Jasmine's Solar Powered Runway

by Kathleen Bergin
(Rainham, Essex, UK)

I bought some cheap solar garden lights, from a catalogue. The advert said "Buy five and get five free." I just could not resist a cheap buy. A fortnight later I received my parcel, ten lovely solar lights arrived. I made a mad dash into my garden. "Where shall I put these lights?" I asked myself over and over again. My dog Jasmine eyed me, suspicious of what I was doing. I suddenly had a brain wave. I put the solar lights onto the lawn, two rows running parallel. That night I could not believe how the solar energy made those lights shine, just like the lights you get on the runway.

My garden is over a hundred and seventy feet long. Jasmine is queen of the garden. She rules. No fox or cat or magpies can cross her garden. She allowed our house cats, (three in total) and the two terriers of our house to wander around; she had no problem with them. She always sat on the patio watching. Suddenly her head would go down and her snout out, then off she would go, like a bullet, she always used the runway, and sometimes she had the terriers in tow. It gave me immense pleasure to see her run, down the solar powered runway, like the wind had caught her paws. Jasmine is a cross breed, she is part grey hound and part German Shepherd.


Then the autumn frosts came, and the mini hurricanes came and blew my lovely solar lights all over the garden. The fox at dead of night carried off a few lights to the other end of the garden. All my beautiful lights were broken. I took parts out of some and fitted these to another that was broken and so managed to salvage a few. These I have stuck in flower pots, and they light up the plants.

Jasmine is now old, (She will be twelve years this November) She still sits on the patio and watches, and when her snout goes out, (although she limps when she walks) she takes off like a rocket, and she uses that same path I once called "Jasmine's Solar Powered Runway."