I am an adamant believer that you will never know a place until you walk it, but only now am I recognizing that a place will never know you just because you walk it, that walking is in fact a give and take exercise.

My first weekend in Huntly was spent wandering the immediate perimeters, tracing my steps back to the train station and surrounding roads, down to the Deveron River and against the current, eventually coming back again past TESCO and the cemetery. I noted the slope of the town, the direction of North, but really, it’s basically impossible to get lost in Huntly.

Almost as a compulsion though, I need to walk a new space to understand where I am, to locate myself in a place, be it a city block or town perimeters, to get a physical sense of my surroundings. I don’t mind getting lost, in fact, I enjoy losing myself into new places, and I had thought I had seen all that Huntly had to offer.

Since that first weekend, I have walked down every street and alleyway, walked as far as I could along the rail line, trespassed private properties, walked up and around Battlehill on various occassions, even going up the Clashmach, and clear past the Castle Hotel, down roads and through fields until I could no longer hear Huntly.

I have been walking Huntly to know it, but all this time, I do not believe Huntly has known me. I was informed early on that most towns people won’t make eye contact with me, and that’s remained true for the most part. Strangers are highly visible in a place like Huntly, so visible in fact that I can start telling which ones aren’t from around here.

But as of this week, I am starting to feel I am knowing Huntly for the first time and Huntly is knowing me. People are making eye contact, making small talk, and I’m sure it’s all to do with the dog I’ve been walking every day. Walking a dog around town is liberating in any town or city; part of it is the introduction of new paths I would never ordinarily take by chance or on my own, taking note of the minute differences within a familiar route, and taking things in at a different pace. Walking a dog is about walking for leisure, but it’s also the visibility an animal suddenly gives me and my walking, that I am no longer a stranger wandering on my own, but wandering as domesticated as the animal I am walking.