Welcome to "Man with two dogs" - the family website for dog owners and dog walkers.

This is my countryside diary which appears each Saturday in the Courier & Advertiser newspaper.

Archive for April, 2003

Peace and quiet

Saturday, April 26th, 2003

SQUALLING SEAGULLS, whaups (the Scottish name for curlews) with their bubbling call that sounds like a special stop on an organ console, the cockerel next door, oyster catchers “kleeping”, jackdaws “chacking”, the inevitable cock pheasants showing off to one another, cushie doos or wood-pigeons adding a gentler note to a new dawn chorus. (…read on »)

Written for Weekly |

Street names

Saturday, April 19th, 2003

CHANGING SEASONS bring changing colours to the landscape. Even in the less colourful winter months the countryside never loses its attraction. Then Spring asserts itself bit by bit and we hardly notice. The browns and rusty colours of autumn are being replaced, and the promises of the coming summer are already starting to appear. (…read on »)

Written for Weekly |

Spring activity

Saturday, April 12th, 2003

MY WEEK started about ten past six with the sound of geese passing overhead. They had probably been feeding overnight on fields in The Mearns, in Kincardineshire, and were on their way back to Montrose Basin to roost, and for a wash and brush-up. (…read on »)

Written for Weekly |

Struggling on

Saturday, April 5th, 2003

HIGHLAND CATTLE in the wildest parts of the Lake District seemed rather far from home – but there they were beside the Kirkstone Pass road. The start of the Pass, which climbs from Ambleside and drops down to Ullswater, is known as The Struggle, and it’s easy to understand why. What a struggle it must have been for horses pulling carts up that terrible incline in the early days of the road. (…read on »)

Written for Weekly |