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

BARLEY STUBBLES, butter yellow when freshly cut, soon turned to faded sun-bleach during the endless days of sunshine we enjoyed over the summer. Now, after a night's heavy rain they look lifeless, which of course they are. Already the ploughs have been into the fields turning under the dead stalks and exposing the brown sheen of next season's tilth ready for sowing.

WHITE PHEASANTS in my experience are even more uncommon than white blackbirds. I saw maybe my fourth such mutant this past week. It's a young cock pheasant and he's completely white except for the scarlet wattles on his cheeks. He was running about the roadside, luckily a back road well away from the heavy traffic. If he doesn't learn his kerb drill fast, he'll be no sort of pheasant at all very soon.

SOME DAYS the world beats a path to our door – or at least the bits of the world we get excited about. Last Saturday was just such a day.

NORTHUMBERLAND'S SWEEPING hills marked journey's end to Hexham. We – the haill unseemly crew of us, that is – were visiting son Robert and his family in their new home just outside the historic town.