Well, that was dumb

Just had a near death experience, very frightening and all my own fault. Wanting to save a little time on my walk along the river with the dogs, I decided to walk across the stream, rather than go via the road bridge that was a few minutes further on. I found a nice shallow part to cross at, but unfortunately the laws of physics were against me, and the corollary of the phrase “still waters run deep” turned out to be true: I had no trouble walking across, but the three dogs who were following faithfully behind me all got swept away downstream. One managed to get across; another got dragged briefly under a log but then reappeared and got back onto the bank we had just come from; but the old dog was not a strong enough swimmer and after struggling briefly, got swept under some  willow branches and disappeared from view. It was honestly terrifying, she looked so helpless as she tried to save herself. Luckily, by the time I managed to struggle out of my jacket, she got spat out onto the riverbank again. (Why didn’t I just leap in and save her? Well, I had my iPhone in my pocket and that piece of kit cost me nearly $1K… I’d like to say I was worried that I might get cold after my unexpected dip, and would need the jacket to get warm but, reader, I cannot lie… that never entered my mind. Also, did I mention I was terrified?) It was a great relief that they were all OK, but now I had two dogs on one side of the river, and one on the other. I went back to get one schnoodle, and carried her across, but when I went back again to get the old dog, the first schnoodle followed me back over again. So my last trip across was with a dog under each arm. I was still feeling shaky but the dogs were in very high spirits. I guess its that adrenaline rush you get after a near death experience – I get it when cycling around Wellington. The whole episode was caused by my stupidity, so upsetting that I put the dogs at risk. Sadly it reminds me of when my daughters were young. There were a number of times when I found myself saying, whilst exposing them to some peril or other “never ever do this!” as if it was some sort of magical parenting get-out-of-jail-free card. Thank goodness they all survived childhood – and they’re too old for child protection services to take them away from me. Now I just need to keep clear of the SPCA.