Seeking refuge from the traditional Christmas – i.e. eating too much then falling into a coma on the sofa in front of mind numbingly crap TV – we spent most of Dec 25th out in the hills around Arrochar. We hoped to walk to the top of Ben Ime (the highest of the Arrochar peaks) and celebrate Christmas on the summit huddled in our big orange storm shelter. We were certainly well equipped for the task; in addition to copious layers of clothing, snow spikes, blankets and thermally insulated mats, we had turkey sandwiches, mince pies, some naff tinsel and a small set of battery-operated Christmas lights. Unfortunately our plans went down the toilet faster than projectile vomit from the mouth of a norovirus victim.

The main problem, as you might guess, was the weather. Visibility on the hills was dramatically reduced by heavy mist/fog, and Ben Ime itself was almost completely covered in deep snow. We bravely walked a little of the way up, but our spirit of adventure gave way to common sense when we got hit by a heavy, wind-driven sleet shower. Out came the storm shelter and we hurriedly threw it over ourselves, our Beagles and our rucksacks as we perched on a lump of rock. Ben Ime was no longer on the menu, and sadly neither were the turkey sarnies and Christmas decorations. Why? Well the fact is there’s just not that much room in our shelter, and when you’ve got a hungry, shivering Beanie on your lap the last thing you want to be doing is wrestling with tinsel and sandwich boxes.

I promise I won’t try to eat your sandwiches and mince pies. Honest.

I can’t say it was particularly comfortable in the shelter, but at least it did warm up quite quickly. Whatever material that big orange bag is made out of, it’s good at trapping warm air and keeping out the elements.  Too good in fact. It has two vents to allow gas exchange, but unfortunately/fortunately (depending on your species)  these vents are the perfect size for Beagle heads. Beanie was the first to ram her head down a vent, but shortly after Biggles found the other vent on his side and blocked it also. At this point, both of our Beagles had an unlimited supply of fresh mountain air, while we were trapped inside the shelter with their little furry bottoms. It soon got pretty funky in there I can tell you, even though none of us had consumed any Brussels sprouts yet. When the shower eventually subsided I made a hasty escape!

The sleet shower has gone! Beanie & Biggles join me outside, while Susan – having succumbed to the foul botty gases – remains inside

As often happens, the end of the shower heralded a brief spell of dry, clearer weather and I was able to take a few shots. The Cobbler and Ben Ime never once lost their misty shroud however.

We packed up and started the long trudge back to the car. Every now and then we got a thorough soaking, but at least this time it was just plain rain with little or no wind. Each time a shower passed we were treated to another brief spell of better weather, even the odd burst of sunlight!

Just before we descended into the forest we seized a last chance to put our Christmas decorations to use..

Back at home, chilled to the bone and consumed by hunger, the four us ate enough food for a small army, crashed out on the sofa and fell into a group coma in front of an endless stream of crap compilation shows and repeats on the telly. I guess there’s no escaping Christmas tradition after all!

The next day – following an early run on the beach and a visit to relatives – we finally got round to that other Christmas tradition: opening the presents. Experience has taught us that its largely a waste of money to buy posh pressies for our two doglets. They’re just as happy – happier in fact – with a pile of treat filled boxes to rip apart. Yep, the best way to a waggy Beagle is wanton destruction followed by food!

Fortunately for us, this Nokia box hadn’t housed a mobile phone for some time. Not that Biggles would have cared either way!

Why bother unwrapping when you can just stick your whole head in there?

Of course that technique can result in a bad case of “box-head”

Eventually our two hit upon a couple of boxes holding a something more substantial: tripe-filled bones!

Mid way through her bone, Beanie couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d missed something in one of the boxes. She started rummaging through the debris and eventually confirmed her suspicions: there were still a few crumbs in the box that had come from the Beagles Bakery.

It’s never a good idea to leave your primary treat unguarded though. Biggles may be hen-pecked and beaten down by his sister at times, but he’s still brave enough to swap his mostly finished bone for hers when she’s otherwise occupied..

Simple plans work best: just drop my bone, take hers and scarper to the other side of the room!

Job done!

Surprising though it may seem, Beanie was quite happy with the swap. She’d been having a hard time crunching through the bone to the extra tasty bit in the middle but now she had one that Biggles had prepared for her!

Peace and contentment amid the carnage..

When Bonfire Night comes around we generally get the dog walks done early – before nightfall – to avoid the fireworks. This time around our main walk was really, really early, as in before 5am, and our destination was The Cobbler!

Having walked up The Cobbler (or Ben Arthur, as it’s also called) for sunrise once before we knew it would be very cold up there, so the day before our climb we headed out to Mountain Warehouse in Ayr to get more warm clothing. Mountain Warehouse welcomes dogs so of course we took our two monkeys along for the ride. We were hoping that maybe Beanie could advise on the warmth and softness of fleecy jackets, while Biggles – with his extensive nibbling experience – could be our sock expert. Unfortunately neither of our clothing consultants were much use; Beanie just kept mugging the staff for treats (which were not forthcoming BTW) while Biggles seemed to be overwhelmed by the shopping experience. He has a totally sock-driven view of economics, so when he wound up surrounded by socks in the shop it must have been like a human finding himself in a room filled with stacks of gold and diamonds. With so much wealth on display, where to start?

Fortunately we managed to get some useful new gear without any assistance from the tailed members of our party, and by 4:45 on the 5th November we were on our way up a mountain. Sunrise was due around 7:35. Ordinarily this would have left us with ample time to reach the top before the sun appeared, but we were blissfully unaware there’d been heavy snowfall in the area over the weekend. On the lower sections of the route snow on the path had melted then refrozen making things rather slippy. Higher up, the snow was still thick and soft. This made for surprisingly good grip but concealed the path, making each step an adventure. Sometimes you’d find a solid chunk of rock just under the surface, other times you’d sink right up to you thigh in the white stuff. If it was hard going for us, it was even tougher for the two short arses we had with us. A couple of times Biggles nearly submerged up to his ears and I had to lift him out by the handle on his harness and put him onto more solid ground. Nevertheless, somehow we made it to the central summit just before sunrise.

A brief moment of contemplation before the sun shows itself

I put on Beanie & Biggles’ coats as soon as I could put down my rucksack, but the sun appeared before I had time to put on extra layers myself. As often happens, it actually seemed to get even colder & windier when the sun first rose! Within a few minutes I was fighting to control my shivering and my hands were almost too cold to operate the camera. The shots I got however, were well worth it!

Soon even our hardy pampered Beagles were feeling the cold so Susan deployed our Vango “bothy in a bag”. For  a while I stayed outside taking shots, but that big orange bag kept drawing my attention. It frequently changed shape and I could hear strange munching noses coming from within it, occasionally punctuated by Susan saying things like “Beanie get out of my rucksack” and “Biggles get off Beanie’s head”.

When I couldn’t take the cold any longer I sought refuge in the shelter and finally got to see what all the commotion was about. Beanie had found a snout-sized opening in Susan’s rucksack and had chomped her way through a substantial number of cheesy biscuits, while Biggles was desperately trying to make a bed in the snow even though Susan had put down our waterproofs for him & Beanie to sit on. Even when he’s on good form Biggles is the most hopeless bed maker in the world; he frequently ends up lying on the plastic base of his crate in the car, with his chin just about resting on his ruckled up vet bed. I mean, how hard can it be to just get in there, circle a couple of times and lie down? Anyway, up on the mountain he kept making rings in the snow then, on discovering that even brushed snow is still cold, he seemed determined to try to sit on Beanie. Sitting on one’s volatile sister is rarely a good idea, but doing it while she’s trying to snaffle more cheesy biscuits is just plain suicidal. Fortunately no argument broke out and with both Susan and me in there, some semblance of order was eventually restored.

Once I’d warmed up a bit I grabbed a couple more shots of the “eye of the needle” rock structure, and then we packed up and turned our attention to thing we were both dreading: the return journey.

The needle structure, with the moon still visible in the upper right corner

A peak through the “eye”. How anybody manages to clamber through that and climb to the top of the  structure is beyond me. One slip and its 900 metres down, the fast way!

Amazingly the journey back down wasn’t the nightmare we expected it to be; if anything it was easier than normal, provided we steered through the fresh snow to the side of the path. Beanie & Biggles loved bounding through the white stuff, and as the sun climbed higher in the sky we could at last feel its warmth.

By the time we reached the last of the Narnain boulders most of the snow and ice was gone, we’d taken off our extra layers and Beanie & Biggles’ coats were dangling from my rucksack. If we’d have known about the snow beforehand we probably wouldn’t have attempted the walk. As it was, we’d seen The Cobbler at its very best, cloaked in snow, and were on our way home to stuff our faces and sleep through the fireworks with clean consciences (not that Beagles ever have any moral concerns when it comes to eating and sleeping).

Believe it or not, that’s the face of a birthday girl. She’s looking glum because last night she somehow twanged either a nail or digit on her front left paw, and this morning she had to miss out on her walk. Worst of all, this new injury was judged not to be worthy of a trip to the vet, which would have made her day. So there she lays, bored and p*****d off on her birthday, taking only minimal solace from the fact that her bum is blocking the remote control signal to the tv.

Before you break out the violins, let’s look at her two hours later:

A timely delivery from The Beagles Bakery saved the day and curiously her injury – though no doubt very serious indeed – somehow failed to cramp her style as she tore into her chocolate “pupcake” and vacuumed up the resulting crumbs. Once she’d finished (and Biggles had devoured his cake too) I sat her on my lap in front of the computer and reminded her that although she’d missed out on her morning walk, she hadn’t missed out on a single second of her pre-birthday adventure in Galloway a few days earlier.

A break in the weather a week before Beanie’s fifth had us heading to a campsite just a few miles from the spectacular Mull of Galloway. We’d been there once before on a day trip but this time, with a the caravan as our base, we were able visit more than just the lighthouse and the rugged coastline it sits on. Our first port of call was Dunskey Castle in Portpatrick.

Dunskey Castle, Portpatrick during the day..

And at sunset…

It was closed to the public so Beanie & Biggles were sadly unable to go inside and give it the thorough sniffing it deserved. In retrospect this was probably a good thing; one or two of the walls didn’t look too stable and our two already have a history of knocking things over. You may recall that Schiehallion ended up a few inches shorter after our last visit to it!

A little further out from our campsite was a quiet little village called the Isle of Whithorn.

Watch out Isle of Whithorn, here comes trouble…

Some years ago the village was used extensively in the original version of the film “The Wicker Man“. We didn’t spot Britt Eckland prancing about in the altogether or Christopher Lee wearing an outrageous wig, but that’s not to say that our visit passed without drama. We took a walk along the coastline near the village, crossing through several fields of cattle. This is ordinarily not a good thing to do with dogs, but the path we were following kept a healthy distance between us and the cows and the outward leg of our walk went without incident.

The views by the coastline were great

Beagles just love clambering over things, and that’s the perfect Beagle assault course, right there

Of course our two had us tied to them which cramped their style a bit.

But still it was a very stimulating walk

The return journey was equally as stimulating, but for a different reason. All the cows that had stayed clear of us before were now blocking our path. We tried to find a route around them but the rising tide put a stop to that. In the end we just had to brave it and weave our way through them. The prevailing advice for dog walkers who encounter cows is simply “let the dogs off lead” but that’s not really an option with two crazy Beagles, so Susan went ahead in an attempt to clear the path for me and the pups. It worked, but at any point I knew a baying frenzy could easily have brought them down us or caused a stampede. Amazingly The Bigglet, who normally can be relied upon to open his gob at the worst possible time, stayed quiet. Our boy is daft as a brush, but apparently even a brush knows to zip it when surrounded by thirty or more cows. We made it safely back to the village, and celebrated by visiting nearby St Ninian’s cave.

The cave isn’t particularly big and is completely “open plan”, but it does have a rather nice view of the pebbly beach below it. I guess it’s like they always say in the property programmes on the tv: “location, location, location”

Sadly those cows weren’t the only danger we faced during the holiday. The second threat to our safety began during one lunch in the caravan. Susan was preparing a salad, and as usual this put both our Beagles on red alert for food nicking opportunities. At one point, Beanie made a play for the inside of the fridge, causing Susan to quickly rest her plate on the edge of the raised kitchen area. As I moved to grab Beanie’s collar, I looked up at Biggles and suddenly  everything went into slow motion. Susan’s plate was now level with Biggles’ nose, putting a sizeable dollop of cheesy coleslaw within easy reach. Whereas Beanie would have hurriedly snatched some and scarpered, Biggles took his time. He studied it for a moment, then opened his mouth and paused again, adjusting the angle of his head to achieve the largest possible intake with a single mouthful. As I pointed with my free hand and struggled to raise the alarm to Susan, Biggles slowly and deliberately closed his jaws around the small mountain of coleslaw, taking probably 90% of it in one go. The terrible repercussions of this artful piece of food nickage were not felt until the following day…

The best part of the holiday was always going to be our return to the Mull of Galloway, and this time we planned to see it in dawn light. An early start was required of course, and by six a.m. the four of us were in the car and well on our way. As we drove though the darkness both Susan and I became aware of intestinal gurgling sounds even above the road noise. It was coming from behind us – specifically from one of the dog crates. Though Biggles was seemingly in a peaceful sleep, his digestive system was working over time and the pressure was building. Back in World War I, Mustard gas was the scourge of the trenches, but I can tell you, Cheesy Coleslaw gas is pretty damned bad too. By the time we reached our parking spot, I was farting defensively; it was better to breathe in my own than what was coming out of Biggles’ bum.

Things got better once we were out in the fresh air, and armed with headtorches we picked our way through prickly things and stinging nettles until we were close to our sunrise viewing location. Before we could set up camp I had some intestinal pressure of my own to relieve, and it wasn’t gas. There was nothing for it but to do what bears do in the woods, even though I wasn’t in the woods and wasn’t a bear either for that matter. Unfortunately I didn’t distance myself sufficiently from Beanie, and she got an unexpected pre-breakfast snack. Nothing is disgusting to a Beagle. Nothing.

On a brighter note, we’d chosen our location well – the view along the cliffs to the lighthouse was truly stunning.

That was the first of two sunrises we experienced at the Mull of Galloway. We found another good viewing location: a little promontory, further away from the lighthouse. It was covered in lush grass that made a very comfortable bed for Susan and the Beagles while we waited for the sun…

Biggles fast asleep in Susan’s arms, while beanie snores gently at her feet (under a blankie of course!)

We were only away for four nights, but we packed a lot into Beanie’s fifth Birthday bash. Here are some more of the highlights:

Beanie performs the sacred Biscuit Dance ritual, conjuring forth two meat chip Bonios for herself and Biggles

Sunset approaches on the Mull of Galloway

The pups at a different lighthouse – Killantringan

Killantringan has been decommisioned and is now a guest house

Killantringan post sunset

A sunrise run for Susan and the pups on the beach by our campsite