I’m not sure if they were disturbed by the sound of hooves drumming on the roof, but Beanie & Biggles got out of their crates and snuggled into bed with us at about 5 am this morning. They managed to contain their excitement until about 6.30 am before hauling us out of bed to let them out into the garden. We couldn’t believe it when we got out there – patches of brilliant blue sky, sunshine, golden clouds and large flakes of snow drifting down.

What a great start to christmas! Beanie and Biggles celebrated as only they know how:

A chase around the garden

Some tail biting

A punch up

And a quiet sniff

After breakfast we set off for our morning walk on the beach. It was beautiful – it’s such a shame we didn’t have the camera with us. The sky and sea were blue and clear and the sun was shining. It almost looked like a warm summers day if you ignored the snow frosting on the sand and the snow covered peaks of Aran towering out of the sea like a huge iceberg. There were a few dog walkers on the beach but it’s so vast that they were just little dots on the horizon. Silence apart from the sound of the waves lapping onto the beach…and Beanie and Biggles ‘aarrff, aaaarff, aaarrrfffing’ of course!

Just as we got back to the car and were about to drive off another Beagle arrived. Her owner shouted over “Is that Beanie and Biggles by any chance?”. It was  Bundy and her owners who’d recently written to Beanie and Biggles via their blog to welcome them to Ayrshire. Bundy lives just a few miles away from us and goes to the beach regularly – they got along very well so hopefully they’ll turn out to be great buddies. It turned out Beanie and Bundy are related. Bundy’s dad is Newlin Sailor and Beanie’s mum is Newlin Kelsey – both share an ancestor in Newlin Nonesense (very fitting!). Although I have to say that Paul and I think Bundy is actually a Collie in a Beagle suit – she’s FAR too good to be a Beagle. Here’s hoping that some of it rubs off on our two!

Next it was back home for Christmas presents. We had two fantastic presents on order for Beanie and Biggles but sadly neither turned up. We were let down over the first, a superb play kennel, but happily ‘Uncle Fergus’ (our Neighbours Nephew who built our Beagle proof back fence) is going to custom build one for us.  The second, a portable lure coursing set which we were importing from America  has been sitting in customs for a week! We didn’t have time to get anything else at the last minute so I improvised by popping a few tasty treats in cardboard boxes, wrapping them and then putting all the little boxes in a big box along with a handful of treats. Two Beagles have never had a better present – it took them about 20 minutes but they destroyed it completely and loved every minute.

We wound up the day with Christmas Dinner and chews:

And then slept it off on the sofa (Beanie decided she didn’t approve of the plan to keep her off the new cream leather sofa):

I must immediately confess that the title of this post is not entirely accurate. Firstly, the cow in question may actually be a young bull (I never got close enough to check its naughty bits) and secondly it was actually our neighbor’s garden that was invaded, not our own. Even so, it was quite something to look out of our bedroom window and see this:

Seemingly it’s quite a regular occurrence. Another of our neighbors has a pock-marked front garden thanks to a major cattle-trampling, and apparently an adult bull was in our front garden in the early hours of the morning a few days ago. Sadly we never heard or saw anything of it, and our less than stellar guard dogs never made a sound. Similarly my boy Biggles – who thoroughly enjoys woofing at the farmer’s cattle when they’re safely secured in the field opposite our back garden – fell strangely quiet when one of them turned up just a few yards and one thin fence away from his home territory.

Dad! There’s a blummin’ cow next door!

Think I’ll just keep my head down though – it’s bigger than me

Back indoors we’re finally getting down to unpacking the last few boxes left over from our move. For once Beanie and Biggles are being genuinely helpful with disassembling the boxes ready for binning, though the Biggly boy did have a little set back at one point..

Sometimes my boy’s pretty smart, other times he acts like a fully paid up member of the Hard of Thinking Club. This was one of those times.

We awoke this morning to a blanket of snow. Beanie and Biggles headed straight out to the garden for a pre-breakfast romp.

C’mon Mum!

How to play double tuggy

And how not to do it

Beanie wins!

Biggles prepares to retaliate

And attacks!

But Beanie counters!

And the chase is on!

A new Beagle-proof fence at the bottom of the garden is now complete. Behind the cute little gate is our secret garden – a little burn and a riverbank full of wildlife. It’ll be fun for the dogs to go out there for a paddle when they’re supervised.

Doesn’t it look inviting?

It was soon time for our morning walk. The sky was blue, the sun was blazing and everywhere was crisp and white. We decided to give the beach a miss and head for the cycle track.