:: 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.

:: 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.

Sleeping patterns back to normal, so I'm feeling much more energetic. Weather: rain, more rain and then some rain again. I don't mind; I quite like rain. The only weather condition I don't like is the thaw after heavy snow; dirty slush is depressing. The rest is grand: fog, frost, wind, sun, misty moisty mornings, bring it on.

Pinky, I miss your emails already! I'm going to start work soon on a new version of your website, with pictures that load faster and a sharper look to the furniture. If you have any new stuff you'd like incorporated, let me know. I'll put a link to the new look on my front page for your approval and/or comments before making the change.

Well I guess now I've lured you all over here I'd better write something. UMMMM... I just had a few days off, which I thoroughly enjoyed -- my last longish break for a while. I drove up to Anstruther on the Fife coast, stopping off in Elie for a good long walk around the harbour and over the dunes. It was blustery and cold, blew away a few cobwebs. It was high tide as well, so waves were crashing against the sea walls. At Anstruther I had another, shorter walk, then had a slap-up tea at the local fish restaurant, which serves the best fish and chips in Scotland. It was great, I must do it more often.
No word yet on the insurance -- I phoned last week and they'd only gotten up to claims from the middle of November. The blokes come to put in the new windows soon, next week or the week after.
I have to do some work now!