Imagining a different future

We've been having super lovely weather in NE Scotland this week, and my paws are now feeling tip top, so on Saturday morning (I'm delighted to report) Gail decided to abandon the household chores and take me for a walk up Morven, long our favourite Deeside hill.

One learns, given the climate in these parts, to seize the moment.

Half way up the initial steep ascent, we ran in to a chap who Gail knows a bit through her work, who was out walking with his wife. It was a good excuse to stop for a breather, and it turns out this couple are both geologists and hail from the southwest of France, near the Pyrenees. Wife was ever so friendly and as she tickled my belly in a way I might describe as 'très agréable' her husband warned Gail to keep a close eye on me, as wife yearns for a dog and he said there was a danger I might be kidnapped.

You know what, I am thinking, would it really be so bad to be kidnapped by a French geologist and maybe end up living close to the Pyrenees?

I am imagining a life spent hiking in the dramatic mountain landscapes, enjoying croissants for petit dejeuner, a selection of smelly fromages for lunch and maybe cassoulet cooked with generous quantities of goose fat for dinner.

Gail could still come to visit and perhaps even fulfil a lifetime ambition of cycling up the Col du Toumalet.

Who knows, I could get the chance to visit my blogging friends Bob and Sophie and thank them properly for sending me that comfy soft collar earlier in the year.

Oh and if I stay in France long enough, that nice young Monsieur Macron might yet permit me to retain my precious EU passport?

For some reason, when we reached the summit, Gail seemed keen to hold me tight …

… and was reluctant to let me get too close to the French couple (that's them, sat behind me in the picture below, sheltering from the inevitable wind).

Impeccable manners, compliments and even a tripe stick...

You know what? When Gail came home on Thursday evening from an all day meeting at the Aberdeen office of the French oil company Total, she gave me a big smile and an extra treat as well as the usual fond hug.

Yes I was surprised too, until Gail explained the backstory.

If you have been on a train at all in the last twenty years you will certainly have come across those irritating people who engage in long work-related conversations on their mobile phones, thus disturbing their fellow passengers whose only wish is to sit quietly and read. Well a week last Friday, during the journey to Nottingham, Gail became one of these annoying types. For the time it took us to travel between Darlington and Doncaster she was engaged in a conference call involving colleagues at Total in Aberdeen and at Danish company Dong in London. (Yes 'Dong' is a funny name isn't it!)

I was a wee bit insulted to learn later that she had felt it necessary to pre-warn the other call participants she would be on a train, with "a dog", and so things might not all go smoothly.

Well as you are aware, these days my train manners are impeccable and I snoozed quietly on Gail's lap for the duration of the call. We were past Newcastle so the hen parties had disembarked and the carriage was relatively quiet. Since Gail was mostly listening not talking, she hopes the other passengers were not too put out.

Anyway, this week's meeting at the Total office was an 'in person' one with the same chaps (it is still mostly chaps in her business) who had taken part in the earlier conference call. Apparently they all said how mightily impressed they were that Gail had managed to join in without any interruptions, and what a well-behaved dog I must be.

Hence the tripe stick!