
A”CARROT tail”, I read on a Westie website recently, is one of the characteristics of a singularly well-bred West Highland white terrier. Having just had his summer clip Macbeth’s profile (for the time being!) is still pretty clean-cut, and as he trots on ahead of me on our walks it’s surprising how like a well-formed carrot his tail appears. (…read on »)

A KIPPER for my tea on a summer’s evening dislodged a memory that has lain dormant for an age, for kippers and summer holidays are subliminally entwined in my subconscious. (…read on »)

AS WITH so many things, it’s not what you know it’s who you know. The mackerel have arrived at this part of the coast again and a neighbour has presented us with fresh fish caught off the rocks with rod and feather lures. My mother used to be rather snooty about mackerel, saying they were scavengers and fed off the bottom of the sea. But eaten as fresh as possible, ‘from pier to pan’ as they say, they are delicious. (…read on »)

WE’RE DRIVEN demented at the moment by jackdaws. There are plenty in the beech trees round the house and the dogs and I know, when we hear their ‘chack, chack’ calls to each other as we set out for a walk, that we are under surveillance. (…read on »)