:: bulbs, bulbs and more bulbs

Today I finally got out into the garden to plant the bulbs Faye gave me. Seventy (approximately) daffodil bulbs. To be honest I only planted about half of them, and so far only in the front garden. But I also hauled a big bag of soil improver out of the car boot, where it's been sitting for weeks, and spread it around, plus I did some major weeding and pruning, and planted a skimmia (another gift from Faye).

The honeysuckle is showing lots of tiny new shoots so should come away in the spring. The climbing rose doesn't look great, so fingers crossed. I'll give it a good feed later on.

If the weather forecast is wrong and it isn't too foul at the weekend I should be able to plant the rest of the bulbs out the back. Which is looking pretty terrible thanks to Bertie's latest gardening experiments. He always looks so innocent when he comes in with his back covered in dirt and his toes full of leaf-mould and roots. If the predicted gale-force winds do sweep in I'll plant the bulbs in pots.

:: man in black

Yep, Bertie had a visit this morning from The Authorities. Not a police officer, thank goodness, but a nice chap from the SSPCA. Bertie cosied up to him while I made excuses for him - "completely out of character", "never done anything like this before", "normally mild-mannered".

In the end Bertie's big brown eyes worked their magic and he got off with a warning - or rather I did. Keep him on his leash.

He's been quite subdued since The Incident, so I think he realises all is not well.

:: bad dog. very, very bad dog

Today the weather has been horrible. It's been horrible all week, but today it rained all day, and it was windy too, and colder than yesterday. Being a dog owner, however, I still had to go out. The morning walk was a short one, so as a special treat, in the afternoon I took Bertie to Linlithgow, to walk round the loch. Walking past the palace I thought it looked safe to let him off the leash - no other dogs around, no children. At first he just jogged along looking happy. Then he jogged off up a little hill and did his "wild dog surveys his domain" act. I whistled and he came galloping back down to the loch.

I don't know whether it was the running or the wild dog fantasy that set him off, but he suddenly went crazy. At first it was just ducks - he not only raced at them, he chased them right into the water, getting his nice new coat all wet. I came thundering after him, yelling NO, because I could see what was in his sights now: swans. He ran at them like a creature possessed, again following them into the water. You've seen the wildlife films of cheetahs chasing wildebeest? This was the village hall reenactment. Most of the swans got away no problem, though they had to hustle. Just one youngish one was cut off from the flock. It had a crack at flying, but was too slow. Bertie caught its tail feathers and pulled it down.

Meanwhile I was in hot pursuit (hot for someone with arthritis) and shrieking like a banshee the magic words STOP and NO. They usually stop him in his tracks, but this time he'd completely lost it. He was alternately grabbing the swan and trying to get a killer hold, and evading capture by old spoilsport me. It was a very bad scene.
At last I managed to snatch hold of his coat and dragged him off the poor bird. In his struggle to get free he wriggled his head out of the chest strap, so I now had a hold of him just by the strap around his hips. That proved to be an effective deterrent, because when he struggled the strap bit into his delicate nether regions, causing extreme pain. After a lot of squealing (him) and shouting (me) he calmed down enough for me to grab his collar and get the leash clipped on. I also tightened the collar to choke-hold, because he was still in a frenzy, fighting to get free.

The swan, meanwhile, was lurching back to the water. I watched as it swam out, and it seemed ok. But Bertie's attack had been so fierce I wasn't sure whether it had been injured or not. It was hard to tell if he'd had hold of feathers or flesh.
So I called the police. I know! Dobbing in my own dog. Bit of a panic measure but I wasn't sure who else to approach. The nice officer took all my details but didn't ask much about the swan. He said he'd let the people in charge of the loch know.
The swan was heading around the loch, so I followed it for a bit, checking that it was ok. It had a couple of drinks of water and seemed to be swimming strongly and staying upright. I didn't see anyone who looked like a warden, and none of the signs had contact information. So I loaded the delinquent into the car (by now he was shaking with cold and post-adrenalin comedown) and went home.

I had a shower and went to Faye's for dinner and then to a film (Borat - hilarious), and there's been no word from the police or PETA or anyone, so fingers crossed.

If Bertie is having some sort of mid-life crisis he might have to go back to wearing the muzzle. Certainly he isn't getting off the leash if there's the least danger of him mauling any more wildlife.

In other news: the new front door is in and it's lovely. It took one man only a few hours to install and he made a beautiful job of it, everything very neat and straight. The lock action is slick and quiet - the old one would only shut after repeated slamming. Bertie was gobsmacked that our nice visitor almost immediately wrenched the front door off and carried it down the path. Maybe that had something to do with today's outburst - he lost face by hiding in his bed after the door was stolen instead of confronting the robber, so he tried to kill us something nice for tea.

I've picked out the dog I want, and all going well he'll move in next week. He's a greyhound and is white with a brindle patch on his face. The Cat and Dog Home got him as a stray but he's an ex-racer -- he has an ID number tattoed on his ears. The home has had him on a special diet to build him up, but he's still quite bony. Very tall, quiet but alert and friendly, and apparently playful once he gets to know you. Good with other dogs but will chase cats. His name at the home is Bertie, but he doesn't reallly look like a Bertie.

After chosing Bertie yesterday I went to see Best in Show, to see how demented I'll become once I'm a dog person. Yes, that'll be me in the pet shop screeching: "That's not a bee! It's a parrot!! You don't know my dog!"

Today was a completely wasted day, spent waiting for the carpet warehouse blokes to deliver the flooring. Their excuse: "The lorry isn't co-operating." They're coming at 10am tomorrow now. While waiting I ferried more stuff upstairs, so the house now looks ghastly everywhere. Every room is either horribly empty or ludicrously crammed. Except the toilet and the bathroom, they're pretty normal.

I just want it all to be over so I can relax and enjoy my home. But a chore on tomorrow's agenda is collecting some tile samples for the kitchen. I went into the shop yesterday to look at tiles and it was a nightmare. They quoted me for an average sort of price for the actual tiles, but of course I have such exquisite taste there was nothing in that price range I liked. My favourites were the Delft tiles, £13 EACH, never mind price per square metre. The small, plain, multicoloured tiles I'd admired were almost twice the quoted price. The cheaper tiles all have a tic: wobbly edges, "antiqued" effect, "artisan" finish. Ick, a tic. I spent almost an hour in the shop, which is small but jammed with display boards, and finally found a couple of candidates: thick, chunky-looking "biscuit" tiles, and a range of fairly inoffensive pastels. The biscuit tiles only come in a few colours: black, white, cream, blue and green. They were displayed in checks, and I imagine that could look good -- black and white, or cream and blue. They would be slightly retro. Hmmm.

Just to complicate matters the man said it would be ok if I got the tiles elsewhere, the quote for labour would be the same. So that widens the search to a massive number of tile emporia, including Fired Earth in Glasgow and the dreaded arty place in the High Street.

Chad says he'll bring the blackcurrant cuttings in tomorrow, and maybe a raspberry cane as well, so I'll be able to garden on Saturday while Dougie and Bob do their thing indoors. Unless it rains, of course, in which case I'll hide upstairs.