Cobwebs, what cobwebs?

Just because it's been raining cats and humans* all week, and the wind has been working hard to prove it's worth as mainstay of Scotland's renewable energy resource, and it's the time of year when on a dull day the risen sun barely makes an impact on the light levels, does that mean you get spend all day lounging around on the sofa when you live with my owner Gail?

Of course you don't.

In this not very religious household, it is an article of faith that, whatever the conditions outside, one must on a regular basis go for a walk to "blow away the cobwebs".

Have you ever been troubled by cobwebs gathering on your furs?

Me neither.

But still Gail deemed it necessary that yesterday afternoon we should join neighbours Kirsty and Susanna for a stroll down to the headland at the mouth of Aberdeen harbour. That's about two miles from our street. I would like to point out that any stray cobweb which might have had the temerity to come along for the ride has probably been blown all the way across the North Sea and reached Norway by now!

*Makes as much sense as 'raining cats and dogs', right?

My aim is true

I regret to say that, as a male dog, I find there are certain issues which a female human, however caring and thoughtful, simply cannot relate to.

I'm hoping some of my friends out there in the internet will understand...

We have been enduring a bout of notably stormy weather here in the UK of late. Even in the relatively sheltered woods where Gail took me walking on Sunday afternoon, I could feel the cool wind ripping through my furs.

I think Gail must have been feeling a bit chilly, 'cos she started getting rather short with me, complaining I was taking too much time over my important 'marking' activities.

Friends, you know how important it is to mark the one's territory with both accuracy and precision?

In normal conditions, this is relatively straightforward, and I suppose Gail simply didn't realise how in high winds, the trajectory of one's peemail, between dog and tree, is liable to distortion, and the degree of distortion can be particularly tricky to predict when the wind strength and direction is variable. Thus, lining oneself up in the right position to achieve a true aim takes longer than normal.

And can you imagine, Gail just thought I was "dawdling".

https://youtu.be/Ao9WLBNcP6M

PS Gail and I had a little debate about whether or not this post qualifies for the LLB Gang's Nature Friday blog hop. I pointed out that the subject matter includes what humans sometimes refer to as "a call of nature" and also makes an important point about the impact of the forces of nature on a dog's ability to delineate his territory.  Gail remains unconvinced. But it is MY blog!

Happy Nature Friday!

Decisions in Torridon

Last weekend Gail and I visited our cottage in Torridon. On the basis of a weather forecast on Thursday, promising heavy rain and gale force winds for the next few days, we nearly stayed in Aberdeen, but I'm pleased to report that Gail decided to ignore the best advice of the Met Office and head west anyway.

You can however understand why I decided not to go for a paddle in the normally calm waters of Loch Torridon on Friday afternoon.

On Saturday the wind had died down and I was most alarmed to overhear Gail and her neighbour Julia discussing whether they might go sea kayaking the next day, rather than taking me for a walk.

Thankfully sense prevailed and they decided on a Sunday morning ramble around the Shieldaig peninsula. At the spot where the pathway divides, we opted to take the right hand trail, thus an anti-clockwise circuit.

It wasn't a fast walk, and there were many 'posing for treats' stops.

Some of the posing locations required careful negotiation of the rocky shoreline. I just point this out so you are aware of the considerable effort that sometimes lies behind the production of my blog.

After a while, it occurred to me to add variety to the photo opportunities by changing the colour of my lower limbs. In areas of peat bog, the colour change thing is not the exclusive preserve of the chameleon. (OK, so we don't have chameleons in NW Scotland, but you get my drift I'm sure...)

Most unreasonably, before we returned to the village of Shieldaig and a bar lunch in the Tigh an Eilean Hotel, Gail decided my paws needed a thorough wash in a clear but very chilly stream.

I would like here to point out to Julia (who is nice, on the whole) that one does NOT appreciate being photographed at moments so disadvantageous to one's dignity!

The cold bath was the first of two poor decisions on Gail's part, the second being that she refused to give me a single morsel of her fish and chip lunch, and I was made to lie quietly beside the table while Gail and Julia munched away, and pretend to be happy with the occasional pat on the head from other passing customers.

PS Some readers may not already know that Julia has a beautiful blog called Hand Knitted Things. Fans of knitting, or Torridon scenery, or sheep, will love her latest post (click here).

Bertie bags Ben Wyvis

Have you any idea how hard it is to keep your ears in order and your beard looking neat when on top of a Scottish mountain on a windy day?


Oh the trials of being a wire-haired fox terrier with flappy little ears and a profusion of facial fuzz!


Gail and I ascended a  'Munro'* on Sunday. Ben Wyvis is the massive hill you can see on a clear day if you look northwards from Inverness. It was our first big hill climb for a while. It is all too common at these latitudes that benign conditions at the base give way to something altogether different, and almost always much windier, by the time one reaches the sub-Arctic environment of the summit plateau.





So annoying to be beaten to the top by this wee fellow (although I note he was not suffering from the same beard and ear issues as yours truly).


I should point out that Gail was looking every bit as dishevelled as me, although she seemed neither to notice nor care, perhaps because she is not the one who has to pose for all the photos in this blog! Anyway, she was too busy being enraptured by the panorama that opened up as we processed along the broad ridge, with the iconic outline of Suilven just visible in the far northwest, and nearer to the east a line of drilling rigs marching up the deep waters of the Cromarty Firth.

I'll be honest with you, towards the end of the nearly nine mile walk I was feeling a little weary, and so, I believe, was Gail. All that wind was really quite exhausting.



*In Scotland all the hills over 3000ft high are called 'Munros'. There are 282 of them.

A sensible decision..?

The perfect storm?

Us dogs always know when something is up, don't we?

My familiar routine was disrupted this week when Gail came home from work early on Wednesday and started rushing around making lots of phone calls, packing bags and generally acting fraught.

We did go to Agility Club as usual that evening, where I was feeling full of bounce, despite Gail's apparently distracted state.

But when I woke up on Thursday morning, my paw was hurting REALLY BADLY and I absolutely did not want to walk further than the nearest lamppost.

I lifted up my paw and gave Gail my best pity party look, but instead of being all sympathetic (like she usually is) Gail just looked at me and said. "Oh no Bertie, this is such bad timing!"

So there was a hastily arranged visit to vet, where Ashley, my favourite vet lady, gently examined my left paw and the words "inter-digital cyst" and "antibiotics" featured in the ensuing conversation between her and Gail.

Then instead of being taken home to rest I was bundled into the car and we drove a very long way indeed.

The weather was truly horrid. I'd like to make a pun about gales and Gails, but from the way my precious human was gripping the steering wheel in an effort to stay on the motorway, as torrential rain lashed the windscreen of the wind-buffeted car, I suspect any jokes about the Scottish weather would not be appreciated.

Rain turned to heavy snow as we crossed the Pennines and still we drove on.

It dawned on me that we were on the way to Human Granny's house, which seemed odd as we'd only returned from there less than three weeks ago.

We finally arrived in Nottingham and, oh dear, I am so sorry to report that my beloved HGY is not at all well.

I fear Gail might not have much time to assist me with my blog for the next week or so.

Post-Hogmanay Aberdeen

It is after nine a.m. on the 1st January 2014 and Gail finally rouses herself to take me for my morning walk.

Such tardiness is highly unusual in this household.

I heard a lot of loud bangs last night while Gail was out. She had told me not to worry, the noises would just be fireworks, but it turns out she was wrong.

I can exclusively reveal that a neutron bomb has hit my home town.

How else to explain that the buildings are still standing but human life is absent this morning?

As I enter Duthie Park, I finally spot something moving, unsteadily. I suspect a zombie but Gail insists that it is alive and human and tests her theory with a cheery "Happy New Year". The creature covers its ears with its hands and mumbles that it needs to take things quietly this morning…

Then something even more extraordinary occurs.

I am allowed to walk back from the park along the streets without my walking string attached! Gail responds to my quizzical look by pointing out that, with the complete lack of traffic, she thinks it a good time to test my compliance with the 'heel' command. I decide to stick close to Gail's ankle, hoping to lull her into a false sense of security which I can take advantage of on a future occasion.

Later in the day, we go for the traditional New Year sandblast promenade along the city beach, and I have to concede that my neutron bomb theory may need modifying.

I am now thinking that a miasma of some poisonous substance descended on Scotland in the night, from which the citizens took time to recover.

Using my forensic expertise, I have deduced that a chemical weapon, code named C₂H₅OH, was responsible.

Happy New Year!

In a flap on Bennachie

 Where it is always windy, no matter the season. 

So tell me, which way do you prefer my ears?

Up?

Or down?

PS Long time readers will recognise Gail's friend the Oilman, and my Westie girlfriend Lucy. Lucy's older sister Florrie is now in semi-retirement and these days only attempts gentle walks in the park.

Skye: the full story

OK, now that it has been officially been announced that Gail's employer has been bought by, well let's just call them 'LR', I can exclusively reveal my real role on the recent geological field trip to Skye.

Yes indeed, I have been carrying out a secret commission on behalf of the new owners to assess the true value to the company of these excursions.  The context is that, regrettably, there is in some senior levels of management a degree of cynicism about the business justification for such trips and a suspicion that geologists just like to be paid for swanning off to scenic locations and pontificating about rocks.

I must emphasise that I have taken my task here extremely seriously, given the high likelihood that my findings will strongly influence future company policy.

My report takes the form of responses to a series of questions that were posed by the high heid yins at LR. 

Q: Can you state categorically that the subsurface team were not just out for a three day jolly on company time?

A: Believe me, if it had been a 'jolly' they would have chosen somewhere with better weather.

Q: Will this trip help our subsurface staff to advise on finding and exploiting reserves of oil and gas?

A. Absolutely yes no question about it. Oh I could say so much about this. Gosh, where do I start?  I mean, between you and me, I had hoped that we were going to be spending our time tracking down dinosaur footprints and ammonite fossils, and hearing exciting stories about exploding volcanoes etc. etc, but the truth is that it was all about looking at features within the sandstone beds and inferring their lateral continuity which has important implications for modelling oil fields, and about how you could judge a rock's permeability by observing the rainwater soaking into the sandstone but forming puddles on the basalt and how examining the vertical changes in a rock succession in a cliff can help you predict what's happening in the same age rocks many miles away and that when interpreting cores from oil wells you need to have a picture in your mind what the rocks look like at a larger scale and oh you know, whatever...

Q: Does this sort of expedition offer staff opportunities to develop their creativity and problem solving capabilities? Perhaps you could give us an illustration?

A: Oh I most certainly could. Let's say, for example (a purely hypothetical scenario you understand) that you have a dog on the field trip who is a teeny weeny bit impatient and tends to bark if kept waiting by the car while everyone is faffing around putting on their weatherproof clothing.

Well, maybe someone, Simon perhaps, says "I have an idea how to shut him up. Let's put some of those pebbles from the dolerite dyke into an empty water bottle and shake it in his face next time he utters a sound. He won't like that at all, and will stop barking in an instant". And you know what? The theory was tested and found to be most effective.....

Q: Can you explain how field trips foster teamworking and communication skills?

A: When you are standing in a 25 mph wind and horizontal rain, important lessons about communication can be learned. For example, that if you want anyone to hear what you are saying you need to stand up wind of your audience and shout loudly. 

And of course, crossing a stream in spate can, as referred to in my previous post, involve inter-species teamwork, especially when one participant is frightened of fast flowing water...

Q: Is it safe for our staff to take part in field courses?

A: I can't believe that this question was even asked. Did no one read my earlier posts regarding appropriate protective helmets for ALL mammalian participants? The fact that in some (OK all) of the photos taken in the field I am bare headed is testament to the toughness of the typical terrier skull, and in absolutely no way to be construed as a negligent approach to HSE. 

Q: We are keen as a company to promote technical excellence at all levels. Was this goal met on the field trip?

A: Oh I could have stood there for hours listening to our esteemed and inspirational field trip leaders Jim and Iain giving us the benefit of their in depth knowledge of the geology of Skye. 

In fact, oh yes, I did...

Q: Finally Bertie, would you recommend that this field trip be repeated next year?

A: Well now let me see. It is best that geologists are exposed to a range of different environments, to broaden their experience. I feel that perhaps what is needed is for this team to follow up with a study of  modern day carbonate formation. Such as happens, you know, in places like the Caribbean...

I would be quite prepared, despite the inevitable hardships, once again to review the quality and value of the educational experience. 

Please?

Ideal conditions for agility...

.....are not always encountered on an April evening in Aberdeen.

Things might look promising on arrival...

...but then the sun retreats behind a cloud...

... and before you can say "Bertie, GO!" rainwear is required...

... and the strengthening wind blows over the hurdles which have then to be realigned end on to the direction of the gale...

... and one's ears are also realigned...

...and the night draws in...

...but only when it is no longer possible to see the obstacles do the Deeside Dog Agility Club members finally give up and go home.

Note from Gail: apologies for the poor quality of some of the later pictures. I fear I failed to keep the camera lens dry!