Dunkin’ for apples
Mr Pumpkin Head
Listening to ghost stories
A giant pink pig! It doesn’t get much scarier than that!
Trick or treat!
Month: October 2011
Beanie Goes Large
Beanie and Biggles have often used their tugging abilities to stretch one of my socks until it’s big enough fit a seven foot tall basketball player, and now they’ve tugged and tugged at their blog until it too has grown in size. This is a good thing because the little details of their adventures can now be seen more readily, though sadly until someone invents scratch and sniff computers, the smells are still left to the viewer’s imagination.
Speaking of smells, our vet probably raided the supermarket shelves for air fresheners after Beanie’s most recent visit. We took her in for a check up when she suffered a complete loss of appetite following an otherwise minor bout of sickness. As usual Beanie came away with a variety of costly pills and potions for a condition that would most likely have cleared up on its own, but during the course of the examination the vet spotted that her anal glands were kind of full and immediately set about emptying them. Now I’m well aware that anal gland secretions can be pretty foul; I’ve got a t-shirt that received a sample of Biggles’ botty juice and after two washes it still doesn’t smell right. What’s more, Susan has had a go at “milking” Biggles’ glands using the external method and that was pretty bad too, but until that vet visit we’d never witnessed a full purging of the glands using the finger-in-the-bum-hole method. The Beanie juice came out faster than expected, soiled the examination table, and within seconds filled the entire room with an aroma so gross that only the the Scots term “boufing” comes close to describing it. I’d had a roll and sausage not half an hour before and I’m telling you, it was a struggle to keep it down.
It’s never a good idea to get your nose this close to a Beagle bum hole, regardless of whether said Beagle’s anal glands have been recently expressed or not!
Anyway I’ve no idea whether the treatment helped hasten Beanie’s recovery, but in the space of 24 hours she was back to her food-stealing, tea-drinking ways and we were able to take her and Biggles out on a walk together again. For a change of scenery we decided to try out one of the trails around Dundonald castle, and to our surprise we got to enjoy a woodland walk of the length and quality that we’d normally find only in major country parks many miles away from home. We only explored a fraction of the trail, but what ground we did cover was sniffed very thoroughly and enthusiastically by our pups!
A fallen tree presents no obstacle to a pair of intrepid adventurers, even if they are a bit on the short side!
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The Most Southerly Fog Horn in Scotland
Situated on a cliff edge on the Mull of Galloway, this used to be the most southerly fog horn in Scotland:
…until Biggles visited for the day and his distinctive warning siren echoed across the waves to Ireland.
We’d been planning a day trip to the Mull of Galloway since our return from the West Highlands last week and had just been waiting for a sunny day. Quite unexpectedly we opened the curtains on Friday morning and saw clear blue skies and sunshine. We bundled the pups in the car and were on the road within half an hour.
We’d only been out of the car for a couple of minutes when Beanie and Biggles noticed a sign instructing them to “walk this way”. At least, they think that’s what it said. They oblidged with their usual noisy enthusiasm and really couldn’t understand why mum got so upset.
The Mull of Galloway has two fog horns. One is big and red and the other is tricoloured and goes by the name of Biggles”
After exploring the lighthouse and foghorn for a while we headed off on our cliff-top walk. We’d actually planned to run the 10k trail but sadly the sunny day came along when we were really all due a day off from running. So we opted for a walk this time instead and I’m actually very glad it worked out that way. The scenery is just stunning and you really don’t get to appreciate the views quite so much when running. The route runs along the edge of the cliff tops of the West side of the Mull for about 4 kilometers before heading across country then following the East shore back to the lighthouse.
I wouldn’t say that I suffer from vertigo, but I do have a healthy fear of danger. So I was a little alarmed when I saw large warning signs on the gate at the start of the route saying “Dangerous Cliffs – Proceed at your own Risk”. Beanie and Biggles clearly read something very different from me and lunged through the gate and bounded along the path before I had too much time to think about it. You don’t have the option to walk further inland as the farmer has erected a fence to stop live stock toppling over the cliff edge. You’re forced to walk on the cliff side of the fence.
At some points the route ahead looks quite daunting – sheer cliffs with waves crashing against them and the little path winding precariously close to the edge. It’s tempting to reach out and put your hand on the fence to steady yourself. But as I discovered to my cost it is actually an electric fence!
It’s not long before the views back toward the lighthouse start to look truly stunning.
To give you an idea of scale, that tiny dot on the top right is Beanie, Biggles and I!
I don’t know if you can make out the little white dots on this picture? That’s sea foam. The wind was so strong that it was blowing blobs of foam all the way up from the sea and carrying it quite a distance inland.
There are a couple of very short sections where the path winds down to a little rocky beach, but it quickly winds back up onto high cliffs.
This is about as far as the path goes before crossing through fields to the East coast. If you look very closely you’ll see the lighthouse way off in the distance. That’s where our walk started, winding all along the coast. It looks as if the lighthouse is on an island but it is actually connected to the mainland.
The trouble with this time of year is that you run out of daylight very quickly. But fortunately we had the lighthouse to guide us safely back to our car.
