Dog, Dogless, Candyfloss

Hangdog

An OAP (one-arm pull-up) armed with a puppy; dog-weight - a dead weight, an OAP (old-aged puppy?). Whenever I see a dog in an old photograph (say twenty years old), I know, know for certain, that the dog is now dead.

Reflections On A Sausage

Dog Brightness

Sausage In The Landscape. Sausage In The Studio

Spotted Damnation

After following a trail of hot-dog papers I half-expected to find a sausage, wrapped the purple-spotted blanket. But I found a woman.

I believed (but my eyes deceived) I’d find bivouacker sauvage, under the turquoise-spotted blanket. But I found ‘sausage’ written on a white paper bag. But isn't anybody in sleeping bag – pork-meat wrapped in duck-down - a kind of sausage roll?  

Sausage reading, hot-dog wrappers, similar spotted blankets (Spot is often a dog’s name, and dogs have blankets): imagine trying to take an accurate light-meter reading off a Spotted Dalmatian? Sausage dogs must be easier to read.

Le Sausage Sauvage

Walking, talking to myself (not rambling) in Old Eridge Park, East Sussex, on my way to Eridge Rocks, I spy a bivouac in the landscape – someone camping sauavge. Seen from a distance – through a screen of trees – the bivouacer appears to be reclining on one elbow, enjoying the early morning vista from the comfort of his/her mummy sleeping bag. I love a good night ‘out’ myself - under the stars, away from the cars – and I’m always up for a sleeping bag tutorial - so I make my way over for a chat.

But how can I chat to that? It’s not a bivouac but the debris of a picnic. But it had a word for me: closer inspection revealed a bag, not a sleeping bag but white paper bag with the SAUSAGE written on it. Not a bivouacer but a banger. What appeared to be le camping sauavage turned out to be a sausage. 

Variation On A Hot-Dog: Eaten At Eaton

By the Thames at Eaton, a paper-trail of hot-dog wrappers (hot-dogs, eaten at Eaton) lead me to a ‘sleepher’ (a woman, wrapped in a blanket, sleeping like a log. A variation on a hot-dog?). Notice the mirror. ‘Mirror, mirror on the grass, do I wake her or do I pass? No. Mirror, mirror next to the head, is she sleeping or is she dead? Held the mirror in front of her mouth, see if her breath misted the glass? No, not me, I'm not Quincy. I passed - carried on up-stream towards Cookham - Stanley Spencer country. But not before admiring my reflection in the mirror. And I'm not John Hilliard, either.

Sleepers In The Landscape

On two separate walks (one near Frant, East Sussex; the other, along the Thames at Eaton) I encounter two sleepers - sleepers in the landscape. And even though (on close inspection) both their blankets shared a similar pattern, one turned out to be not asleep, or awake, but a sausage: not a sleeper but a banger.

 To be continued…

The Sausage Was A Sign

Then, a few days after I’d found the right colour of blue car – Basel parking-space blue -, I spotted a blue horse, with a sign growing out of its head. On the same postcard rack – just above – was a tomato ketchup-drizzled sausage, entering a mouth - like a bleeding stool exiting an anus. But not until after I’d returned to England did I discover the true significance of the sausage image.