Megan and the Long Bridge

For the first time in her whole, 12 year puff, Megan gets lost. We are walking on the Rec. Meggie is old, so she tends to amble along with a unique rolling gait, her hips and back end seemingly unwilling to trot since the bad times of her Cushings (before she was diagnosed and put on the Vetoryl). So she is never going to "run off" in the traditional sense, but she can roll along at a fast human-walking pace when the mood takes her.

We are at the top of the Rec (south east corner) and turning, as usual across the top takkin' the "low road", prior to turning back along the "high road" above the bowls and tennis courts. Megan, as expected, is bimbling near the basketball court to save herself the loop, seemingly intending (as usual) to rendezvous with us when we've done the loop.

Half way along the low road, out of the corner of Dad's eye, he sees her head up the bank, but this is not cause for concern, as she's probably just seen a squirrel. But it is cause for concern when she doesn't meet us back at the basketball. Our increasingly frantic circling about, looking round bushes and diving among buildings, with Dad whistling, fails to find her, and everyone Dad asks just looks blank.

Suspecting she may have taken off up the famous "Long Bridge" (longest railway footbridge in the UK... http://www.faversham.org/pages/standard.aspx?i_PageID=15816 ) towards the cemetery, Dad phones Mum to get her to check the "walked back home option". Dad takes off over the bridge with us, while Mum comes from home to the Rec, cutting off that exit.

We speed-walk across the bridge and back through the graveyard (poor Haggis is too old for all this fast stuff) to home.

We get dropped at home, while Dad returns to the Rec, hoping to close the "pincer movement" with Mum. Everyone's praying by this stage. Megan has never "run off" before.

Blessed relief then when a kind stranger phones Dad's mobile from the number on her collar. 4 small children have found her and asked the man to phone the number. She is, indeed across the Long Bridge, but has gone on from there rather than looping back through the cemetery, presumably given up, and is now ambling home. The kind man tells us he'll hang on till Dad arrives, and there is a happy re-union. Mum, Dad and Megan walk slowly home. Megan is exhausted. What a relief.

Deefer