A breath of fresh air from Scotland

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 the 'Weekly' Category

Emotion recollected in tranquillity

Saturday, February 4th, 2012
Weekly

IT’S SO frustrating! About ten days ago I was electrified to see a small flock of long tailed tits mobbing the bird feeder outside the kitchen window. There were seven or eight, or there might even have been nine of these delightful, tiny feathered lollipops. Flickering in amongst the coal tits and great tits, fighting to get a share of the food, there was so much movement I couldn’t count just how many there were. They were the first long tailed tits I’d seen in the garden although they are birds of the woodland fringe and we are surrounded by beech trees. (more…)

Written for Weekly |

Go west, young man

Saturday, January 28th, 2012
Weekly

IT’S TANTALISING to contemplate – had it not been for a hasty decision by his father, Robert Burns might have grown up in Glenesk. (more…)

Written for Weekly |

Dog’s life

Saturday, January 21st, 2012
Weekly

NEVER WORK with children and animals – don’t tell me about it! (more…)

Written for Weekly |

If you want to get ahead get a horn

Saturday, January 14th, 2012
Weekly

IMPERIAL HEAD – a term possibly more readily associated with heads of state or empires, but last weekend the Doyenne and I saw at least one. (more…)

Written for Weekly |

Cough mixture

Saturday, January 7th, 2012
Weekly

OLD SOLDIERS can sometimes only surrender to overwhelming force. The gales brought down a number of venerable beech trees round the house – and a rather rarer Scotch pine has measured its length too. Beeches have a normal lifespan of about 150-200 years and as the woods round here were planted around the end of the eighteenth century it’s no great surprise that there were casualties. (more…)

Written for Weekly |

Harping on

Saturday, December 31st, 2011
Weekly

THE STOOL of Repentance glowers balefully from the corner of the room. My protestations that it would have been ungracious to refuse the offers of seconds of our daughter-in-law’s delicious Christmas dinner – with just a splash of wine to help it down – fell on deaf ears. I fear that, even now, the Doyenne still doesn’t understand me. (more…)

Written for Weekly |

Cold dis-comfort

Saturday, December 24th, 2011
Weekly

CHILBLAINS USED to be a common winter complaint, but you hardly hear them mentioned these days. (more…)

Written for Weekly |

Local links

Saturday, December 17th, 2011
Weekly

LAST SATURDAY the name of Peter Anson popped out at me from the centre pages of the Daily Telegraph. It was unexpected because he died in 1975 but he had strong connections with the east coast of Scotland and Montrose. Beneath a reserved exterior was an unconventional character and I wish I could have met him more than the two times I did. (more…)

Written for Weekly |

The old ones are best

Saturday, December 10th, 2011
Weekly

ROE DEER have drifted back deep into the shelter of the woods. Old laurel and rhododendron bushes provide shelter from the snow which fell on Tuesday evening, and the dogs and I disturb them when we’re out on the morning walk. (more…)

Written for Weekly |

Swept under the carpet

Saturday, December 3rd, 2011
Weekly

LIFTING CARPETS can be revealing. A reader, lifting her old living room carpet to lay a new one, came across some pages of The Courier and Advertiser of Saturday August 27, 1994 which had been used for underlay. 1994 isn’t so very long ago – unless, of course, you weren’t even born then – but the old paper has provided fascinating reading. (more…)

Written for Weekly |