dozen on leash with the human minder's pockets bulging with little plastic bags, or in the case of Spitall, not.
Gavinton is a small, neat ,well organised village and irresponsible dog owners would be pretty conspicous and especially so when allowing their charges to crap all over the football pitch. For goodness sake make use of the miles amd miles of lush uncrowded pastures where your best friend can foul the endless fields of billous rape to its heart's content.
Gavinton has a tradition of an annual Pantomime. Lots of local dramatic talent. One would hope that the offending animal owners could be suitably pilloried-named and shamed in deathless dramatic drama in a production say of
Dick Whittington and his Incontinent Cat?
Goldilocks and the Three Curs?
The possibilities are endless
Coming back to the Merse a couple of days earlier than scheduled for complicated reasons not unconnected with sore teeth another reference to the burning topic of dog waste caught my eye in the letter columns of the Berwickshire
, - I write on behalf of Duns Amateur Football Club to appeal to the dog owner(s) who have recently been allowing their pet(s) to foul on the football pitch at Gavinton without picking up their mess.
I am sure that the culprit(s) will already be aware that it is against the law not to pick up after your dog(s) and that the irresponsibility of their actions can also have serious consequences to the health and safety of others.
Please put a stop to this disgusting practice, pick up after your dog(s) and have more consideration for the many adults and children who share Gavinton football pitch.
Reading between the lines I suspect that the writer has a suspect or even suspect (s) in mind who may have one incontinent mongrel or a number of cur(s) . Its actually quite rare in country parts and unknown in Spitall to have one man, one dog, and the professional dogwalkers can have up to a dozen on leash with the human minder's pockets bulging with little plastic bags, or in the case of Spitall, not.
Gavinton is a small, neat ,well organised village and irresponsible dog owners would be pretty conspicous and especially so when allowing their charges to crap all over the football pitch. For goodness sake make use of the miles amd miles of lush uncrowded pastures where your best friend can foul the endless fields of billous rape to its heart's content.
Gavinton has a tradition of an annual Pantomime. Lots of local dramatic talent. One would hope that the offending animal owners could be suitably pilloried-named and shamed in deathless dramatic drama in a production say of
Dick Whittington and his Incontinent Cat?
Goldilocks and the Three Curs?
The possibilities are endless
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Spitall looked a bit like this yesterday in the faux Spring. We once considered relocating from Hutton to here but a major factor on not doing so was the huge number of dogs (rarely see one walker with only one cur) and therefore the piles of 'waste' (as the notices call the crap) where ever you go. Not even safe on the beach below the tide mark. You can't see the excrement from here but believe me, it is there. Either in situ or lovingly placed in a plastic bag and then left abandoned for the careless shoe.
And the other thing I find unattractive about this rather faded seaside resort are the numerous unfriendly notices on people's gates prohibiting parking, turning your car or possibly breathing through your mouth. If they are ignored as the anti Dog Fouling posters then I have some sympathy with the householders. But the whole thrust is 'move on, Jimmy. We don't want your sort here'
The other image is of a Spitall Gate notice. I am not sure what it means. If you don't close the gate
we might escape?
Labels: Dog Poo, Spitall, Unfriendly notices.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Two images eluded me in Hutton: Low flying aircraft caught in the act at undr 200 feet and unretentive dogs. But an occasional bloggee has helped out with the latter. I wonder if this was Spittal beach? Certainly not Hutton but it will do as an interesting image.
What an entry for the family album
And if the photographer noticed the backing group (npi) was the decent thing done? One assumes it was the photographer's dog.
Or as so often in Spittal was it left to the tide to do the pooping?
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Spitall was where it was all at yesterday on the one nice day we have had sandwiched between what feels like weeks of rain. It has poured since we left dry old Hutton and certainly can no longer boast about living in the driest part of the UK. Anyhow Spitall was all zephyrs, sun and only a light fleece necessary. It was the first day of the Spitall Festival-a weekend of riotous fun including a Continental Market. Apart from the German Lager,Polish pastries, 87 varieties of saucisson and French cheeses sold by a German hot foot off the Newcastle Ferry the emphasis was on carved animals from the presentable via the kitsch to the grotesque. Not selling like hot cakes-although the hot cakes were, despite being Fair Trade and prolific-if you could avoid Spitall's notorious dog droppings you were likely to be entangled with wooden ducks and the odd Iguana or Monitor Lizard-and the even odder giraffe which hard not clearly been anywhere near Africa. I have seen this lot before-in the Christmas Market at La Defense in Paris. They were not selling there either so Spitall may have been something of a Derniere Chance Salon.
If you could tear yourself away from this wooden Disneyland sur Spit you had the beach as the alternative attraction. Nicer than usual as the dog crap was mostly covered up by the flotsam and jetsam brought down the Tweed by the recent floods. So mild was it that some people were nearly swimming despite the rather dirty looking foam fed by silt from the Berwickshire rivers-a Brown Flag beach on this occasion-being hurled onto the strand by some impressive rollers. Good for surfing. But you would need your wellies.
Labels: Carved animals, Continental Market, Spitall
