Excellent Creatures

Peanutbutter on toast

Tonight I have mostly been snuggling with this guy, and drinking wine. He is an excellent listener. As are the excellent humans I spent the evening with.

Fanatical Fido

Banana, spinach, nectarine & mint smoothie

So here is a thing I've been wondering: Downtown Abbey is starting again soon, and Isis the dog is in the promotional photo, but what are they going to do about her (now) unfortunate name. Doesn't seem quite right Lord Grantham fondly cooing her name with all it implies now, but then I suppose Lord Grantham cooing anything is generally bound to make for uncomfortable viewing… Still, Winter is Coming and I love just about any costume drama -- any port in a storm and all that!

Isis, the (non -- one assumes) fanatical pooch.

Yawns and Ghosts

Toast with gooseberry jam.

Writing about other people yawning makes me yawn. That's how suggestible I am. In other news, a woman talking on her mobile phone outside the front of the house scared the crap out of me this evening. I could only just barely make out that the peculiar sound I was hearing was a voice. But it sounded so strange I rather persuaded myself it was supernatural. Having talked myself down, I went to the kitchen and came back to the morning room to discover that the previously closed curtains were now half-open (I think this was the dog's doing). Can't a scaredy cat catch a break?

I Heart Lichen

I went for a walk today in a most splendid wood teaming with moss and lichen and all nice green spongy things. I had mon Papa there, my hound Harry and a dog called Dan. Dan is 90 or so in dog years, but was never-the-less quite determined that he should go bounding in to the river and bark at the water, as he likes to do. We had to run after him to stop him. (It seemed a bad idea to let him get all wet as he's been unwell of late). Dan is a champ.

Eau de Crotte de Mutton

Doppelgnager Shreddies and an apple.

Today I walked up Ben Tianaviag with a couple of Hughs and my hound Harry, who -- I realise -- used the expedition to douse himself in his favourite scent: Eau de Crotte de Mutton.

This is clear to me now that he is curled up in my lap and a familiar smell is wafting its way into my nostrils. And to think how diligently we steered him away from the dead dogfish on the beach, so he wouldn't roll in that. At least that would have been a new olfactory experience; sheep shit is both pongy and prosaic.

First Snowdrops

Toast with raspberry jam, and an apple.

I spotted my first snowdrops whilst taking the dog on his nightly rounds. Only a few were in flower, the rest were just little green shoots pushing up from the soggy, soggy ground and hinting: "spring is coming"...

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Thirty-Sixth

Fruit and Fibre.

It occurred to me, whilst walking the dog in the dark this evening, that the torch I was using has been in use for as long as I can remember. That thing has been going since at least the mid-1980s. It's a big red number, called a Pifco I think. If you need a durable torch, I seriously recommend buying one of these.

When I was little, our Labrador Boo-Boo was always very insistent that she should carry it whenever we were out with her; so, for the first ten years of my life, I was used to negotiating the dark by torch-light that fell at a right angle to the direction in which we were headed.

Harry is too small to carry the torch; but that's no trouble, he has his own disco light -- a flashing blue and red LED light. According to the packet it's visible from up to one mile away.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Thirty-Fourth

Fruit and Fibre.

Harry (the dog) and I went walking and met a seal.  You can just see the top of his head in the photograph below:

There was a fresh dusting of snow and at no point during our one-and-a-half hour or so jaunt did I feel my toes. It was a lovely walk though.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Thirtieth

Fruit & Fibre and Apple Puree

I didn't eat all the puree, I promise. It doesn't look too tasty because I forgot to put lemon juice in to stop the apples turning brown, but it is quite yummy really and has no added sugar, so it comes with added smug (rather like a Prius/Pious.)

The temperature seems to be rising. This I know from the occasional thunderous cascades of snow sliding off the roof and scaring the living daylights out of the dog. Mind you, my dog isn't hard to scare. He doesn't even like the dark. I have to turn the lights on before I can coax him from one room into another.

Breakfasts Two-Hundred-and-Thirty-Six to Forty-Four

You may have noticed an absence of breakfasts posts recently. Fear not, I have merely been on holiday, rather than forgoing "the most important meal of the day" (pictures to follow when I have the energy to wrangle with photoshop).

In keeping with current fashions, I've been staycationing -- in the Hebrides. I borrowed my Mater's car, dognapped my hound from my Pater and braved the ferry in order to visit the Uists, Harris and Lewis with my friend Miss Brown. We returned to Skye with a car full of sand, a dog full of sausages and cameras loaded with pictures of all the wonderful scenes we saw. I cannot recommend a Hebridean jaunt enough.

Breakfasts One-Hundred-and-Ninety-One-and-Two

No. 191: Special K and strawberries.

No. 192: Doppelganger shreddies & blueberries.

Oh golly, I'm losing interest in this News of the World hacking malarkey. I know I probably shouldn't be, but there it is.

These certifiably bananas shark biting dogs were a welcome distraction though...