Helping with the energy crisis

You would think, wouldn't you, that with energy in the UK currently priced at 87 squillion £ per megawatt-hour courtesy of evil Mr Putin, my ongoing efforts to help reduce our heating costs might be appreciated.

Sadly not. Each time I gather up some firewood when out on a walk, and go to the trouble of dragging it along the street and all the way back to our front door, it is firmly removed from my mouth before I am allowed to enter the house.

With Gail disdaining my well-meant efforts to stock our house with fuel for the winter, I just hope that there will be funds left over for my treat supply once our gas and electricity bills have been paid...

By the way, I remain available for warming winter cuddles, at least for as long as it pleases me.

A plate of stovies...?

I ran into my friend Eddie the Springer Spaniel in the park yesterday morning. He's quite a good sport usually, although not as springy as he used to be, but on this occasion his nose was distinctly out of joint. 

"What's the matter, old pal?" I asked. 

"Oh Nobby, something terrible has happened. A brand new kitten arrived in our house last week and has taken up residence on my human's lap. I'm told she is a Bengal cat, but between you and me, she looks just like a plate of stovies*. She's called Mabel."

Gosh I feel for poor Eddie, I really do. How much better it would have been to find a plate of real stovies on one's human's lap! 

I have 'borrowed' from internet to show you pictures of a Bengal cat and a plate of stovies. Can you tell which is which?

*Stovies - a Scottish 'delicacy', based on potatoes and left over meat and often served with oatcakes and beetroot.

We all had a blast...

So this week while I was having a (metaphorical) blast, running around the farm with my fox terrier relatives and making myself quite at home in the cosily dog dominated farmhouse kitchen...

....Gail was apparently enduring a (literal) blast, of wind and rain, as she and her cycling friends battled through the back roads of Perthshire, Central Scotland. 

Gail says: The great news is that Nobby received an A* report from his breeder Alex when I picked him up from his short sojourn back with his Craigmancie Wire Fox Terrier family. "You've brought up a lovely, happy dog, he fitted right in, he's been as good as gold." Music to my ears!

Who is getting the better deal?

This week, Gail and her cycling friends are heading down for a three day 'mini-tour' of Perthshire (Central Scotland) and I am running wild with my Craigmancie Fox Terrier family for the duration. 

I think I might have got the better end of the bargain...

A hotel in the woods?

Yesterday was a lovely morning for an outing in Maryculter Community Woods with our friends M and J.

Gail explained to me that, in a tradition going back to my predecessor Bouncing Bertie, these walks normally feature a coffee break where the humans can relax, sitting on a conveniently situated log and enjoying the view, and afterwards I would be expected to 'pose nicely' for a photo.  

Apparently Bertie would sit at M and J's feet for the photo call, but I decided to ring the changes, at least in one respect, and assert my top dog status...

Further down the path I spotted an unusual wooden construction and overheard M telling Gail it was some sort of a new hotel.

Oh that's wonderful, I thought, just the place for my pals from across the Pond to come and stay - Americans will find the rates so cheap now that the dollar and pound are more or less the same value. 

I checked out the accommodation inside and out and raced back to Gail, eager to debate whom to invite first. Her response was really quite belittling.

"Oh you are ridiculous Nobby, it's an insect hotel. Surely you noticed it doesn't even have a roof and the 'windows' and stuffed with twigs and pine cones! Come next year when all the wood has started decomposing in earnest, all sorts of creepy crawlies will be making this their home and no amount of cheap currency will tempt your friends to stay there."

Gail did later point our that we have a perfectly good house in Aberdeen, and another in Torridon, and plenty of room in both, and our friends need only say the word and we'd love to welcome them.  (Although if they visit the Torridon cottage in July and August and leave the windows open they might well mistake it for a midge motel...)