Excitement on Morven

I'm afraid Gail failed to take a photo of last week's most important and exciting event. 

It took place during a walk with Gail and her friend Henry, on Morven, a favourite Aberdeenshire hill.

Gail did at least get a picture of me near the summit cairn, only a short while before and only a few meters from where the exciting and important event took place.

 

So let me tell you what happened next.

As Gail and her friend Henry started the descent, I wandered 'off-piste'. Not an unusual occurrence. 

I heard Gail shouting "Come Nobby, COME!" but a rustling noise in the moss and stunted heather had captured my attention.

I pounced on this wriggling little furry creature, which started squeaking, just like one of my toys, as I held it between my jaws.  

What fun! I was happily entertaining myself, dropping my squeaky new plaything, then picking it up again, when Gail approached and rudely dragged me away.

"Leave it Nobby, LEAVE IT!"

Stupidly, on reflex I relaxed my hold and watched my prize catch scuttle off into the low growing vegetation. I could not follow as Gail had for once moved fast and clamped on my lead before I realized what she was up to. 

But later, I did feel rather proud when Gail said to Henry that in nearly 24 years of owning terriers, this the first time one had actually caught a rodent* in her presence.

*Gail says: I'm pretty sure it was a field vole - they are apparently known to have a squeak that sounds like a child's toy. I am more than a little surprised that the vole apparently survived the encounter with Nobby's jaws, although I fear it would have suffered psychological damage, at the very least! 

A different relationship to gravity...

Another special post today, combining the LLB Gang's Nature Friday blog hop with our friend YAM-aunty's Final Friday Feature.

A Young Dog Ascends Beinn Alligin, 22 July, 2023

Nobby, do you have springs for paw pads?

Did Oscar Pistorius

Lend you his blades?

Or is there perhaps,

Hidden in those wiry haunches,

A micro-motor stolen from

A cheating rider in the Tour de France?

Maybe you made a secret pact,

With Isaac Newton, thus to counteract,

The laws of gravity?

I cannot otherwise explain,

How you dance up

Our steepest Scottish peaks

With such apparent ease and grace.

So light of foot, 

A wonder to behold,

While I clomp slowly, far behind,

Feeling rather old. 

Inappropriately named?

On the way home from Torridon on Sunday we stopped off for a walk by the marina in Nairn and I ran into Massimo, a fellow wire-haired fox terrier.

It turns out we are half-brothers, both being fathered by JimBob of Craigmancie Foxies. But I have to say I am quite a bit taller than Massimo, despite being a year younger.

Gail had a nice long chat with wee Massimo's humans, Fraser and Nancy, who live in Elgin. I believe that Massimo means "biggest" in Italian and I am pleased to say Gail was tactful enough not to point out that perhaps Fraser and Nancy had not chosen the most appropriate name for their dog...

PS from Gail: it's not very apparent from my photos, but Nobby really was distinctly the larger of the two WFTs.

Blether (Scots)

Oh do please come and join me here. There's plenty of room. I can always find plenty to bark about and I love making new friends.

'Blether' (meaning according to the Scotsman newspaper):  A basic definition of the word blether is tricky - in colloquial terms, people usually know it to mean a lengthy chat between friends.

Intruders?

So no soon as I'd settled down back home in Aberdeen than Gail was loading up the car again and I quickly deduced from the bags she'd packed that we were heading off to the Torridon cottage.

Well you can imagine how, after the long drive back from Nottingham then another drive from east to west coast of Scotland, on arrival in Torridon I leapt out of the car like a coiled spring, raring to be off on an energetic romp in the hills.

Picture my consternation then, to find the cottage occupied by intruders. 

I was on the brink of deploying my terrier jaw to good effect when it became clear that these two were not in fact intruders, rather they were yet more friends of Gail's - Steve (ex-boyfriend from pre-historic times) and his wife Drusilla. And I was instructed to stop trying to shred Dru's pullover and sit patiently while the humans talked and talked and talked.

Sigh.

By morning, I was prepared to "pose nicely" with the guests (I am always calmer in the morning). 

A couple of hours later they departed and, finally, Gail dug out her walking boots and asked me if I felt up to the hike described below (text taken from the Walkhighlands website). 

Diabaig Coastal Circuit

A challenging coastal walk through spectacularly rugged and rocky scenery. The return route involves some road walking but the views are ample reward.

There is a path throughout, but it is rough and rocky and traverses steep ground in places and can be overgrown with bracken in the summer. This is a tougher walk than might be expected from the map - a real adventure.

She told me that my predecessor Bouncing Bertie had been scared at having to traverse big boulders on one particularly precipitous section of this walk but she assumed I would be up for the challenge.

Readers, tell me, was I ever in my life frightened or intimidated by a new adventure? 

I think by now you know me well enough to guess the answer...

Copybook blotted (C-A-T-S to blame...)

Janet and Nobby in Lathkill Dale

So we are safely back in Scotland now after a week long series of adventures in England's green and pleasant land. 

In my opinion (if not Gail's) my conduct was impeccable throughout the trip. 

For example, unlike my predecessor Bertie, I did not pee on the kitchen floor when we visited Gail's brother and family. And I was nice to poodle cousin Coco of course.

When we stayed with Gail's friend Janet, I made myself comfortable and sat quietly on her lap at every possible opportunity*. 

As always, I proved myself an excellent hiking companion.

I didn't even complain when we encountered monsoon-like conditions in Lathkill Dale, and I held my nerve during the ensuing thunder and lightening. 

Together with Gail, I paid a respectful visit to the churchyard where her parents are buried.

I was as good as gold in the car at all times. But then, I always have been.

So, you are wondering, what did I do wrong?

Well it is true that when we stayed overnight with her friends Bronia and Peter on the way home I barked quite a lot and repeatedly tried to jump all over my hosts. But what's a young terrier to do when he's detected the presence of C-A-T-S in a house? No matter that the C-A-T-S were kept in a different room, their proximity was very annoying.

I really did try to be helpful when Peter and Bronia were struggling with their complicated TV technology and couldn't locate the right channel for Gail to watch the day's Tour de France highlights, but apparently this did not mean I was forgiven for my "rowdy" behaviour. 

You just can't win, can you?

*Gail says: Nobby had, quite literally, to be prised off Janet's lap when the time came to leave her house and head back north.

Peak District perambulations

Greetings from a most agreeable AirBnB in the Derbyshire Peak District, where Gail, her friend Janet and myself have been enjoying a lovely three day 'mini-break' exploring territory where Gail broke in her first pair of hiking boots when walking with her parents over half a century ago.  

Yesterday we had a grand old tramp around Monsal Dale, starting out across the viaduct and along the old railway track (now a walking and cycling route). 

Gail's brother (two years older than her) has apparently completed the 5 km 'Parkrun' along this trail in just over 21 minutes, but Gail and Janet seemed less than enthusiastic when I indicated we might try to beat his time.  

It seems they would rather look at the wayside flowers and the railway cutting geology. 

We walked back along a track, passing by fields edged with dry stone walls, and Gail seemed happy to have returned to a part of the country she has loved since childhood. 

I thought it was pretty nice too.

Happy Nature Friday friends! And once again a big thank you to our friends the LLB Gang for hosting the blog hop. Do please go and visit all the others. 

Postcard from England

Well we've finally arrived at our friend Janet's house in Nottingham, and although Gail seemed a bit cross about various traffic jams encountered en route I didn't really have a problem with the scenic detours through Pontefract and Chesterfield...

We both thoroughly enjoyed our Saturday night stay at the Sunny Mount Shepherd's Hut near Appleby in Cumbria.

Who wouldn't want a peaceful spot in a field beside a lovely red sandstone farmhouse in the Vale of Eden, with cattle, sheep and horses for neighbours and our very own minimalist but perfectly appointed accommodation? Of course it helps if you have the strong bladder of an 18 month old pup and no requirement to go traipsing over to the farmhouse bathroom in the rain in the middle of the night...

Next day, after a refreshing early morning walk we continued south and called in to see my poodle cousin Coco and her family in Derbyshire. In addition to Coco, the reception committee comprised Gail's brother, sister-in-law, niece Annabel, nephew Jonathan, and Jonathan's lovely new (well, new to Gail and me) girlfriend Aoife.  Annabel served Gail a refreshing Prosecco to release some of the tensions induced by the roadworks in South Yorkshire.

I played nicely and respectfully with Coco, who is an old lady now (if one is allowed to say that?) We posed nicely for the camera too. 

Finally, Gail wants me to tell you that tomorrow is the fifteenth anniversary of her, or rather Hamish the Westie's first ever blog post. I have deterred her from using my blog to pontificate about changes in blogging through that decade and a half, as I am a young pup and all about the future not the past!

The Survival of the Fittest

Readers of this blog will probably already have grasped by now that my owner Gail is not in any way an enthusiast for working in our garden in Aberdeen.  

Rather than admit she is lazy, she prefers to dress this up in pseudo-scientific terminology and say she has a ''Darwinian approach to gardening". (It is also true that Gail prioritizes my very considerable exercise needs, and so I'm not complaining). 

Fortunately, it seems that certain plants thrive under the 'survival of the fittest' regime and I thought I'd use this Nature Friday post to show you some of them. 

Here behind me the ever vigorous Loosestrife provides a vibrant burst of mid-summer yellow.

In among the Loosestrife, a white variety of Campanula is also making a showing.

The orange Potentilla is one shrub Gail did actually plant herself, and although now past its best, the flowers are still rather lovely. 

More yellow (and red) here from the Hypericum,

These little Spirea flowers offer a splash of pink,

And here, more pink, some little geraniums. Gail says if she didn't cut these back each year they would have taken over the entire plot by now.

Although in terms of beauty, they can't compete with this gorgeous peachy pink Rose for Rosy! 

Now, a brief visit to the front of the house, where another Potentilla, this one with yellow flowers, dominates the scene.

You can see me supervising here from the window. I insisted, since we are in Scotland, that Gail take a close up of the sprawling heather too. 

Finally, we'll return to the back garden so I can show you our brand new (non-Darwinian) shed, which belatedly replaces the decrepit one Gail had removed before the pandemic. Rather fine, don't you think?

Happy Nature Friday!