We went for our evening walk along the beach and, on the way, got accosted rather unpleasantly by a man selling bracelets. He was quite aggressive and walked along, rather too close, as we were about to go down a narrow and hidden path, lined with tall fences and bush, so I turned on my heel and insisted we walk along the road instead. He kept close to us, insisting and getting louder, but then a man with a kanga stall on the main road clearly realised it and pulled him back and shouted at him in Swahili while we made our escape.
There was another man on the beach again was a little too persistent while we were already on edge, but he did leave us alone after a few minutes of polite refusal as, to be fair, they invariably do.
We walked a fair way along the beach, accompanied by first a pair of dogs and then one drifted away but the other remained. It was a later walk than usual, so it became dark while we were still walking, accompanied by the dog who had clearly joined our pack for the evening. We walked, talking, while it walked either beside or, slightly annoyingly, a few steps ahead of us, occasionally veering off to pounce on a crab and, once, to splash in the water. It was quite a pleasant presence, and I must say my time in Istanbul has made me much less wary of stray dogs. It also made me feel a probably unwarranted sense of security, as if it would leap to our defence if someone accosted us in the dark. At one point a dog in a compound along the beach started barking, and it crept to our other side, clearlu hoping we would leap to its defence if the dog attacked it. I’m afraid it didn’t have a full understanding of the perfidy of humans.
In the dark we overshot the way to the road by a kilometre or so, but the crab pouncer stayed by our side and we realised what had happened when stone ridges started rising through the sand. In any event we found the turning and went up the road, still followed by the dog. It stayed by our side until we crossed the main road, and then looked very hurt on the other side. It managed to cross as well just as we went into the compound, and as the gate swung shut it sat outside, looking forlorn. I felt very bad.