Saturday 29 November 2008

Monday 24 November 2008

The '45

Another birthday.

As part of my mother's drive to help us out in our temporarily straitened financial circumstances, my presents consisted of money, beer, lightbulbs for the kitchen, de-icer for the car, and tinned tuna for the cats.

She's no' daft, Martha.

;0)

...and talking of Jorja

I posted this on OM already, but it's short, to the point, and accurate.

Marion phoned Lamington on Friday evening, the wee dug having been in for a week. "Great wee dug" says Mr Gibson. "Really clever. And she's no' a big wuss, like your other dug."

I had a notion he would maybe take to her. She spent the first two nights in her kennel barking, apparently, but settled down after that.

This week, she will be mainly getting sheep aversion therapy.

Catch Up

What's been happening then?

I decided last Friday that the weather forecast looked reasonable enough to head back to Kinlochleven and have another go at Binnein Beag. Andy was up for it, but we both thought an early start was in order. I was actually up almost as soon as the alarm went, and I picked him up just after 7. Reasonable drive up, and we were walking by 9:30. I had Molly, and Andy took Cara.

Molly was good. When she's at heel, she's pretty impressive. I'd be fairly confident of keeping her under control, regardless of distractions, if she was there at my side to begin with. Not convinced about "long distance" control yet, and I reckon that might require a lot more practice of the Gundog Man's patented "extending lead and choke chain" method. If I can bring myself to do that, of course.

There was a fair bit of snow about, quite deep in places. I was surprised at the extent of it, and that made progress a bit slow. For future reference, I worked out what I had done wrong last time. You should take the left turn on the stalker's path where it looks as as if it's going to take you up Binnein Mor. It then levels out again, and deposits you at the path which leads on towards the left of Sgurr Eilde Mor, and thereafter towards the col from which you need to descend before climbing up again to the foot of Binnein Beag. That zigzag path on the map is actually going down, not up. Idiot. ;0)

Sgurr Eilde Mor looked quite fetching.




By the time were on the way up the other side though, we were getting a bit concerned about the amount of daylight we had left. I didn't think we had been walking all that slowly, but it had taken us about three & a half hours to get to a point where we could see the wee lochan at the foot of Binnein Beag, and by that stage it was well after 1pm.

There was at least another 45 minutes or so left in getting to the top and back to the lochan. After a couple of minutes swithering, we elected to go for it. We both had headtorches, and a lot of the route is on a landrover track, after all.

It was steep and it was snowy, but our estimate was about right and as it turned out, we were on the summit at almost exactly 2 o'clock.

Of course, that meant we had been walking for four and a half hours, and there was only about two and a half hours of daylight left - but hey, it's another hill done, eh?

The trek back up the zigzag path was nae fun, I don't mind admitting.








The view back towards Binnein Beag was nice enough, though.

As it turned out, we made rather good progress on the way back to the Mamore Lodge. Three hours, on the button. We didn't need the headtorches until we were five minutes from the car.

The dug was knackered. She spent all of Sunday sleeping, and hasn't actually moved that much today either. She's no' a wee hill dug like Jorja!

Wednesday 19 November 2008

Long Week

Four days solid in court all last week, and another four this week. Still, it could have been worse - at least they put this week's stuff back from Monday to Tuesday.

I can't say I'm confident of success in either.

I would argue, however, that I have had limited material to work with.

:0/

Saturday 15 November 2008

Because I can...

Gratuitous music "video".

:0)

Friday 14 November 2008

Sorry to hear that.

It's all to do with your age of course.

Jack Scott was a bit of a - I don't know - cult figure? Fixture? Reminder of my childhood?

Whatever. He always struck me as an awfy nice guy. And the weather's important.

Hey..

Fuck me - it worked!

;0)

Testing testing

You can put videos from Youtube into posts, apparently.

Mixed Feelings

Well, obviously. For one thing, Molly's back but Jorja's taken her place at the training.

Thre's no doubt that the fella has got her walking to heel, chasing her ball and sitting & staying - all in a field of sheep. I know this to be true, because I saw it.

He's old school, I think. It's choke chains and giving the dug a skelp if she doesn't do what she's meant to immediately.

So that's the other reason for the mixed feelings.

Having said that, even if it is a form of aversion therapy I freely admit that six months ago I'd have stuck the dogs in with a ram so that they got a proper doing, if it would have avoided the livestock-related unpleasantness that we've had with them.

We've to pretty much keep Molly on the lead when we're down the park over the next four or five days, so that it gets reinforced that she's no' the boss. And we're generally going to be firmer with her in the house. She disny get rewarded for doing what she's told. That's the natural order of things.

I'm missing the wee dug already. It'll go one of two ways. Either he'll tell us next weekend - when we're allowed a phone call - that she's the best dog he's ever worked with, and we should breed from her, or he'll be phoning us by Wednesday asking that we take her home 'cos she's so determined to chase things that his methods are useless.

At that stage, there'd be nothing for it but to send her to a dog psychologist. It'll come as little surprise to the attentive reader that Mr Gibson isn't much persuaded by the whole dog psychologist thing.

"No, she doesn't get 'separation anxiety'. She's a dug."

;0)

There was nary a backward glance from Jorja as she wandered off with him today. Just as well, or else she'd probably have been wandering straight back into the car.




I'm away for a drink.

Thursday 13 November 2008

Three Weeks Already

I'm enormously excited about getting Molly home tomorrow, completely regardless of the training outcome. It's tempered an awful lot though - and I'm surprised by this myself - by how reluctant I am to let the wee dug go. It's partly because she's been a changed animal since Molly went, I think. The concept that three weeks ago I could have got Jorja to sit at the front door while I opened it, left it open, and walked to the car without her moving a muscle until she's called, still astonishes me.

Training, I suppose.

Tuesday 11 November 2008

Dugupdateagaintoo

Apparently he can now throw a ball for Molly into a field of sheep, and she'll happily run in and retrieve it and no' even look at them.

Witchcraft, that's the only possible explanation.

Monday 10 November 2008

Dugupdateagain

He can't get Molly to chase sheep. She's not interested when she's walking outside the field that they're in. She's not interested when a sheep comes out of the field. She's not even interested when she's in their field, off the lead!!!.

What can you say?

:0/

Permanently Running Late

I know I could just change the dates on these posts when I'm not attending to them on the day in question, but that seems like cheating, a wee bit.

The forecast last Friday wasn't awful appealing, so I was on my own so far as a walk was concerned. I couldn't be bothered with a massive drive, so the original idea to have a go at Chno Dearg and whatever the one next to it's called was sidelined. I elected to head for Kinlochleven so that I could maybe pick off Binnein Beag. I recalled from previous visits that it seemed sheep-free, and it maybe wasn't all that strenuous - a long walk rather than a steep one.

I should have got up earlier. I can clearly remember when I started hillwalking, and was invariably alone, that I'd maybe be driving through Callander or somewhere just as it was getting light! That would have to mean a 5am rise at this time of year, so I must have been hellish keen in the olden days. As it was, I got up about 6:15, messed around, looked out the window at the rain etc, etc, and eventually arrived at the Mamore Lodge Hotel at about half ten. Walking by quarter to eleven. That should just have been enough time...if I hadny wasted quite a bit of it doing unanticipated navigation practice. Entirely my own fault. I fell into the classic hillwalker's trap of thinking that because I'd been along that track before, and had an idea in my head of where everything was, I didn't need to pay too much attention to the map even although there was a thick fog by the time I decided I could strike across the boggy heathery stuff towards Loch Eilde Mor. A brief pause and then a reassessment had me back on the right road, but I then fell into the second classic hillwalkers trap of thinking "I'm looking for a path on the left. There is a path on the left. Therefore that is the path I'm looking for."

Actually, that may be a syllogism, rather than a trap. If it is, then although I may not be able to navigate, at least I'm still a pretentious pain in the erse.

Anyhoo, this was all eating into the rather neat time window that I had allowed myself, and as the weather was deteriorating rapidly I felt a dignified retreat was in order. Yet again.

The good news is that Jorja thoroughly enjoyed herself. It's a cracking walk for the dugs. I'll head back up, as soon as a decent weather forecast reveals itself.

Thursday 6 November 2008

Notarised!

Managed to collar the local "power that be" today. Affidavits no longer hold any fear for me. Now I just need a seal...

Nah - that'd be too obvious.

;0)

Wednesday 5 November 2008

Dugupdate


Marion had phoned Lamington on the Saturday, as arranged. Molly's a "smart big dug, smashing animal". She hadn't, however, been eating properly - no doubt because of the whole new environment - so she was going to get offered prime steak mince for her dinner that night.

Smart dug indeed.

Saturday Morning...

...started with a text from Andy at about 7:30am that he wasn't going to be able to make it up to meet us. What I should have done was leapt from my sleeping bag, rushed the two yards to Gordy's tent and encouraged him to get up immediately, so we could make an early start, and avoid yesterday's dark descent. What I actually did was sent him a text saying Andy wisny coming, so we could stay in bed.

We started the assault on Stob Coir'an Albannaich (a) a bit late, and (b) in slightly the wrong place. This inevitably led to a decision being made, after a fairly miserable clamber up 300m of wet, grassy, rocky, steep rubbish that today probably wasn't going to include a successful ascent.

So we ran away back to the car, drove to Kilmahog and had cheesy chips at The Lade Inn. Followed by a wee visit to their real ale shop.

What a good weekend!

:0)

Monday 3 November 2008

Trick or Treat

So, Halloween turned out better than most years. Day off work. Left the house around 8am, and after a bit of a delay in the morning traffic, I was at Doune to meet Gordy by about 9-ish. Transferred the impressive contents of his boot into mine, and we set off for Glen Etive.

We could probably have made better time on the road up, but it was a nice day, and we had Black Ice on the stereo, so sometimes you can't rush these road trips.

We started walking at about 11:45, in rather spiffing weather. It has to be said though that once we got higher up, it was a darn sight colder than I had been expecting. The wind felt a lot stronger than the forecast had suggested, and there was a right good windchill making its presence felt. Matters weren't helped by me walking slower than an elderly arthritic tortoise, as my legs had decided to use the snowy slopes of Glas Beinn Mhor for cramping practice. (See what I did there?)

It took a wee while to get to the top, and although the views were beautiful, we elected not to hang about, and indeed to head back down the way we had ascended, as it was clear that it was going to be dark before we made it back to the car. At the end of the day, we were probably only walking by the light of the headtorches for about 20 minutes or so, but I wouldn't have wanted to have left it any later.

Gordy has his usual fine selection of photies here.

After that, we repaired to the Red Squirrel Campsite in Glencoe. Good site, but most of its signage had clearly been done by someone a wee bit unbalanced. Hmm.

However, our timing had become a lot better by then, because we got there early enough to book in, have a beer in the car, pitch the tents and then get down to the Clachaig for food, more beer, and a heavyweight folky duo belting out classics for the tourists.

A cracking day, all things considered.