A tattie, a neep and an ingin / An ingin, a tattie, a neep / An aipple a day keeps the doctor at bay / But an ingin ll dae for a week.
THINGS ON the doorstep, metaphorically speaking, are sometimes the things that get most easily overlooked. For several years I'd promised myself I'd follow the signpost at the foot of Glenogil and visit the Mountains Animal Sanctuary. Well, I've kept my promise for earlier in the week I spent an instructive and entertaining afternoon with Rhona who is stable manager at this equine retirement home.
I WATCHED the hare getting increasingly nervous as we got closer. The dogs were hidden behind a wall but the upper part of my body showed above it. Hares are nocturnal feeders and overnight this one had wandered into a small park which is enclosed with chicken wire to combat the rabbits, and now it had forgotten where it had come in. No doubt it had been attracted by the sweet, young grass which has yet to get its first cut of the season.
“IF YOU lie down with dogs you will get up with fleas” – I've no idea who said that but thankfully, for a while at least, it can't apply in this house. Macbeth has had his Spring trim and as usual he arrived home looking like a picture postcard. For twenty four hours, if we're lucky, he smells fragrant but, sadly, he sees these improving events as an affront to his masculinity and within a day or two he has explored all the darkest, dirtiest corners and reverted to his more normal hideous self.