Tuesday: Drove up to Cawdor, stopping en route at Dunkeld for lunch, in a cosy little cafe featuring home-made everything. We had stovies, Scottish comfort food. It's sometimes made with mince, but this one had sausages. Arrived safely at the farm to a lovely warm welcome and a cup of tea.
After letting Bertie out for a sprint around a field and freshening up, we headed off to the Cawdor Tavern, where Jenny and John treated us all to a birthday dinner (Andrew's birthday is the same day as mine). It was a wonderful meal -- I had pork on a bed of leeks in a creamy blue cheese sauce. Mmmmm.

Wednesday: After breakfast, Faye, Bertie and I went on a family pilgrimage to Urquhart, the village where Mum's granny was born. It was raining heavily, so we stopped in Elgin on the way and bought umbrellas. It stopped raining immediately. It was still cold though. We had a brisk walk around Urquhart and visited the cemetary before heading back to Elgin for a late lunch. Then we visited Jenny at the Nairn Museum, where she's manager. It's closed at the moment so they can treat dry rot in the roof. Back at the farm I had a lie down for a couple of hours -- I was fighting off a cold -- so I'd be fresh for the evening's activities. Which were: a delicious meal cooked by Andrew and his special birthday treat, tickets to Harry Potter! We went to an evening session so as not to stand out too much. Heh.

Thursday: On Wednesday I somehow thought I had another couple of days left. But no, it was already time to head home. We had a walk round the garden and the farm, and Bertie had a last romp in a field -- so many smells, so little time. Then we had lunch with the whole family and finally packed up the car and left. We drove straight back, no stopping, because I was feeling pretty bad by then. Faye and I made a nice simple meal and ate it. Had a bath, took Bertie for a ramble, watched The Sopranos and fell into bed.

So I had a great time, Faye had a great time and Bertie had ... not such a great time. He enjoyed the walks, but apparently barked and cried all night. I say apparently because he was in a faraway part of the house, next to Andrew, who didn't get much sleep. Bertie doesn't eat when he's upset, so by the time we got home he was famished. He threw himself on his food and ate and drank hugely, then flung himself down and slept like a dead dog.

I'm pleased to be home too!

New phone, hurrah. It's a Trium Mars, nice and tiny and cheap too. I'm waiting for it to charge up so I can play with it. I've still got the same number, they just swap the chip over.

Faye arrived safely and on time, but I just had time to shove her on the bus and dash off to work, so we haven't had a proper yap yet. I phoned her a little while ago -- she says Bertie was thrilled to bits to see her. He looooooves having visitors.

Ahahaha!! I've just been subbing an article about the World Toilet Summit in Singapore.

Talk about po-faced!

"As such, toilets are no longer viewed as just a 'common-place' for waste discharge, but evolving as resting spots for mind-relexation and energy-recharge, taking into consideration the psychological and environmental aspects. Interestingly, one things remains a big challenge to be reckoned-etiquette.

"So would it thus be effective to propose a semi-exposed toilet towards the making of a more gracious society?"

Ah, no, I don't think so. Keep Oor Cludgies Closed!

Maybe I'm generating excess static electricity or something; whatever, all my electronic equipment seems to be fritzing out. Latest victim is my mobile phone. OK it's old, 18 months old at least, and clunky as all get-out, but hey! I've still got credit to use up.

Today it completely blew a fuse -- I was en route to Anthea's and there was a huge traffic jam (road works), and I was phoning to tell her I'd be late. I had trouble accessing the phonebook, then it all sloooooowwwwed right down, and finally it said: "empty list". I switched it off and on again, dialled the number manually and finally got through. (By then the traffic was moving and I had to cut the call off short as I was being cut up by a huge bus.)

Then tonight when I was talking to Andrew up north, it cut off the call with the message: "Insert card". There's nowhere to insert a card!

I guess it's Vodaphone's way of saying "This phone is terminally uncool. Buy a WAP-enabled Nokia with 254 annoying ringtones immediately."

I've just been to the bar of the hotel across the road (during my break, I'd like to emphasise!), hoping to catch a glimpse of an All Black -- they're staying there. No such luck; though the bar was full of men who look like they were once rugby players -- thick necks and broken noses. Today Argentina pasted Scotland, and they're playing NZ next. My boss is an Argentine, so that should be interesting ...

The amazon stushie has escalated somewhat. They still haven't refunded my money; the last email from them says they will once they receive the USB hub back from me. The email I sent back in reply had flames coming off it. No rude words, but lots of capital letters. I'm so annoyed with them! They made a mistake, why can't they just give me my money back?

I went in to PC World and bought a USB hub there. Pure torture -- they have Christmas muzak playing already! Argh! I had a browse around of course, and came away with Myst III: Exile, the sequel to the Riven computer game. Like I needed another reason to stay up all night getting RSI. I've had one play with it and it's pretty good, though it's as creepily empty as the other Myst games. You end up shuffling around these beautiful landscapes, all alone apart from an occasional animal, trying to solve puzzles. It's absorbing, addictive even, but somehow oppressive.

Anyway yesterday I installed the new hub, with great results. Everything works fine, whew.

I also took Bertie to Blackness for the first time since he cut his leg. He was ecstatic, ran around like a crazy dog. Just before we left he did exactly what he did on the last visit: ran out over the mud chasing seagulls and came back plastered in it. Mud that is. Blech. I'm going to have to check the tide tables next time we go out there. Back home I dragged him out into the garden to cool his jets while I filled buckets with warm water. I shampooed & rinsed him thoroughly then dried him off, after which he raced around hysterically, tearing up the lawn.

Yesterday I also finally fixed the drawer of the Ikea cupboard I broke while constructing it (I hammered in a dowel too enthusiastically, driving it through the front and knocking off a chunk of veneer), did several loads of laundry and all the ironing, hung a mirror, washed and/or vaccuumed all the floors, washed a week's worth of dishes and went to the supermarket. This last was complicated by my discovering at the checkout that I didn't have my purse with me. They were very good about it, apparently it happens all the time.

So all in all it was a busy day. I bought some salmon for my tea but couldn't be bothered to cook it and had takeaway Chinese instead. Today I'm at work again, next days off are Tues/Weds/Thurs. Faye arrives tomorrow and we head off up north on Tuesday.

Today's totally annoying incident: the USB hub arrived from amazon.co.uk, I tore open the parcel eagerly only to find ... a portable keyboard. If I had a Palm Pilot I'd be ecstatic, those things cost about £80. But I haven't and I wasn't.

I want a hub! I need a hub!

I did this test and this was the result.

You scored 70
Not only do you think, eat, breathe, sleep and eat Science Fiction, you have no idea where fantasy ends and reality begins. You honestly believe that aliens make corn circles, bad weather is caused by Ming The Merciless and that dressing up as a Sontaran will get you dates. You have broken your mind with space nonsense, and, if you ever left your bedroom you would be gunned down in the street by the Freak Police. You are building a teleporter in your shed and will probably

Probably what? We'll never know. Jeez, you watch a few episodes of Star Trek and next thing everyone's harshing your mellow.

Today as I arrived at work I was stopped by a couple of American tourists.

"Excuse me, do you mind if I ask you a question? Could you tell me what this means?"

"This" was an Evening News bill that read: "ROYAL MILE A DEATH TRAP".

"I don't know, I'm sorry, I haven't read the paper."

"So what's your feeling about it? What do you think it might mean? Is it a death trap for tourists?"

Ah. OK.

"I think it's probably about traffic, I haven't heard about anything that serious."

"But you don't know?"

"No."

They went away off in the direction of the Royal Mile, presumably discussing whether to risk death to see a bunch of old buildings. When I got inside I looked up the story in the paper. Here it is.

I was right, it's about traffic. But the crazy thing is, the street is supposed to be a death trap because part of it is pedestrianised. Sorry? If the story had been this one I could understand.

In other news, my scanner has stopped working as well as the printer now. I think the problem is the USB hub, so I've got a new one arriving in the post tomorrow. If that doesn't fix things I'm looking at a long gastly process of uninstalling and reinstalling and tearing my hair out and talking to support folk. Windows 98 is supposed to be stable!

Eeek, I checked last night and there's a horrendous big bruise on Bertie's chest from being dragged through the fence. It's official -- I'm a bad mother.

On the brighter side his cut has almost completely healed up, vindicating my fresh-air-and-exercise theory, and he's full of beans and the joy of life. A very happy puppy. Apart from the big purple bruise on his chest.

I finally got a new answering machine today to replace the one that broke a couple of weeks ago. The old one was the cheapest I could find at the time, 1993 or so, it cost £30 at Ali's Cave. I got one today at the BT shop for £13. Currie's had a slightly cheaper one but the salesman patronised me, so kaching! No Sale. Poor salesmanship is one of my bugbears. The woman in BT was pleasant, knowledgeable and efficient -- plus she was a Kiwi!

Speaking of shopping, my order of Thunderpants arrived in the mail today. They Don't Go Up Your Bum! Brilliant concept! They don't either, and they are wonderfully comfy.

I got mainly plain pants, but some with patterns -- my favourites are the orange ones with rockets.

Jings, I let that mad pooch off the lead for one minute and he's up to his oxters in trouble.

I was making yet another attempt to find the footpath to Newbridge. We'd come under the main railway line and then under another, into a big field. We were away from roads, so I unleashed Bertie for a run. He sprinted off around the field for a while till that got boring, and was dashing back when something caught his eye on the railway embankment. Rabbit!

Off he went, in full mad mode. Deaf to all commands, determined to get the rabbit. The embankment is, I don't know, 15ft high or something, covered in those special railway rocks and blackberry, with the line running along the top, and it's fenced off. The fence is plain wire, four or five strands, chest-high. He couldn't get over so he squeezed through. And bounded straight up on to the line.

By this time I was hysterical, bellowing at him to COME HERE THIS MINUTE but he ignored me. Until he'd looked everywhere for the rabbit, up and down the railway line, and couldn't find it and got bored with walking on the hurty stones and wanted to come down again. Except now he wasn't all hyped up and couldn't get through the fence.

Sigh.

He couldn't even get close to the fence, on account of all the hurty blackberry prickling his dainty feet. So he stood on the slope looking pitiful, waiting for me to rescue him. I had to squeeze through the fence, drag him (resisting hard) down to the fence, stand on one strand of wire to press it down and lift the one above. Then, with the remaining free hand, I had to lean down and put his legs through, one after the other. The trickiest bit was getting him to move forward after his front legs were through, because his chest is so deep. That hurt, apparently.

After that we went straight home.

At least it wasn't the main line -- there weren't any trains down the line he was on during this little crisis, but there were three down the other line. I learned my lesson early on that one: he ran on to the main line not long after I got him. I had to scramble up the embankment and down the other side to get to the line, where Bertie was standing looking dopey -- those damned sleepers and hurty railway stones are hard to walk on!

Then after I got home I heard the news from New York & had to rush in to work early. An unbelievable story -- bad enough in normal circumstances, but now it's another hammer blow sending the world off in this disturbing new direction. Brrr. Personally I'm not any more afraid to fly than before; the risk is pretty much the same it seems to me. Even less maybe, now there's better security. This latest disaster may be an accident anyway. For me scariest things in the long term are ones we don't even reallly notice at the moment, little bits of freedom being whittled away, options lost. And amid all the militaristic drum-beating it's harder still to feebly bleat: "Give peace a chance."

Bertie's leg is finally healing, touch wood. Letting the air get to it seems to be offsetting the danger of him licking at it. We had a good long walk today - it's not as cold as it was, but it's still dry.

The visit to the vet today was free, gratis! No treatment required. There was no bandage on Bertie's wound, I'd given up even trying. It's healing up ok, but Fiona (the vet) said to keep the bucket on his head to stop him from licking at it.

I can't! I just can't. It's too awful. He'll have to take his chances. Sure, I'll feel bad when he has his leg amputated and has to use a little trolley to get around, but it's easier in the short term.

After the vet we went to Pets At Home, shopping for treat biscuits. Then on to visit Anthea, who has just acquired a digital camera.


Bertie shows Anthea something interesting in the garden

I want one. A camera I mean, not a dog.

We all went to the Braid Hills for a walk. Lots and lots and lots of dogs there, all breeds, sizes, shapes.

Anthea took some pictures with her instant gratification machine, I mean digital camera.


I actually need a digital camera.

Now we're home, sheltering from the fireworks. I thought it was all over last weekend, but someone's letting off rockets just up the road. Bertie's really agitated this time, because we went for a walk earlier and the rockets started just as we were coming home. He broke into a run, dashed through the gate and up the path and banged his feet on the door, desperate to get in. First time he's done that. Since then he's been pacing around crying, won't settle at all.

I made a start today on posting some more pix to the website. Slight complication when I discovered that somehow, the backup of the site I did before buying a new computer was out of date. I had to download the newer version off the web! That took forever, of course, and then suddenly I was running late for work. So maybe tomorrow. The redesign project has made some stuttering progress as well, but don't hold your breath.

No wait ... it's back again.

Weirdness ... the all new talkback facility has disappeared...

The Big Bandage Derby

Bertie: 273
Me: 0

Today, the damned dog managed to get his bandage off a) while I was in the house and b) with the bucket strapped to his head.

Sigh.

Tomorrow we see the vet again, for the last time I hope. The cut is actually not looking too bad, but I'm sure it will heal faster if he would only stop licking at it. It looked much better last night, when he removed a dressing that had been in place for over 24 hours. It was a simple stick-on breathable gauze pad. You'd think he could put up with that! But no, he's not happy until he's made the cut bleed again.

Another clear, freezing day. Ice on the puddles, brrr.

Hurrah! Liz talked back! And guess what? She believed me when I said I was adding some new pictures to the website! Ahahahaha!! Dave used to have this cardboard circle pinned to his wall -- it was a round tuit. "I always said I'd get a round tuit, and now I've got one." Well I haven't.

It's come to my attention that the ALL NEW TALKBACK FACILITY may be difficult to find. It's just down there [points down], where it says "Talk back", see? In blue? Or maybe if someone has managed to work out how to use it and has left a comment, it might say "1 person talked back". Or "34 people talked back". Just move the cursor (the arrow thingie) down to that and it'll turn into a wee hand, and then you click down on the right-hand button of the mouse. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezie. If Bertie can do it, so can you.

More parking drama. I cracked and drove in today, after coming in on the bus all week (and going home in a taxi courtesy of the company) -- it was raining, cold and I was running late due to bandage-changing duties. The garage across the road was full, so I parked on a bit of pavement next to our garage doors. I'd just sat down at my desk when in came an angry colleague. He'd had the same experience as me, only he'd been stopped by "The Crown Prince of Ruritania" -- our new commissionaire, who wears a very impressive uniform and peaked cap -- and told that the police would be summoned to tow his car away. So he drove round the corner and parked illegally in front of the building.

It's maddeningly petty -- we arrive at between 4.30 and 5pm, and we're not allowed to park in the garage before 6pm, even if there are spaces. Even on a Sunday! The alternative to the park across the road is a street a couple of blocks away, and last time I brought the car in to work that was full as well. And of course there's always Dumbiedykes, the rough-as-guts high-rise estate next door to us. There are always plenty of parking spaces there -- look, take that one next to the burnt-out Fiesta. (There really was a burnt-out Fiesta in the estate car park last time I walked through, it's not just blind prejudice.)

The trouble with the ALL NEW TALKBACK FACILITY is that I keep checking back obsessively and finding that no-one has posted a comment yet. Apart from Bertie, who won't shut up.

Ok, that's enough for today. It looks ok and at least I know where in the script to tinker now. Back to work.

Tinker tinker tinker

Yay! Getting there. Just one tiny refinement, which I'll have to do later on account of I have work to do. Actual paying work.

Hmm, well, I've been faffing around with the new comment feature and can't get the link into smaller type. Plus, no-one except Bertie has used it yet. Say something!

Hey! I added this great new feature, Blogback, so now you can post rude comments about what I say!

Lost count of wrecked bandages long ago -- three today anyway. So today, for the first time, I left Bertie at home wearing the "bucket". When he knew I was getting ready to leave he starting following me around, pressing the bucket against the back of my legs -- "Hey, hey, you forgot something! Get this thing off my head!" Poor devil. The vet gave me some antiseptic gel and wadding; I'm nearly out of it all and the next appointment's not until Saturday. I'm so sick of this! Just as well I'm only dealing with a dog, if it was a child he/she would have plenty to tell a psychiatrist.

I had a good weekend off, went on some wonderful walks, mowed the lawns, had a shopping spree at Ikea, worked hard on a new website design and ate well -- all home cooking, no carry-outs. The Ikea visit was mainly for furniture, so I had a great time building it. It's like adult Lego, following the diagram and ending up with something that looks just like the picture. One chest of drawers had a bit missing, but it was only one of the back panels so I'm not bothered. It works, it looks ok, it was cheap.

Faye is coming up to visit, hurrah. I've got three days off the week she's here (I was planning to visit her in Oxford!) so I've invited ourselves to the farm. That should be good fun, we'll be able to do some sightseeing while we're there. Cawdor Castle, I think, and Loch Ness. Oh, I wonder if she'd like the Cloutie Well? It's an amazing spot on the Black Isle, a natural spring that has a reputation for healing. You take a piece of clothing from the afflicted area, wet it in the springwater and hang it nearby. Every tree and shrub around the well is festooned with bits of cloth, from scraps to whole garments, some new, some rotting away. I left a pair of knickers there when I visited (not the ones I was wearing!).

Speaking of illness, we were hit by a computer virus at work yesterday. The whole system creaked and groaned as picture and story files vanished willy-nilly. I had one error message that read "Serious Problem: Is your network still alive?" We managed to get the paper out, but only with the help of the top IT guys and a lot of hair-tearing and running around. I'm so glad I've got virus protection at home, she says smugly. We have it at work as well of course, but it wasn't able to detect this one. And when Trevor got a virus it actually destroyed his anti-virus software! So I can't be too complacent.

We're on to bandage number four now, I think. The vet's lovely one was a wreck when I got home last night, so I tidied it up as best I could and covered the open wound with torn-up sheeting. Today I went to the chemist & bought a bunch of stuff - sterile pads, surgical tape, stretch bandage -- and did a neater job. He gnawed it all off this evening. So I redid the whole thing and put the dreaded monster collar on for a while. I couldn't leave him in it though, he looks so incredibly miserable.

Yes, I took off the collar. Yes, he chewed up his bandage again.

Almost all the bandages are gone now, it's a real battle of wills. The vet's appointment is Saturday morning. I'll have to get more bandage tomorrow. Grrrrrr.

I've been faffling around with the scanner tonight, stand by for more pictures. Maybe a new layout, who knows.

Phew, the bandage survived a night of boredom. Fingers crossed for tonight.

Today was lovely, a crispy, sunny, properly autumnal day, with a tang of woodsmoke in the air. After a great walk with Bertie (scuff, scuff, scuff through the dead leaves) I rushed around vaccuuming everything while simulateously installing and using Norton Systemworks. The virus scan found eight infected files and fixed six of them. Two were Trojan Horse viruses, which have been quarantined. Whatever that means.

I've also ordered Partition Magic, which should arrive tomorrow. I'm going to divide my hard drive and run a partition on Linux. It's something I've been meaning to do for years -- I did a Unix course a while back specifically to prepare for it. Ah, long winter evenings spent hunched over a humming computer, what fun.

Tomorrow Fiona's coming for lunch, hence the vaccuuming. I don't know how my house gets so dirty. Ok, possibly because my dog and I track mud all through it and I only clean up once every couple of months. I also dusted and cleaned the toilet and handbasin. I'll go to the 24-hr supermarket on the way home, and wash the dishes in the morning.

Grumble grumble grumble.

Last night I got home to a scene of devastation. Well ok, a mess. Bertie had chewed off his Very Expensive Bandage, and also torn up a magazine. There were bits of bandage everywhere (it had four layers, including the gauze), and he was still trailing the remnants, the bits that were so firmly taped on he couldn't get them off.

Grrr.

So I snipped off the tattered remains of the bandage and ripped another strip off the old sheet to bind up his wounds. He insisted on gnawing at it and licking his cuts, so I had to resort to smacking (sharp tap on the nose, nothing too brutal).

I forgot to set the alarm and didn't wake up until after the local vet's morning session had ended (10am). I phoned the Linlithgow branch and got a 3pm appointment. So we trailed all the way over there in the afternoon (it's only 15 minutes by car, but still...) and he was a major hit with everyone. "Aren't you lovely?" they cooed, "aren't you beautiful?" It was the same vet, Fiona, and she's a fan too. She did another bandage, purple again, four layers, and gave me a huge plastic head collar to stop him ripping it off. £20 please, kaching!

We raced home, and I fitted the collar. I didn't have time to take photos, so I'll have to put it on him again -- it has to be seen to be believed. He had to have a huge collar because his head is so long and he's very flexible. But because his head is also small, it has to be very tight so he can't get it off. The first problem came to light when he tried to turn round. Clonk. As soon as the giant cone hit the wall he stopped. I managed to coax him round and he approached his food dish. Clonk. Second problem: Even with the food dish right under the cone and his head right down, he can't reach the food, because the neck is too tight to let the cone slip back.

You've never seen such a sorry dog.

I'd already missed one bus and couldn't miss another, so I quickly took the collar off and told him (HAH!) not to chew off his new bandage. He probably started on it the minute I was out the door. If he has damaged it he's wearing the cone, even if it means him going hungry.

Bertie's been in the wars -- he has a bad cut on one back leg, plus lots of little cuts and scrapes. It happened on Friday night, I think he ran into some barbed wire. He didn't "say" anything, it was only after we got home that I noticed. I called the vet for advice, she said wrap it up as best you can and get it seen to in the morning.

She also said I should let him sleep in my bed so I could check he wasn't licking at it all night. So after I'd bound up his wounds with torn-up sheeting and an old sock, I patted the bed invitingly. Huh? I lifted his front legs up onto the bed. I'm sorry? I heaved from behind (he is very heavy when confused), and finally he lumbered up and stood there wobbling, looking puzzled. You want me to sleep here? Oh, ok.

When I prised up the duvet and squeezed into the tiny space left, he rolled his eyes, gave a huge sigh, struggled to his feet and jumped back down to the floor.

He got a nice purple bandage from the vet the next day (plus biscuits and lots of fussing), and he's been very good about it, so he doesn't need a bucket on his head thank goodness. He's confined to staid on-leash walks, not riotous gambolling.

Another shock today at work: my card wouldn't give me access to the parking garage, even on a Sunday -- so presumably that means I've been banned. Huh. What a pain. I will definitely be getting a bus in and a taxi home then, courtesy of the company.

Bertie's new coat arrived in the post today. Life must be utterly baffling for domestic animals a lot of the time. A man, a stranger, rings the doorbell, owner opens door, takes parcel off man, shuts door. Man goes away. Owner opens parcel. No food -- disappointing -- but a small blanket. Owner puts blanket on baffled dog, does up straps, talks away in usual babble. Dog is too hot but can't get coat off. Finally owner undoes coat and takes it off.

What was all that about?

The verdict is that the coat is a bit big, but looks just the thing for snowy mornings. Nice and thick and warm, with a fake sheepskin lining. The stomach strap is slightly in the wrong place, will ... ahem ... probably need washing after each walk. Never mind.

Nasty shock when I got to work this morning: the parking garage was being policed. Name and job description? Sorry, you don't have garage access, go away. Yikes. I had to zoom across the road to park, then go and retrieve my car before that carpark closed at 6pm, pay £6 and then repark downstairs. What a hassle.

Because of starting work early I walked Bertie early too, and hit rush-hour. There was only one major problem, when Bertie took a major dislike to a collie-looking bitser.

What happened was B raced over to meet him, while I whistled and called. The other dog thought I was calling him and came running over to me. I think Bertie thought this dog was going to attack me, and rushed to my defence. He was really aggressive, growling and chasing this poor thing around while I danced after him trying to grab his collar and the other owner tried not to freak out. Finally got Bertie under control, whew. Then we met another little dog, this time wearing a muzzle. Not because it bites dogs, the owner said, but because it bites boys. Well, that's all right then! The muzzle came off and the two played happily together. Finally we met the Italian Spinoni (or whatever) and his lovely owner & had a chat. There were other dogs as well, it was really busy.

On Wednesday, my day off, we went to Blackness, had a very long walk nearly all the way to Abercorn. It was low tide so easy to walk along the shore. There had obviously been a storm-driven high tide, there were piles of seaweed up on the grass esplanade, and lots of new flotsam. Lots of shoes, for some reason, and many milk crates. I'd just read a magazine article about digital cameras, and walked along taking mental snapshots.

On the way back Bertie took off after a goose, chased it way, way out towards the water. Splocketta splocketta splocketta through the mud at high speed. I whistled and back he came, splocketta splocketta splocketta splocketta. His whole undercarriage was thickly plastered with grey, gritty mud. I managed to get him to plunge into the swollen burn, but he was still a mess. Back home I rinsed him off in the backyard, which he hated.

I ordered Bertie a fur-lined waterproof walking-out coat today, a bargain at £14.95, plus postage. Mind you, I'm thinking maybe I'll just fix him up a treadmill at home to save the embarrassment of walking him. Today he barked hysterically at a mentally handicapped teenager, who was understandably terrified of him, and at a one-year-old girl in a pushchair, who looked extremely worried.

I've got tomorrow off, hurrah. Tasks for the day include going up into the loft in search of the packaging for my old scanner, which I'm donating to Chad and Leslie. I also have to track down the scsi card, which may still be in the old computer. Once I've found everything I'll go round there next week some time and try and install it for them. Fingers crossed that I don't end up wrecking the machine.

Another task is going to see Moulin Rouge. Doesn't sound hard, does it?

Jan's Gifts shopping online: Greyhound Dog Coats - The Very Best Quality Walking Out Dog Coats, dog rain coats, kennel dog Coats and yard dog coats

Then again, maybe I'll just buy one ...

Greyhound Manor Crafts This is great -- instructions for making a coat for Bertie. He'll be needing one very soon. Greyhounds don't have an undercoat, so they suffer from the cold.

Work work work work work.

Work work work.

I had yesterday off, but it was blighted by the weather and by earache.My ear had kind of cleared up after the last bout, but the infection flared up again on about Wednesday and by Friday, which was when I went to the doctor, it felt like someone was driving a knitting needle into my brain. A hot knitting needle.

I got stronger ear drops and some antibiotics as well. Today is the first day it's felt like it was starting to get better. On Friday night I was nearly weeping with pain, despite taking as many painkillers as I safely could. Today I feel much, much better, plus I can hear better.

I had planned to take Bertie for a make-up fun walk on Arthur's Seat yesterday but the rain put paid to that. In fact when we went out for our regular morning walk, it was raining so hard that Bertie turned round and tried to shove his way back into the house. Later I pulled a mean trick -- I took him with me in the car, and he had to stay in it while I collected Anthea and we had lunch at Plaisir de Chocolat. It was packed out, so we ate sitting on the terrace. It wasn't too cold, despite the rain.

After that I stopped at Pets At Home to stock up on dog food. Bertie finds it exciting but a bit overwhelming. So many interesting smells! So much food! I pissed him off by making him try on coats (all far too small) but everyone he met made a huge fuss of him and he scored lots of treats.

Generally though, the expedition wasn't up to snuff and he refused to get out of the car when we got home. Poor thing.

This is the last of this stint of nearly 12-hour days spelling for my boss, thank goodness. It hasn't been too stressful though (apart from the earache). I'm doing it again on Thursday and Friday.

My days off (two, after working only one night after my holiday!) passed in a flash. Spent Monday talking on the phone and Tuesday shopping for new clothes. I bought a few things, ranging in size from Small (12-14) right through to 18. And one of the 18s (a plain black v-neck jumper) is the tightest garment I purchased. The best buy was a wonderful shiny chestnut brown puffer jacket. Mutton dressed as lamb, but what the heck. Old lady clothes make me feel ... old.

I've been at work since just after 11am and it's now 9.15pm, my poor dog!! He'll be hysterical when I get home. I'm on this shift right through to Sunday. Saturday off, whew.

Polbain -- The Travelogue

Sunday: Left everything to the last minute so we (Andrew and I) set off about an hour later than planned. We stopped in Aviemore on the way up for a late lunch and to walk Bertie. We met a Great Dane, who made Bertie look terribly dainty for a change. The Dane was too Great to deign to make friends. Also accosted by a woman whose aged greyhound died a few months ago. She had a bit of grief therapy fussing over Bertie, who was deeply sympathetic.

Arrived at the cottage just before dark to be greeted by the owners: "We were worried about you!" They gave us a loaf of bread and showed us round -- what a wonderful find this cottage is. A nice size, extremely comfortable, gorgeous views, all the amenities and right across the road from a very well-stocked shop. Perfect. We took Bertie on a wander then settled down with beer and sandwiches for a good old chinwag.

Monday: Woke up about 10am to find Andrew had already taken Bertie for a walk. After breakfast we went out again, walked along to Achiltibuie where Andrew booked us in to the Summer Isles Hotel for a slap-up meal. Back home for lunch, then off in the car on a tiki tour of the area. Andrew stayed at Rief as a boy but he couldn't find the place. We carried on to Inverkirkcraig, where we walked along to the waterfall and back. No rain!

The scenery is stunning in this part of Scotland, and even better in the autumn - the bracken and heather covering all the hills turns a warm rusty russet. The hills are seamed with outcrops of ancient rock and dotted with lochans that are a stunning deep lapis blue on sunny days.

Back home we washed and changed and went out to dinner. Yum. We sat in a deep sofa in front of a blazing fire leafing through a long, long wine list trying to decide, while sipping pre-dinner drinks and nibbling breaded mussels and mushroom parcels. Then we were ushered through to a comfortable dining room and given our first choice of wine and bowls of thick, delicious smoked haddock chowder. That was followed by goujons of langoustine and monkfish. Which was followed by melt-in-your-mouth roast duck. Then came the cheese trolley, groaning with giant truckles. And finally the sweet trolley, swoon. At last we were back in the lounge for coffee and one final little treat - chunks of fudge. Mmm. The service was superb too -- friendly and efficient.

Tuesday: Time for Andrew to return to calving duties on the farm. We attempted a walk but it rained so we headed south in the car. Stopped at Ullapool for lunch at the Ceilidh Place -- very nice -- and then drove like mad to get to the farm in time to see his folks before I headed back to the cottage. John was there but Jenny was delayed at the museum. Bertie had a great run in an empty field -- he'd not been allowed off the lead because of the sheep wandering everywhere. Jenny arrived just before I left. Drove madly back and got there before dark. Nice lazy evening in (after walking Bertie) watching TV and reading.

Wednesday: It was a nice day, so I dragged Bertie off up the hill behind Polbain for lovely views. The ground is boggy, even right up in the hills - you have to be careful where you put your feet. Peat hags are the worst; they look like solid ground but you can find yourself up to your hips in rotten peat if you're not careful. Peat makes for "clean" mud though, it's not sticky. It was windy on the tops but not too cold.

Came back down for lunch then we were off again on a great long expedition, walking and taking pictures. Lots of low-flying fighter jets as usual. This is one odd feature of hill-walking in Scotland -- you walk for hours, find a gorgeous remote glen, sit to enjoy the tranquility and BLAM! a fighter streaks over your head at the speed of sound. I managed to miss the day's heaviest rain by being in the Highland Stoneware pottery in Lochinver at the time.

An aside here about Bertie's experiences: he loved every minute of the holiday. He loves being out in the country; maximum wildlife, minimum people. He became completely hysterical a couple of times, once in the livingroom when he noticed there were chickens in the field below the house. I put into practice some dog-training techniques I'd seen on television with great effect. After that he would just stand whimpering quietly as he watched the hens running round.

His other outburst was in the car, when he saw sheep walking around loose. Owowowowow!!! Look at that!! But once out in the open air he was more circumspect. After all, sheep are about his size and he was outnumbered too. The local dogs were all manic collies, snarling and carrying on, no friendly city types at all. There was a cat up the road, very thrilling! Also cows, goats, geese, deer and of course rabbits. Most frustrating not getting to chase anything, but lots of wonderful smells. I used the extending lead so he could at least pretend he was running free.

On the way home from the big outing I had a flat tyre drama. The tyre picked up a bolt, which was lucky because it made such a racket I stopped before the tyre actually went flat. I jumped out and watched all the air hiss out of it. Bah! I had my mobile and it was even charged up -- but I was out of network. I called the rescue service from a nearby phone box and it was fixed and we were on our way before dark, hurrah.

Thursday: I woke to the sound of gale-force winds and lashing rain. Lingered over breakfast but finally had to take Bertie out. We walked down to the bay between Polbain and Achiltibuie and back, about an hour in all, and we were drenched through! Spent most of the rest of the day indoors reading while the storm raged. At one point the owner, Iain, popped over to say the woman from the shop had rung to say my car window was open. Village life, eh!

I went for a few more walks with Bertie -- one quite long one round towards Altandhu, another at night, and another after Andrew phoned to say he'd just seen the Northern Lights. I hadn't seen them earlier but Andrew said sometimes they were strongest after midnight, so I went out later - nothing. It was too cloudy. What a shame! I stood peering at the sky trying to convince myself I could see them, but no.

Friday: Time to go home. The street was a hive of activity: I was leaving, and Iain and Eva were off on their holidays, and then the bank van arrived and so did all its customers. Worse than Princes Street.

I had to get back in time to greet a visitor, Fiona, so didn't linger around in the area. I did stop in Ullapool to buy Pinky a birthday present and card -- Ullapool has the best gift shops I've seen anywhere. And I stopped in Aviemore for fish and chips and to post Pinky's present. Got home with just enough time to unload, walk the dog and start cooking a meal.

I want to go baaaaaaaack.....

I'm back! It was fantastic. I'll post a travelogue later on -- I'm at work just now. First night back, blah. It's been hosing down with rain all day and it's foggy too, but I got a lot done in the house so that's ok. Housework, laundry and such, nothing exciting.

Only an hour and a half to go and I'm on holiday, whew. I've been looking longingly at the OS map and printing out walking guides. There are cliff walks around the Coigeach peninsula apparently --- you can go all the way round.

My Argentine boss gave me a tape of gaucho music yesterday (Jose Larralde) and I listened to it on the way home and in to work today. It's wonderful, sad and passionate, with acoustic guitar backing, but makes me feel oddly happy. Cowboy music is the same the world over -- though I think the gauchos are a bit more poetical than Hank Wangford. On the other side is a woman singer, Mercedes Sosa. She has a fabulous voice too, sings jazzy Latin political ballads.

Universal White Time Healing New Age Swedes -- it must be the long winters ....

Hurrah, I remembered to call the gas people about the leaky radiator and a man came reasonably promptly and fixed it in five minutes. I've got a service contract, so there wasn't a charge, and he showed me how to fix it myself if it happens again. (Which it apparently will, due to the conformation of my system. Something to do with gravity.)

It was mildly annoying having to hang round for four hours waiting for the gasman, but I gritted my teeth and got stuck in to doing rotas, and also did the dishes, so it wasn't time wasted.

Big surprise up on the meadow this morning: a man in a tractor was mowing it! That's fine, I guess they have to every now and then. But did they have to cut down the wild rose bushes? Bertie was startled but not unhappy -- plenty of gorgeous new smells and of course a perfect race-track. Vroom!

He's unhappy a lot at the moment -- gale force winds are spooking him out. High winds make a whining noise at the back of the house and sometimes blow things over out in the street. He barks at it to make it go away -- not a good idea at 3am.

Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes Preserve -- I visited this spot ten years or so ago. I couldn't remember the name but today finally found it in a web search. I love the internet!

A bland kind of day. I decided at the last minute that I need to be more organised. Ran around the house cleaning and tidying. Forgot to phone gas people about leaking radiator. When I discovered it the power plug for the phone was lying in a giant puddle -- oops. I turned off all the radiators and the central heating and the hot water but when I left home it was still dripping. I put the roasting dish under it, it's the biggest thing I could find that would fit under the drip. It'll be slopping over about now.

So ... my little burst of organisation may have been counter-productive, but I'm serious about it. The scope for disorder is one of the serious disadvantages of having a big house. In a little flat I couldn't be that disorganised, and generally I knew where stuff was even when I lost control. Now, with dozens of places to put things, finding them again is time-consuming and frustrating.

Has anyone seen my monocular? No, I didn't think so. I haven't seen it since I went to Mull with Trevor & co just before New Year. It's gone.

On-Line Marine Store Tremble at how expensive everything is.

The jam did work ... it's a lovely flobberly jelly with a delicate flavour. A bit too delicate for toast, but I think it would be delicious spooned on to something bland like rice pudding. I would make more, but I've run out of jars.

Yesterday I went to the DIY shop in search of screws for the light switch in the kitchen -- the depth of the tiles made the existing screws too short. The only faceplate screws they had were extra-long, so when I got home I hunted out my vice and clamped the screws to the table (with a cork tablemat for protection) and hacksawed them down. Screwed the faceplate on, to discover that the tiler hadn't cut accurately and there's a biggish gap down the side of the switch. Groan. I hadn't bought any grout (to fill in some gaps where the tiles hit the worksurface) because the only waterproof one said it wasn't suitable for worktops. I had Bertie with me and he was fussing and fretting so I didn't go scouting around for sealant, which is probably what I want.

I'm also starting to think -- with a sinking feeling (hah!) -- that the grout the tiler used isn't waterproof. OK so I didn't specify, but wouldn't you think if you're tiling behind a kitchen sink ... gah. I give up. Anyway most of it is great, so I'm not complaining. Much.

Once again, after a busy day of shopping, dogwalking, DIY and housework, I was too knackered to go out. I'm determined to see Moulin Rouge in a cinema, not on video, so I really must make an effort. Thursday is my next day off. I should just go and book a ticket, force myself to go.

I ordered three records from Amazon (Vespertine by Bjork, Folk by Howie B and Creatures of Light and Dark by Jackie Leven), and the plan is to purchase and install a cheapo CD player in my car so I can listen to the new stuff en route to Polbain. I'm sick of playing tapes -- the quality is pish and you can't get a whole CD on a 90 minute tape. I'm not sure if I can copy audio CDs on my computer -- if so that'll be ideal, because I'll be able to copy loads and just leave them in the car.

Big musical trauma for Bertie this morning: SQ was hosting an all-day pipe band competition. Cue panic -- what is that NOISE? Is someone torturing hundreds of small animals? And the drums, the damned drums, will they never stop? There were bands everywhere, practising, performing, marching -- on the corner of our street next to the library, at the Binks, in the churchyard, in the supermarket car park, in the main street. Around every corner was a fresh horror, culminating in the worst imaginable: children playing bagpipes.

Then in the afternoon a shock for me. "I hear Bertie's been in trouble," said Sandy, one of the regular dog-walkers. I had visions of Bertie waiting until the sound of my car had died away before unlocking the door with the spare keys and heading out for some fun. Turns out that an old lady told Alan, another regular, that Bertie had "stood on" her Westie. And I did remember then one day meeting a woman with a Westie who snapped at me that I should have Bertie on a lead. It was a strange encounter because she never actually looked at me, just dragged her dog away. Poor Bertie, he loves making friends with other dogs, but mostly he somehow manages to offend either the dog or the owner or both.

Today he really excelled himself, barking manically at two (thankfully leashed) dogs, which Sandy told me in hushed tones were staffy-pitbull crosses. Oo er! Be nice, Bertie, there's a good boy. The dogs nearly pulled their owner off his feet trying get at Bertie.

I didn't mean yesterday's entry to be so brief ... I was called off to do something and never got back to the blog. Not that there is much else to report. Work: crazy. Home: busy doing mundane things like mowing the lawn, cleaning up after the tiler and making jam.

I picked a whole lot of blackberries and boiled them up with sugar. I couldn't find a recipe so I winged it. Halfway through I decided there were too many pips, so I tried straining them out. Not a huge success -- a lot of pulp got strained out too. I should have strained before adding the sugar, I think. Anyway the fruit was free, so no biggie if it doesn't work.

There's a bumper crop of blackberries this year, but the flavour isn't that good -- maybe there's been too much rain and not enough sun. They look lovely on the bush, gleaming in great bunches. Bertie got very bored during my picking session, kicking his heels. You would expect him to go off exploring on his own, but he sticks pretty close.

Tim at work brought me a couple of choice souvenirs from his trip to the Falklands, via Buenos Aires: a copy of Hola! (13 Sept issue so full of the Norwegian wedding; it went to press before the atrocities) and a Malvinas badge -- the Argentine flag with a map of the islands on it in gold.

The thing I like about Hola! is that it has great spreads on people I've never heard of. "ALESSANDRO LEQUIO Y MARIA PALACIOS bano de barro terapeutico en Mallorca". Pictures of in-love couple smearing each other with mud on a stony beach. There's one story I must get Andrew to translate, I can't understand it from the pictures, which include one of a woman, SARA MONTIEL, sitting on a sofa with a blanket over her head. Then there are the up-and-coming celebs you know you're going to hear more of: Enrique Iglesias, for example, "uno de los cantantes mas atractivos del mundo", woof woof.

The tiling is done, whew. It looks great, very shiny and clean.

OK tomorrow is now tiling day. The tiler was most apologetic - he assumed the woman at the shop had phoned me. He was going to come yesterday, but I had to change that because of Events. Also had to cancel a craniosacral therapy session, grizzle. This was because my boss finally took some time off & as his deputy wasn't back from New York yet I was doing his job Sunday and Monday, 11:30am to 10pm without a break. Now the deputy has come down with some ghastly flu that's going round New York - as if people there don't have enough grief and pain! - and I may have to work longer hours on Thursday and Friday.

This morning I had my hair done, and because I'd been getting up early for a couple of days I had no trouble getting up early today -- but now I'm starting to flag. I can sleep in a bit tomorrow, the tiler's not coming until 3pm.

Hah. I went mad recently and churned out rotas for our section for up to Christmas. We don't publish on Christmas Day so we get Christmas Eve off every year. According to my calculations, Christmas fell on a Saturday, which we always have off, so hurrah! we all got a nice long weekend. Sigh. No, don't all rush to tell me - Christmas Day is actually on a Tuesday this year.

I'm not very good at rotas.

I'm good at fencing though! I don't know if I mentioned that the firm came through with a quote: £890. Eight hundred and ninety pounds sterling for a fence measuring 30ft by 5ft. Aiiieeee! So on Saturday I drove out on a mission to find something cheaper, much much cheaper. The solution turned out to be bamboo screening. Two rolls, each 16ft long by 5ft high, £100 total. I was pretty exhausted once I'd gotten the rolls home, but I pushed myself to get it erected -- wiring it to the existing 3ft high fenceposts. (Interesting aside: galvanised wire is very difficult to find. DIY shops don't stock it. No wonder Britain's in such a mess! You can't fix anything properly without No.8 fencing wire. I finally found some in a small garden shop - which didn't have bamboo screening, however.) It was a tricky operation, the screening kept falling over and it was hard to get it taut. I finished the last corner just as it was getting dark, not a moment too soon.

The second section is a bit wobbly because it goes uphill and over tree roots (I might go back and rewire it), and the whole thing waves around a bit in the wind. But it's dog proof. Bertie came out to see what I was doing and actually cried when he saw it. Heh. But it means I can let him outside at night without him going awol. And I'll be able to grown sweet peas on it. Now that I've cut down the elder tree and pruned the rowan, my next DIY project is to make a bird feeder.

It's autumn already! Trees are going gold and leaves are falling, blackberries are ripening.

My days off turned out to be just about as stressful as working days! Monday I got up at 8am ready for the tiler.

He didn't show up.

I phoned both his numbers and phoned the shop, without success. While waiting, between phone calls, I hunted out Faye's suitcase and got out the stuff she wanted me to send her, packed it up, wrote her a note and addressed the parcel. Trudged round to the post office, only to discover it was closed - it was a bank holiday. Pah!

Back home I found that the woman at the shop had called in my absence to say she'd realised that my tiles weren't arriving until the next day -- she'd told the tiler that last week, but neither of them had thought to tell me.

I was sooooooo tired I tried to have a nap, but couldn't settle -- there was too much to do! In the end I did a lot of boring chore stuff (including putting everything back on the benches), watched some TV and went to bed early.

Next day was an earlyish start -- I'd offered to collect Pip from the railway station (after posting Faye's parcel of course!). I took Bertie along and it was a good move. He was freaked out of course, though it wasn't his first time there. It's noisy, and the noise is coming from all directions: rumbling engines, cars, floods of people, suitcases with wheels, tannoy announcements, beeping electric vehicles, whistles, it's a cacophony. But the magical effect was that when we went back out on to the street he was much, much calmer. By contrast with the station, it was easy to comprehend: cars, people, no sweat.

After meeting Pip, putting her bag in the car and setting her loose in the city, I took Bertie for a ramble in Holyrood Park, did some shopping and then popped round to see Anthea, who's back from Oslo for a few months. Bertie scored a neat present, a wind-up hamster formerly owned by Jessie, Anthea's cat. The mechanism is all contained inside a furry ball, and apparently it feels incredible when you pick it up in your mouth. I wouldn't know.

More shopping on the way home, this time at Pets At Home (dog food). Pip was already back, we had a glass of wine and a long natter. She spent all day yesterday exploring Edinburgh and left this morning for Stirling.

Now I'm back at work, more stress, more complications, more uncertainty. I try to stay positive but it's a bad atmosphere.

More work-related stress. I've got the next two days off, but they'll both be busy. The tiler's coming at sparrow fart tomorrow - I've already cleared the decks in the kitchen ready for him to get to work - and Anthea's back from Oslo and Pip's coming on Tuesday to stay for two nights. Then my boss is having Thursday, Friday and next Sunday off (having worked on his days off last week and tonight), so I'll be working long hours doing his job.

Still, ony a couple more weeks to go and I'm on holiday for a lovely week. Andrew is coming down the weekend my holiday starts and may come up to the cottage for a couple of nights. I'll run him home from there, it's only a couple of hours' drive.

Another hectic night. Spent a mad half hour or so frantically scouring the internet for logos for a huge last-minute graphic on terrorist groups around the world. Hezbollah has a very whizzy website, Abu Sayyaf has nothing at all.

Nearly time to go home. I'm pretty exhausted, but otherwise ok. I've behind on nearly everything -- it's mainly work and dog-walking at the moment -- but this afternoon I got stuck in to shifting stuff up to the loft, boxes and so forth, and moved Faye's big suitcase into the cupboard at the top of the stairs. In the process of this grubby, sweaty work I found a box full of pictures I'd been half-heartedly looking for for ages, plus another box with a lot of lightbulbs in it. It's great having a big house, but it's ridiculously easy to lose stuff in it.

Busy busy busy at work. Long hours, chaotic scenes, much frustration. Bertie is confused of course, but how do you explain to a dog? "Listen, I have to go into work early and stay late because in a far-off country some terrorists crashed planes into some buildings and many, many people died. OK?"

Looking at the pictures and reading all the coverage is overwhelming. So many stories, so many angles and updates and complications; and the fear, pain, grief, anger. It's exciting to work in a newspaper office when a big story is breaking - and they don't come bigger than this - but it's exhausting too.

Very productive weekend so far. The cold slowed me down a wee bit, but I'm nearly 100% again -- it didn't go to my chest, phew. Thursday morning the fence guy came and measured up. I'm still waiting to hear from him with a quote, but I'll go ahead if it's not too outrageously expensive. His plan is to cut off the existing concrete fenceposts, which are too short, and put in taller timber ones. There will be slats about 3ft high, then trellis to 5ft, so it'll be strong but have an open feel. They have to do something fancy at the top end where the land slopes; he drew me a little picture.

Friday the tiler finally turned up, hurrah, and gave me a quote. He's going to do the tiling on the 17th. I rushed straight off to Linlithgow and chose some tiles -- which were so hot off the press the samples had only arrived that morning. Then Bertie and I went for a walk to Blackness. It was ferociously windy, really wild. On a whim I went for a tour of Blackness Castle, which turned out to be much better than I'd imagined. I'd like to live there! I'm going back with my camera next time. Back home and feeling quite energetic, I attacked the elder tree with the saw, got half of it down. It has to go - scruffy, ailing, and in the way of the new fence.

I finished that today. Sawed and sawed and sawed. It's astonishing how much bigger the tree looked lying on the lawn. Uh, and then I had to cut it up into bits and carry all the bits out to the car. Sweat, sweat, sweat. Meanwhile Jim next door was trimming hedges, we both had our cars brim full of vegetation. Off to the tip, more sweating, then home for a final cleanup before having a much needed shower. At this point I had a bit of a relapse, got a headache that just wouldn't go away and felt blech, even after a quiet walk and some ibuprofen. So I've been blobbing out, and now I'm off to bed.

Tomorrow I've got to finish off all the boring things I've forgotten to do, laundry, work rotas, blah blah, and I may go and see Moulin Rouge in the evening. Work on Monday. How fast this weekend's gone!!

Sniffle, sneurk.

In today's mail I got a guide to the cottage I'm hiring in October. It's in Polbain, on the Coigach Peninsula in Wester Ross.


This is a view of the village of Achiltibuie from above Polbain. As you can see, it's pretty rural. The entire peninsula has two pubs and two shops. The fish van comes round on Fridays, as does the bank van. I'm going home on the Friday, so I'll probably miss all the excitement. I'll have to take my own fish and plenty of cash. Nothing at all is open on Sundays, so I'll also have to bring supplies for dinner that night.

There's a smokehouse in Altandhu, and Chad has recommended the restaurant at the Hydroponicum at Achiltibuie, so I won't go hungry.

I can't wait. It's my favourite part of Scotland, bar none.

I'm ill. Last week I went deaf (kind of) with an ear infection, and this week I've got a slight fever and a runny nose. I'm also soooo tired I could lay my head on my desk and go to sleep. Faye left at around 8am this morning. I offered to drive her to the station but she got the bus into town instead, the dear woman. I went back to bed but only got an hour or so actual extra sleep.

I did hardly anything else today. Raked the lawn with the new rake, not very effectively. Did a load of washing. Walked the dog twice. Went to work.

I'm going home early, I really don't feel well.

So Liz, you can send me a get-well card now!!!

It's official -- Bertie has ringworm, the hedgehog variety. Ewwww! Dirty Bertie! The kid no-one wants to play with!

I don't seem to have any spare time at the moment, I can barely keep up with stuff like laundry.

Yesterday though, Faye being here, it was time for an expedition. It was a toss-up between the Borders and the Highlands and Faye had no preference, so I plumped for the Highlands, a spin up round the Trossachs and back via Loch Lomondside. En route, however, after lunch in Callender, I changed my mind and we pushed on to do the Glen Coe loop. It was raining, and Glen Coe is fantastic whatever the weather.

Bertie enjoyed his romp in the glen -- he enjoyed the whole trip, despite the rain and despite spending so much time in the car. On the last leg -- in heavy rain, against the clock because of the fireworks concert -- he slept like a dead dog. When we arrived back home he leapt out of the car wagging his tail, thinking he was in yet another exciting new place. It was funny watching the realisation dawn: hey, that fence looks familiar ... and that bush ... HUH!

We were in time to catch the train to Edinburgh for the concert. It was drizzling a bit, but we had a good view -- no music, but them's the breaks. We left the house in such a rush I forgot the radio (the music is played by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in the Princes St Gardens, and broadcast on a local station). We watched from Waverley Bridge, right outside the station, and afterwards we just had to turn round and head back down. Long queue, long wait, but eventually we made it home.

This morning there was a gorgeous answering machine message from Cathy and Leighanne, calling from "far, far away": "We're looking for our mother. We heard she was at your house playing. Tell her to come home, because we miss her." Faye phoned them back: "Will you kids just leave me alone? I can't leave the country for FIVE MINUTES without you pestering me!" Shucks, they're so sweet you could eat them with a spoon.

Today's adventure was a trip to the continental farmers' market in town. It was a three-day affair, started on Friday. It was a reasonable facsimile of a continental market, complete with genuine foreigners, but smaller. The market, not the foreigners. Some of them were quite large. I bought a bag of plums, big plump delicious plums the like of which I've not seen in Britain. Faye bought bread and some Dutch ginger cake, and then we had crepes. Faye had a chorizo and cheese one, I had chocolate. We were eating them when I felt something on my hand. I looked down and there was sticky chocolate sauce all down my clean white shirt, all down my clean jeans and even spattered on my clean feet and clean sandals. Faye came to the rescue with a couple of (clean) hankies, but we had to roar back home in a hurry so I could change. She bought more chorizo at the supermarket and we had the bread with it for lunch, followed by ginger cake.

Now I'm at work, which was blissfully peaceful tonight. Friday night nearly did my head in, it was so stressful. I've got a few days off at the end of this week, and I'm determined to use them to get myself organised. Hah.

Disturbing pavement graffiti: on a narrow bit of footpath opposite the vet I noticed the word "NIL" repeated several times. When I looked closer, I saw that there was a neat little hole drilled above each NIL. Someone had drilled holes and found nothing. Is that good?

Ack. I just lost a long piece on the books I'm reading. It's gone, links and all. I can't be bothered to write it again. Here's a picture to look at.

It's a great read.

Amazing! Tonight I signed up for online banking with my NZ bank -- completely fuss-free process. So now I can log on any time and find out my balance. It was astoundingly simple, even from this great distance.

Great weekend, focused on gardening. Yesterday I weeded, a major event - it was horribly overgrown. I really need to go back and grub the convolvulus out properly from the front garden, I just tidied it really, before rain stopped play. Today I mowed and strimmed, back and front.

Other than that I did stuff all. Ate (pork stir-fried with curly kale and my own home-grown garlic, in oyster sauce. YUM.), loafed, rested, read, watched TV, walked the dog. Oh and tonight I worked, an easy night since there was only one page.

Supermarket trauma tonight. I'd run out of just about everything so I went to the 24-hr Tesco in my break. For a start the traffic was horrendous. It's a) Friday night; b) a bank holiday weekend; c) during the Festival; and d) the Tattoo is still on. Every street was congested, not just with cars but with drunken clubbers, distracted theatre-goers, lost tourists. I managed to negotiate my way through it all and spent an agreeable 45 minutes mingling with the large crowd following a man with a pricing gun who was creating bargains. I think I got everything on my imaginary list, certainly got a lot of stuff that wasn't on it.

Then after moving through the checkout at a leisurely pace ("I only got an hour's sleep this morning! I don't know how I'm going to last the night," confided the assistant. "Ooo! Limes! What do you do with those?") I rejoined the traffic frenzy.

This time I had an added bonus: a silent migraine. I've had this before. I get a migraine aura -- nausea and weird visual effects -- but no headache. The visual effects are disconcerting, especially while driving. My field of vision is interrupted by a roughly circular jagged line of bright light, inside of which everything is blurred. In the bright, jagged part, I can't see. It's not a black spot or anything, it's just an absence of vision. Weird. It swallows up important visual clues like traffic lights, signs ... drunken pedestrians. The other bonus was that I met up with the post-Tattoo rush -- gajillions of pedestrians plus coaches, taxis, cars. A nightmare.

Obviously I survived. And the boot is full of lovely fruit and veg and meat. Treats: mint-flavoured Twix (I must have bought that just as the migraine thing was coming on, the thought of it makes me feel slightly sick now) and two extremely ripe, extremely cheap mangoes, yum.

I'm off home now. I've plotted a course that will avoid most of the central city turmoil. First I drive down to Berwick on Tweed, then cut across to Carlisle ...

Bothan na' Tilleadh -- I've tentatively booked five days here in October, a bargain at £100 all in. It sleeps four, so if anyone wants to join me, they're welcome. Remote spot, but very beautiful.

I sent away for the price list for the Klepper kayaks and they're not out of the way .... £1,200 for a basic one-seater. Plus hundreds of pounds for all the extras of course. But as that includes sails ... well, it's starting to sound like the ideal boat. And I forgot to buy a lottery ticket today ...


Does this look like fun or what? This is a downwind sail -- you need the wind behind you. Below is the full sailing rig, with which you can sail into the wind as well.


And it all folds down

Oh man. I really have to get one of these Klepper folding kayaks now.

The stuff about them being designed for the SAS during the war isn't true. Here's what really happened: "In 1907 a tailor from Rosenheim in Bavaria had a simple idea. This tailor, Johann Klepper, wanted to build a foldable kayak that he could take wherever his heart desired. Klepper's longing for unlimited freedom, travel and adventure ultimately led to the first commercial production of foldable kayaks."

But still, they are perfect for fitting limpet mines...

Cripes, nearly a week since I wrote anything here. I would have written something yesterday but my ISP was having a coniption fit and wouldn't let me stay logged on longer than a couple of seconds.

Whatever. The Bamboo Curtain was a failure. Bertie jumped right through it, screeching as he was scraped by wire and stakes. Thank goodness he didn't impale himself. So now I don't let him out at night. During the day he's ok, he doesn't jump through, but I still watch him while he's out there.

I spent the weekend on a sailing course. Saturday it was "dinghy cruising", Sunday was "dinghy drifting" -- how to drift your dinghy on the tide, with the sails flopping loosely.

We (seven of us in three Wayfarer dinghies, plus two instructors in an inflatable) spent Saturday morning doing triangles, just what I'd hoped NOT to be doing, but I guess they have to assess everyone. We were all good at triangles, so in the afternoon we moved on to anchoring and went for a short spin downriver, just past the rail bridge. The wind had picked up and and we had a great couple of hours sailing, fast and bouncy, with spray flying.

While we were anchoring, I saw what I thought was a haar rolling in, and just before we came in it started raining. Hard. I was wet anyway, so rather than change into dry clothes, I walked home in my sailing kit. Good move -- it rained so hilariously hard I was thoroughly rinsed of salt by the time I got to my door. I dried myself off, changed, and waiting for it to stop raining so I could walk Bertie. It didn't stop, so we walked in the rain. It kept on raining, all night it rained.

In the morning, it was still raining. but the wind had died away almost completely. We looked at the chart and rolled the special ruler over it and calculated the tide and made bearings and came up with a course plan.

We rigged up our boats in the rain and paddled out of the harbour and off upriver, sails flopping. The plan was to sail to Blackness, anchor there for a short while, then head across the river to Charlestown for a picnic lunch, before heading back to Port Edgar. Ha ha. It took us so long to float soggily up to Blackness that we went straight across to Charlestown. We took so interminably long getting across that the instructors had to tow us across the shipping channel to avoid getting in the way of a tanker.

We anchored in Charlestown harbour and climbed into the inflatable, which the instructors then beached. There was a man sitting in his car as we filed up the beach in the rain -- someone suggested we see if there was enough room in there for all of us, it looked quite cosy. There was no sign of a pub -- though it's unlikely a pub would have welcomed nine dripping mariners. We plodded morosely round to a rocky breakwater and sat perched on our lifejackets eating soggy sandwiches. It rained and rained and rained. The fog had been slowly creeping in and by the time we'd finished our lunch we couldn't see across to Blackness. We certainly couldn't see the bridges.

Since we obviously couldn't sail back -- the tide hadn't turned yet and there was not a breath of wind -- the plan changed. The dinghies were tied to the inflatable and we had a glum trip back. We derigged the boats in record time -- I've certainly never folded and stowed a sail that quickly -- got dried off and changed and rushed to the canteen .... which was of course closed. Huh. After a debriefing we went home. Very disappointing end to the course. The annoying thing is that I was booked in to the course in July, and it was cancelled because only I was booked. The weather that weekend was much better.

I'm reading a book by Paul Theroux and the moment that has several of his kayaking stories in it and I'm tempted again by the idea of getting a kayak. He has a collapsible one that packs down into two bags. During the sailing course I was thinking how great it would be to kayak up the Forth -- or better yet, to go to Stirling and kayak home. I could explore the coast for quite a distance on short trips from here.

Today I finally got someone else organised to do the tiling in the kitchen. The last people failed to turn up -- I phoned every week for a month and gave up when the tiler went on holiday for three weeks. "Maybe I should get someone else to do the job," I said. "Yes dear, that would probably be best." This time it's a Linlithgow company, the man will come and look over the job in the next few days. The quote was about £160 less than the last one, so that's a bonus.

The computer's nearly ready -- I've just got to reinstall all my software and restore the backed up files. Hah, that'll only take ... forever. Anyway, once forever rolls around I'll post some photos from the garden.

I have to take some more photos too, of my latest project -- dog-proofing the back fence. It was a real conundrum. It had to be high enough to keep a greyhound in, but somehow I have to be able to get over to collect my house key from its Secret Hiding Place if I lock myself out again. I had a brainwave and today bought a bundle of 6ft bamboo stakes. It took about half an hour to create the Bamboo Curtain, a flimsy affair that will be easy enough to dismantle in an emergency but looks convincingly like a barrier to a dim greyhound. I hope so anyway. I'll have to get a few more stakes -- I had to improvise at one end with branches cut off the manky rowan in the corner (I doubt if it is a rowan, actually, it has no berries) and parts are constructed with thin garden wire, which will be invisible at night.

The first real trial is in about an hour, when I let Bertie out for a pee.

He's recovered from his ennui, by the way. Today when we passed the car he stood by it looking so pathetically hopeful that I loaded him in and took him to Blackness for a run. Sort of an apology for forgetting to collect his ringworm medicine. Oops, bad owner.

It's finally hot, but unfortunately it's also raining, so not very pleasant at all. Especially here at work, it's stifling.

Bertie was all droopy with post-holiday let-down syndrome today. Plod plod plod around the usual routes, nothing interesting or new to look at. Rain. Heat. Blah. The roads were busy and we had quite a wait to cross the road by the supermarket. Instead of eagerly straining to be off down the railway walk he stood limply at my side like a greyhound-shaped rag. Eeyore, the scabby donkey. Speaking of which, the vet called back and the first test has come up negative for ringworm. Which doesn't mean he doesn't have ringworm. The next test result will be another month. In the meantime we're going to pretend it is ringworm. He'll have tablets for two weeks, and if it's clearing up, then for another two weeks. If not, it's really not ringworm and he'll have antibiotics for a bacterial infection.

Coincidentally today I noticed another patch, on his neck. That's five altogether, from an original two. Blech.

I just Googled it (I love the internet) and found that ringworm, tinea, jock itch and athlete's foot are all the same thing -- a fungus. I was surprised about the tablets, but I guess the cream is poisonous. Anyway, I hope it works, because he's getting really scabby looking, and I'm worried about catching it myself.

Bertie and I are back from a thrilling visit to the farm. Bertie is shattered from all the excitement, he's been sleeping pretty much the whole time since we got back.

I took him for a pee walk this evening and on the way back collected stuff from the car. When I opened the door to get my camera, he climbed into the back seat and wouldn't get out!!!! He got so used to climbing into the car over the past few days, and there was always somewhere exciting at the other end of the journey. We went for several long walks every day, mostly to places where he could run like blazes -- gigantic gardens! whole fields! enormous beaches! endless forests! There were cats everywhere, fascinating smells, even new animals (cows ... very scary). Everyone was lovely to him and he was patted and petted and praised from one end of Nairnshire to the other. To cap it all off, this afternoon he and Andrew had a hectic game of football.

Oh, and I had a nice time too.

So then I came home from the farm tonight and got my computer out of its box and yes, it does work. Last week when I got it back I plugged it in and it didn't work. So I took it back to the shop on Friday morning, the day I was going up to the farm. And the wee man just flipped it out of the box, plugged it in and it went. He wasn't too nauseatingly triumphalist, but still. They'd had to wipe the hard drive and replace loads of stuff so I had to reinstall everything & it was a palaver to say the least. I didn't have time to set it all up before I left on Friday so I did it tonight.

Now I'm going to bed, because I'm now just as shattered as Bertie.

Sound of Dunedin This bookmark is for the origins of something called "The Dunedin Sound" -- sample headings The Joe Brown Empire, Bodgies, Widgies, Teddy Boys and Milk Bar Cowboys, A Rattray Street Reminiscence, The Titans: Kings of the Bible Class Circuit.

Anyone my age or a little older will be flipping out right now.

Bad Dog! Bad Dog!

Last night after our walk Bertie was whining and pacing around, so I let him out the back door into the garden. Bad move. He jumped the fence and shot across next door's back yard to rummage in the hedge looking for a way to get at the geriatric cats. It was 2am, so I was loath to yell, and whispering "come here" had zero effect. In the end I tricked him into coming by appearing to walk away down the alley. Possibly also a bad move in the long term, since up until that minute he didn't seem to have clicked that the whole world is open to him once he's jumped the fence.

Anyway in the short term it worked, and I dragged him back into the house. Without speaking to him I went straight upstairs to bed, shutting my bedroom door behind me. I could hear him crying piteously, but ignored him.

In the morning he was transformed into a very, very good little doggie, eager to please in any way possible. I'll have to try teaching him to do housework. I've abandoned the extending lead & expected some manic pulling, but he walked at my side sweet as can be. He obeyed every order. Most miraculous, when we emerged for the afternoon walk he deliberately turned his head away from the house where the cats live -- looking over there is something I'd been forbidding loudly.

Tomorrow we have an appointment with the vet -- possible outbreak of ringworm or similar, ewww!! He has a couple of raw, scaly patches on his face and now there's one on his leg. Bet he caught it off that hedgehog.

Today I'm back to my usual hours of work, 4.30pm to 1am. The past few days I've been doing 11.30am to 10pm, which means I had to get up at around 8am in order to dawdle over breakfast for an hour before walking the dog and having a shower. Saturday I had to get up early as well, because of going to the fair. So today was my first chance to sleep in and make up the sleep deficit.

I woke up at 6am and couldn't get back to sleep. Even Bertie wasn't interested in being up that early. Right now I'm sooooo tired.

It was good though, having so much time. As well as all the usual stuff, I backed up my computer, unplugged all the peripherals, fetched its box from the loft and packed it nicely ready for the trip back to the shop. Made the trip to the computer shop at a leisurely pace -- just as well, because the traffic was abominable -- then collected the film that had been ready since last week and visited the pet supermarket for snacks, treats and a new collar. I've put Bertie's tags on this collar, a thin loose one, so if he pulls out of his regular collar while out and about, he's still got my phone number.

Back home I had plenty of time for another dog-walk and a shower before work.

Great news tonight! Liz and Ken are engaged. Sweet! I must get one of those digital cameras, the close-up detail of Liz's ring (and fingers) is stunning.

Busy busy busy. Mainly with work -- looong shifts doing the boss's job -- and dog-walking. The dog's in bad odour at the moment, having seriously monstered a neighbour's two cats. I had previously thought there was just the one cat, they're both black and white and fluffy. I patted one once and it was so terribly thin I was concerned for its welfare. But on taking the trembling survivor home after Friday night's attack I discovered that not only does it have a thyroid condition, it's 19 years old. Nineteen. That's 133 in dog years. The other one is 12. No wonder Bertie can get them bailed up -- it's like Sebastian Coe chasing the Queen Mother.

I went to the Traquair Fair yesterday, to meet up with Richard and his family who are up from England on holiday. It's the most laid-back event I've ever been to -- hippy heaven, with tipis, vegeburgers, folk music, alternative healing tents and at least four aromatherapy stalls. I realise now that I have the word DEADLINE running through me like a stick of letter rock, with hurry up! in smaller type.

It was lovely -- it's a beautiful setting, an ancient house surrounded by hills and forests, and there was lots going on -- but heavy showers of rain spoiled it somewhat. It was great seeing Richard again, and I also bumped into other people I hadn't seen for ages, so all in all it was fun. I bought some essential oils (Rose Maroc and Clary Sage) and a colourful little bag for my CD walkman thing. No dogs allowed, so Bertie had to stay home.

For reasons far too complicated to go into here, last Wednesday was a washout and I didn't get to take my computer in to the shop. I've been working all the hours since then, so I'll probably get it in tomorrow or Tuesday. It'll maybe take them three days to reinstall Windows, if that's the problem, or replace the modem.

Must get on with my work now.

The heat, the heat ... it must have been nearly 70F out there today. That's 21C for kiwis. And the sun was shining and everything!

Yesterday (Monday) I checked my strawberry plant and the first one was just on the cusp of ripeness. Mmm, pick that tomorrow, I thought. Hah! First thing this morning the strawberry, luciously ripe, was lying half-eaten on the ground. Bastard wildlife. I'm making a new shopping list: BB gun, slug pellets, slingshot, electric netting ...

Bertie can't cope with heat, but he's not as bad as the spinone we often meet out walking. He's a mountain dog, used to cool climes. Today when his owner and I stopped to chat, the poor thing sat panting under a tree, in grass still cool and wet from last night's rain. Bertie stood panting in full sun -- he likes the limelight even if it is uncomfortable.

I cleared a few long outstanding chores today which felt quite good. Loads still to do however, and I've gone and arranged a lunch date for tomorrow, my one day off.

What a day today, whizzing around madly from pillar to post and back again. Work was restful by comparason.

One of my appointments was with Calum, my lovely dentist. Over the years his skill and clean pinkness have completely cured my phobia about dentists. I can almost relax in his chair, knowing he'll only hurt me a little bit. Today I had a root canal filling -- he'd cleaned it out and dressed it last week and finished it properly this time. No anaesthetic because the nerve was dead, so no rubber lips and no painful reawakening of nerve endings. Plenty of pain in the old wallet though -- £115, ka-ching!

It's raining. It's cold. Sigh. Saves the effort of watering the garden I guess. Sigh. We never did get that heatwave ...

Terrible words to hear while filling my trolley at Tesco:

"Would the owner of the white greyhound please come to the customer service desk."

I whisked down to the front of the shop where sure enough, through the plate-glass window, I saw Bertie -- collarless -- run past looking anxious. I parked my trolley and dashed out. People were looking on in amazement as Bertie ran back and forth in front of the windows, scanning for a familiar face or a way in. He came to me quite meekly though, and I tied him up, fastening his collar with an eye-bulging tightness.

At least he didn't try and head for home -- traffic was pretty heavy yesterday afternoon.

He's never backed out of his collar before, though I've been aware that it's getting looser as the leather stretches. They have such tiny heads for their neck size it's hard to get the collar tight enough without making it uncomfortable. One thing I'm going to do for sure though is to get a thin, looser collar for him to wear his tags on. That way if he does escape from the leash he'll still have ID (apart from the microchip).

This week is going to be madly busy workwise and I only have Wednesday off. Tomorrow is used up with appointments so I won't get to tackle my computer grief until Tuesday at the earliest.

We're supposed to be having a heatwave. It's blistering everywhere else in the country, but here it's just ... warm. Right now (11pm) I'm actually cold, I've got a T-shirt on and wish I'd brought a sweatshirt or something with me. Some heatwave. Huh.

OK, so quickly: Monday I trailed all the way to the Post Office with all the documentation needed to pay the road tax only to find I'd taken the wrong MOT certificate with me. Grinding of teeth. After that, I don't know ... I think I took Bertie to Blackness for a run and cooked a nice ratatouille for dinner. I'm sure I must have done something else ... oh yes, I remember, I broke my computer.

Tuesday: Lunch with Anthea, followed by a trip to the dentist for a root canal filling. Lunch was delicious -- warm squid salad at Sweet Melinda's in Marchmont, and the dentist wasn't too bad. The nerve was dead anyway, so I didn't need an injection and my jaw wasn't aching afterwards.

On the way home I stopped at Homebase and bought a strimmer. Got home and foolishly didn't change my clothes before trying it out. I had no idea strimming leaves you plastered head to toe with shredded weeds and bits of whatever gunk is lurking amongst them. What a cool piece of equipment though! Vroom! Zing! After strimming I mowed, so the lawn looks almost decent now. Next I have to strim the front of the house. Yee haw.

So that was that. Not very exciting, eh. But I love it. I'm soooo sad. Sigh.

Week after next I've decided Bertie is ready for another trip up the learning curve. We're going to the farm. This is my friend Andrew's parents' farm, up near Nairn. They have 12 cats and 100 cattle. Yes indeedy, he's in for a few surprises up there.

I won't have time to update tonight, maybe tomorrow. Tsk, I'm really falling behind.

Well I have busted my new computer! That didn't take long, did it? It's not completely busted, just the modem doesn't work any more. I suspect a software glitch rather than physical meltdown, but it's a bugger either way. It means no online work at home, so I have to do it all at work. It's expensive too -- it forced me to spend an hour on the phone today talking to Pinky, 10,000 miles away.

I won't have time to even talk to the techies at the shop until next week, so I'll have to be disciplined until then.

So ... my days off. Saturday: Went to the auction, which was lots of fun. I didn't buy anything, though I had to sit on my hands to stop myself bidding for crates of useless stuff, just because it was so cheap. Hundreds of beer glasses going for a song! (The hitch there was you didn't get to pick them up until Sunday, after the big closing-down party. You could conceivably end up paying £10 not for hundreds of beer glasses but for six chipped sherry glasses.) They had a big screen set up and showed slides of the various lots as they came up.

The varied list of stuff on sale attracted a very mixed crowd -- locals, dealers of every stripe, gawpers, collectors, all sorts. We were not big spenders, however, and the auctioneer got quite ratty. "Fifty pound to start. Forty. Thirty." Long pause. "Ten pound! Come on! Ten to start." Another pause. "What's the matter with ye? Five pound then, who'll give me five? No-one? Surely... come on, this is a bargain." I like the eccentric ways a bid can develop -- it starts out like that, with the auctioneer working back from £50 and finally getting a £5 opener. Then someone else raises it to £10, and there's a little rush of bidding and suddenly the price is back up to £50.

The pictures I wanted turned out to be prints rather than oil paintings, but still went for quite a high price. I wouldn't have minded paying what they went for, but if I'd joined the bidding they would have gone higher; bidding was brisk. The ship prints were more complicated: there were several lots of a pair each, and the winner of the first lot had an option of buying through, of buying the rest at the same price. They didn't want them all, so there was renewed bidding for the next lot, and the bloke who got that pair did take the rest. The model ship: well, I looked the name up on the internet and found you could get a new one for $29.99. It sold at the auction for £30, plus 10% buyer's premium, plus VAT. Not a bargain. The carpet in the ladies loo went for £10.

After just two hours at the auction (not even halfway through) I staggered out faint from the heat and airlessness of the room, collected Bertie and zoomed off to Blackness for a romp. It was high tide, a very high high tide, water was sloshing and crashing up on the sea wall.

Bertie again showed why we humans are in charge. See the water at the top of the wall, I think "Boy, that must be quite deep." Bertie thinks "This water is only a couple of inches deep" and plunges in. He was so surprised. And then of course he had real trouble getting out. On a dry day he's free with a single mighty bound, but with water up to his chest it took him a few clumsy, lurching goes to jump back out on to the grass.

Watching all this was a female greyhound, on a lead. Shaking himself off, Bertie hurried up to say hi. And HELLO, baby! "She's still a little bit in heat," explained her owner as Bertie investigated delicious smells. Sadly she wasn't interested AT ALL and told him so with a snarl. He took off at a full sprint, presumably to show her what she was missing. He's such a dorky teenager sometimes.

Sunday: Spent most of the day in the front garden, weeding, weeding, weeding. There's some ghastly weed taking over the front garden and lawn and I don't even know what it is. It's feathery, a bit like an asparagus fern but juicier, and the whole thing's segmented, so when you grab hold of it, it falls apart. Every last little bit that falls on the ground grows into a new plant. The roots are segmented too, so you can't dig it out without sieving all the soil. It's everywhere. Meanwhile on the other bed, along the wall, the convolvulus was regaining a foothold. Its alternative name is "devil's guts", because of the root system. Again, almost impossible to get rid of.

Hey, it's time to go home! I'll have to finish this tomorrow. If I get time ...

Amusing incident from this morning's walk: I was walking along the pathway that cuts through the meadow and heard the drumming of Bertie's feet behind me. Knowing he likes to sprint right past, I sidestepped to let him by.

I sidestepped the wrong way and he slammed into the back of my legs at full speed. We were both pretty surprised, but there were no injuries.

I went down to Hawes Inn[warning: link has irritating popup advert] today to the auction viewing. It was quite odd -- the bar was still open, but they had been running the stock down for so long there was almost nothing left. "A Becks then." "No, sorry, there's none left." "Coke?" "No." And so on.

And everything had a little numbered sticker on it.

The variety is mind-boggling. Some samples of what's on offer:

Lot 36: 2 X REPLICA FLINT LOCK PISTOLS
Lot 52: 9 LITRE H20 FIRE EXTINGUISHER
Lot 186: DARTBOARD, CABINET & SPOTLIGHT
Lot195: 1 X LARGE SHIPS WHEEL
Lot 209: APPROX 21' OF BRASS FOOTBAR
Lot 465: CURTAIN IN ROOM 19
Lot 599: LENGTH OF STEEL CHAIN AT FRONT OF BUILDING

Things I'm interested in:
Lot 311: FRAGATO SIGLO XVIII MODEL SHIP
Lot 313: 4 OIL PAINTINGS OF HIGHLAND SCENES
Lots 441-447 PR OF NAVAL PRINTS

The oil paintings are lovely -- small, romantic Victorian views of lochs and glens and bens, with sheep and long-horned cattle dotted picturesquely about. The naval prints aren't ships-at-sea paintings, but line drawings as if for a technical manual, showing all the rigging and specs. Most are sailing ships, but some are WWI warships, the Dreadnought and such. Very nice. They're all bunched together though. I think whoever buys the first lot gets the rest at the same price.

Registering didn't cost anything so I went ahead, and I've got a number to flash at the auctioneer. I doubt I'll end up buying anything -- there were a lot of dealers there today making copious notes, I don't think us amateurs stand much chance against them. It'll be interesting though.

Things you would have to be mad to buy:
Lot 19: CARPET IN LADIES TOILET
Lot 453: 7 PRS OF BURGUNDY CURTAINS IN PUBLIC BAR

And finally, from the STORE ROOM AND BACK OFFICE:
Lot 551: REALISTIC KAREOKI MACHINE