Ruby Grimshaw on the perils of walking the dog

I get on very well with my neighbours and I’m not just saying that because they might read my column. When they say they are thinking of moving because the area has got too busy I get very nervous. I have had neighbours from Hell in the past which would make the ones on the TV show look like Mother Teresa. That was when I was living in the country.

You would think that living in a detached home with the nearest neighbour at least a field away would make for harmony? Not at all. I visited my old friend S in the wilds of Nutley last week. S is a confirmed dog owner and when she had told me to bring ‘comfortable shoes’ my heart sank and I wondered if it was too late to say I had a bad foot. I don’t mind dog walking if there is a goal. After all, I still take Molly, my handy man’s delightful little Jack Russell, for a gentle stroll round Preston Park most Sundays but that is for the purpose of reaching the Rotunda Cafè for a yummy veggie breakfast. Trailing over Ashdown Forest with no pub at the end of it is not my idea of enjoyment. However, friendships have their demands, so that is exactly what I found myself doing.

“Trailing over Ashdown Forest with no pub at the end of it is not my idea of enjoyment”

At one point I and Holly, the dog, were way ahead of S, probably because I thought the sooner we got home the sooner I could have a cup of tea. I only realised I had lost sight of Holly at the moment she reappeared, bursting out at speed from some bushes, followed by a screaming purple-faced apoplectic woman. I think she was telling me I was not a fit person to own a dog and if it came into her garden again she would shoot it. I was about to point out that her garden was part of the forest, there was no apparent fence, when her face collapsed and broke into an embarrassed smile.

“Why, hello S,” she muttered. “I didn’t recognise your dog.”

S had caught me up. “Hello, M,” she said sweetly. “Have you met my friend Ruby?”

S told me that people in the village had in the past complained about the clatter of horses hooves early in the morning, the smoke of bonfires in the evening and the crowing of cockerels at any time.

“How would you lot get on living in a terraced house in Brighton?” I said. S smiled. “Another world,” she said. “Another world.”