
ALL LUGS and legs. That’s Inka, the new member of the household. Born on 5th May, he’s a Labrador puppy who is showing lots of spirit already. In much the same way we judge youngsters by comparing them to their parents, so Inka is very much a chip off the old block.

GENERAL WADE facetiously nicknamed his red coated road-making soldiers, his ‘highwaymen’. His road building programme undertaken after the 1715 Rebellion or Uprising (depending which side of the historical fence you sit) led by the Old Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie’s father, speeded up the eventual English domination of the Highlands.

SO MUCH activity is going on in the garden that I scarcely know where to start.

THE POET John Dryden wrote of ‘youth, beauty, graceful action’. He might have had in mind the roe deer calf that was standing in the middle of the road as I came bowling round the corner

AMONGST MY fund of ‘utterly useless information’ I have a note that the first patent for barbed wire was taken out in Ohio on 25th June 1867. This set me thinking about how necessary barbed wire really is. Its modern development is called razor wire – for good reason, because it is absolutely lethal stuff. I’ve certainly never seen it used in an agricultural situation.