Better a crown than a cone?

Gail and I both smiled at this photo in Saturday's 'Times'.

We are pleased to read how King Charles appears to be responding well to his cancer treatment. But Gail and I are quite sure that he and our terrier loving Queen Camilla would have preferred to be joining  the Aberdeenshire WFT gang on our muddy tramp around Bin Forest yesterday morning, rather than being stuck in some palace Down South reading get well cards.

Clockwise from front: Nobby, Merin, Agatha, Rupert

Scoring a treat from Anny

Poised for lift off...(the pink boot belongs to baby Margot)

Impressing Agatha with my jumping skills

Waiting for Gail to stop taking photos

Attentive foxies. Left to right: Merin, Nobby, Agatha

Team photo: Rupert, Nobby, Agatha, Jinx, Merin

Nobby and Gail's Big Adventure

It's a dual purpose post today, with a special adventure for YAM-aunty's Final Friday Feature, in which we get close to nature for the LLB Gang's weekly blog hop.

Carry On Camping!

Golly gosh I was so excited when Gail told me we were we Going Camping this week.

I've read all about our friends Rosy and Sunny and their exciting adventures in the magnificent and luxurious 'CeCe' motorhome.

I've seen with my own WFT eyes the more modestly sized but still wonderfully comfortable electric van, the 'Grey', so cleverly converted for cosy domesticity by our friend YAM-aunty.

Imagine my consternation when Gail, after burrowing around in the back of the box room, excavated an elongate black bag and announced that this was going to be our accommodation on Monday night!

The plan, I learned, was to meet up with our friend Imogen at the Ballater Caravan Park. Imogen was riding the c.45 miles out there, her bicycle fully loaded with her camping gear as a trial run for a forthcoming solo expedition to France and Spain, and Gail would drive us out to meet Imogen, carrying an extra blanket for our friend in addition to our own kit. Apparently this was to be a 'test' for me too.

We arrived first and, ignoring my offers of assistance, Gail erected the tent. I tried not to look too envious of the more substantial accommodations parked nearby.

Imogen showed up shortly after and I noted that her tent was even smaller than ours!

Gail claimed it was quite a deluxe camp site, with excellent, clean and modern bathroom facilities. I was not so sure about my bathroom option...

Fortunately, Gail decreed that, as it was not raining and I was dry and relatively clean, I would be allowed into her tent with out the need for pre-bedtime ablutions. 

I was a Good Boy over dinner in the nearby pub (The Balmoral Arms) and did not even complain when Imogen and Gail refused to share their big and juicy venison burgers. A fellow diner commented that I matched the carpet...

Soon it was bedtime, and inside the tent I experimented for a while with various sleeping positions, but decided eventually that I might be more comfy on the mat beside Gail rather than lying draped across her chest.

It was dawn before I knew it, and oh what fun to be enjoying breakfast, listening to the birds twittering away and sniffing the cool clean Highland air.

And what a lovely surprise, a chance encounter with a familiar foxie friend, Merin (who lives quite close), out on an early walk through the campground with her owner Claire.

After breakfast, our 'mobile homes' were collapsed and packed away, and while Imogen headed back to Aberdeen on her bicycle, Gail and I enjoyed a short walk up Craigendarroch Hill.

You can see the Ballater camping ground in the distance below.

When I asked Gail if we could go camping again she declared that I had aced the test and so another outing in the tent is a distinct possibility.

Hooray! 

Who needs blue sky anyway?

Yesterday morning Gail took this photo of me, posing nicely at the summit of Craigendarroch (a small hill overlooking the pleasant Deeside town of Ballater).

Can you believe what her new Google Pixel 7a phone camera suggested, totally unasked, when it saw the picture? 

Does Google think we live in the Caribbean? 

Gail says I should be grateful it didn't suggest erasing the dog in the foreground.

As for what we were doing in the Ballater area, well for now, all I'll say is, it was a new and exciting experience for me. Come back on Friday to find out more...

A sad goodbye to Molly and Lightning

Last week was a such a sad one in our dog blogging world. We had to say a final goodbye to two favourite pals. We only knew Molly and Lighnting 'virtually', but they were all too real to their loving and now bereft humans. 

It's clear that Airedale Molly and Siberian husky Lightning lived their best lives, and for beautiful, moving tributes written by their closest companions, click here and here. 

Gail tells me she has always fantasised about owning a husky, if only her circumstances would make that a sensible option. We sometimes see a magnificently handsome one, white like Lightning, in Duthie Park. He is called Luigi, but we don't have any photos of him. Luigi is a rescue dog who apparently had bad experiences early in his life, and as a result he is 'reactive' to exuberant little fox terriers so I'm not allowed to get too close to him. 

Did I say little? In fact I am on the large side for a WFT, but of course much smaller than Molly was, and it seems surprising that so many folk ask if I am an Airedale.

Did you know that Gail's 'first dog', pictured below, was in fact an Airedale terrier!

The wheelie dog was a much-loved present from Gail's granny, who came from the part of the world (Yorkshire) where the Airedale originates. I suspect that Gail's concept of a perfectly shaped dog has its roots in this toy, and I am proud to be thought a  'dog flap friendly sized' cousin to the largest of the British terrier breeds. 

We so enjoyed sharing just a little bit in the lives of dear Lightning and Molly, and gosh we are going to miss them. We send love and big hugs across the Pond to those they left behind.

A sparkling birch tree and a question of ethics

Happy Nature Friday friends! 

This week's offering is the birch tree we pass on the way to Duthie Park each day. It has just burst into leaf and in the early morning, if the skies are clear and a breeze blowing, the leaves sparkle and dance in the sunlight, a quietly lovely spectacle set against the austere grey of the granite buildings.

You might be interested to know that the building just beyond the tree is the 'Inn at the Park', the place where Gail and I attend the fortnightly pub quiz, along with our friends Kirsty and Cathy (aka 'Team Indecisives').

I appreciate this off topic for the LLB Gang's Nature Friday blog hop, but I want to talk to you today about an ethical dilemma prompted by one of the quiz questions this week.

You will remember that my role in the quiz team is as their much-valued mascot.

And you will know that, obviously, consulting eternal sources of information such as Google and Wikipedia is strictly forbidden during a pub quiz.

So what do you think about this? When asked "how many teeth does a dog have?", Gail decided to try and open my mouth to check that her team had the right answer.

Yes, I know, shocking behaviour, utterly shocking. 

Rest assured friends, I was resolved to protect the integrity of the competition and totally refused to unclench my jaw (even when offered a treat). It is surely incumbent upon any respectable mascot to ensure his team does not cheat, don't you agree?

I am relieved to tell you that 'Team Indecisives' answered correctly - us dogs do have 42 teeth. It would have been embarrassing for them to get this one wrong, as Kirsty is a vet.

Now veering even further off topic, Gail is insisting I tell everyone how her team of three late middle aged(?) ladies scored a record breaking (for them) 8/10 on the sports round on Wednesday, helped by Gail knowing that renowned 1970s and 80s football manager Brian Clough played for both Middlesborough and Sunderland in his professional career before he became a coach.

And no, I have no idea either why Gail seems so ridiculously proud of knowing this piece of esoteric sports trivia.

Sometimes one just has to humour one's humans, I find....

Not such a great idea this time...

You might recall my post at the start of this month, in which I related how, on an outing to Castle Fraser, our party of intrepid hikers ignored a 'trail closed' sign and was rewarded with a delightful and not at all difficult walk to a tranquil beauty spot. 

Well now it's time to come clean (literally and metaphorically). 

What I learned last Friday in Foggieton Woods was that ignoring signs is not always such a great idea.

I'll let the pictures do the talking...

Nobby and Doddie

Meet my new friend, six month old border terrier Doddie. He's a fine wee fellow, don't you think? 

And guess what? We have something in common (in addition to being adorable terriers, of course). 

Doddie and I are both proud to be named after men who, in their different ways, were successful both on the sporting field and as human beings. 

Admittedly, only older folk with long memories will recall my namesake, footballer Nobby Stiles, famous as a member of England's 1966 World Cup winning team and known for his 'terrier-like' take no prisoners approach to the game. Near-sighted, short in stature, with premature hair loss and false teeth, Nobby Stiles was a reminder that sporting heroes can come in all shapes and sizes. Off the field he was by all accounts a modest and likeable man, loved by his family and friends. He died of dementia in 2020. 

Doddie Weir was a much honoured international rugby player who appeared for Scotland throughout the 1990s. He was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2016 and in the following six years up to his death in 2022, aged 52, he had raised many millions of pounds for MND research. His colourful personality and his bravery in the face of his condition gained him a new generation of fans all over the world and raised the profile of this cruel disease. 

Gail says that my new friend and I have much to live up to.

Are magnolias "old hat"?

When we returned to Aberdeen earlier this week, Gail was thrilled to see magnolia bushes out in bloom, one in a garden opposite our house, and the other near the entrance to Duthie Park. She took some photos of them on our early morning walk.

But when I suggested this would be an excellent subject for the LLB Gang's Nature Friday, Gail rather pooh-pooh-ed the idea. 

"Nobby, I suspect most of your readers live in places where the magnolia flowers appeared weeks, if not months, ago. Although we might find it exciting that these gorgeous white and off-white blooms have finally put in an appearance in our neighbourhood, I fear others will regard the news as rather 'old hat'."

But I disagreed, reminding Gail that we live at 57 degrees North - that's further North than Moscow and Copenhagen, and almost as northerly as Juneau, Alaska - and just 'cos our spring flowers come later than in many parts of the world, it doesn't make them any the less special.  Quite the opposite in fact. 

So I'm posting the pictures anyway.

Do you have magnolias where you live? 

On top of the world

What a relief! After being 'confined to barracks' all Sunday while Storm Kathleen continued to rage, the winds finally abated somewhat on Sunday night.

Even better, our nice Torridon neighbours invited Gail and me to join them on a hillwalking expedition the next day.

Here I am on the Beinn Alligin ridge. You just can't beat that 'top of the world' feeling.

Oh and yes, it was still a wee bit breezy on the summit. 

In fact, the humans deemed it too 'breezy' to continue along the ridge and do the full circuit, so we stopped at the first peak, Tom na Gruagaich, and went down again.

It's a steep ascent/descent and I did notice Gail walking a bit funny the following morning. But don't worry, I was fine! 

Wild weather weekend in Torridon

If you think I am looking a bit moody in this picture taken in our cottage garden this weekend, then all I can say is the weather was a whole lot moodier...

I don't think I've told you yet that Gail finally got around to replacing the phone with the faulty camera, and she can now once again take photos that are reliably more in focus, and so does not have to discard twenty pictures for every one that meets the (not very exacting) quality standard for this blog.

So anyway, being a broad-minded sort of a chap, and recognising that Gail is thrilled to be able to produce non-blurry images of our lovely NW Scotland landscape once again, I've even decided to let her slip in a couple of photos taken on outings over the past few days which don't feature me. 

 

Finally, shall I let you into a little secret? Gail couldn't work out why I was being so bold and venturing into the stormy waters of Loch Torridon, as I am usually a bit wary when waves are crashing against the shore. Well it seems she didn't realise until after she stopped filming the wee video below that I'd detected the remains of a fairly recently deceased sheep caught up in the seaweed and was I keen to investigate further...