🎶Consider yourself at home
Consider yourself one of the family🎶
A verse inspired by our newest family member, Bordeaux Callie, a nine-week-old BC puppy…
A pup’s mum and dad may bequeath
To their offspring a fine set of teeth,
But let us be clear
You’ve nothing to fear,
Unless, it appears, you’re a leaf!
Biking on the Black Isle
I’ve always wanted a Brompton folding bicycle, so what do you think was the chance of Management getting herself a new electric Brompton and me acting in an entirely composed and mature manner?
Quite right, no chance; “If you’re having one then so am I!” was the measured response, so, many £££ later, we find ourselves camped at Rosemarkie with his’n’hers e-Bromptons at the ready for a 21 mile power-assisted round trip to Cromarty.
The outward leg on a single-track road along the spine of the Black Isle was a hoot. The first part was all uphill for at least three miles and it was a breeze; cue a pair of smug grins. Then downhill into Cromarty – our first time there and it’s a lovely wee place – for a hardly-deserved tea stop.
Unfortunately we then got drenched in a heavy rain shower and thought about folding the bikes and catching a bus back to Rosemarkie (try doing that with a normal bike), but decided instead to set off and cycle back via the Cromarty Firth coast road.
Or at least I thought we were going to set off. Looking back I couldn’t see Management so, after a few minutes, I retraced my steps thinking she must be chatting to someone. She was, to a German chap who was asking if she was all right as she lifted herself off the grass verge after a controlled fall that was her only means of getting to a position from which she could untangle her shoelace that had wrapped itself around her chainwheel.
The route back was slightly longer than the outward trip and involved another seemingly endless uphill drag. We’d swapped batteries at the bottom because Management’s was already partly discharged when we’d set off and her’s was running out of juice. That meant she got full power assist to the top using my battery whereas I had to be more cautious using hers and work harder.
It is testament to the capabilities of these batteries and motors that she gradually pulled away to crest the hill several hundred metres ahead of me when I’m supposed to be the cyclist in the family. Still, we both got there and had a long, fast downhill run back into Rosemarkie.
… and here’s the limerick…
To avoid a whole lot of pain
A lady should always refrain
From crashing her bike
– or exploits suchlike –
When her shoelace gets stuck in her chain.
They’re barking mad!
It’s not long now before we pick up a new addition to the family, an eight week old Border Collie pup (subject to a vet check, of course). We’ve whittled down a long list of possible names and the favoured one right now is ‘Callie’ (we’re getting a girl) which is short for ‘Bordeaux Callie’.
The ‘Bordeaux’ bit was an afterthought and only included because it’s the sort of play-on-words that amuses me. Firstborn added to it by suggesting ‘Brigitte Bordeaux’, which also amused me, but if I’m calling for a dog across parkland I think ‘Callie’ will suffice.
I’ve been told that owning a Border Collie will be challenging and I should have gone for a labrador (yawn!), but I’ve known a couple of them in my time and neither was as challenging as is often stated. Mind you, here’s what the YourPureBredDog website says about the breed…
“One of the most intelligent of all breeds, the Border Collie is also one of the most challenging to live with.”
“His superior intellect, combined with his intensity and obsessive zeal for working, are his most impressive features – and also the ones that make him unsuitable for most homes.”
“Without physical and mental stimulation, Border Collies become hyperactive and will drive you up the wall with obsessive and destructive behaviors as they seek creative outlets for their physical and mental energy.”
“High intelligence does mean they learn very quickly – but that includes learning how to do anything they set their minds to. They are master escape artists who can virtually pick the lock on your gate.”
“You must stay one step ahead of this challenging breed, and most households are simply not up to the task.”
“Well”, he says confidently, “we’ll see, won’t we?”. Here’s the limerick:
They said ’twas the ultimate folly,
And asked had he gone off his trolley,
When he let them all know
He was shortly to go
And bring home a young Border Collie!
Postscript 1: Such is the way of the world these days, that I thought that I should Google ‘Bordeaux Callie’ just to make sure the name had no unsavoury connotations. I didn’t find an exact match, but apparently Callie Bordeaux was the name of a character played by Lindsay Wagner in a TV movie from 1981 called ‘Callie & Son’. “No”, I’d never heard of it either. Anyway, it’s good to know that our pup’s name won’t be conflated with that of a courtesan from a French city!
Postscript 2: Although we are buying a pup from a registered breeder, we are doing so only after trying for a young rescue collie. There were some around, but they were either taken very quickly (I missed out on two of them by fractions – I had real chemistry with one of them, Polly) or they were completely off the wall having not been socialised properly and requiring a very experienced owner with lots of land!
Odious To Joy
This week saw the United Kingdom’s image demeaned worldwide by the sight of a group of its elected representatives turning their backs when the European anthem, Ode To Joy’ was played at the opening of the newly-elected European Parliament.
It was a shameful and puerile attempt to garner cheap publicity by the Brexit Party, led by Nigel Farage and, in the view of some, it was reminiscent of the Nazi party turning its back on the speaker of the Reichstag in 1926.
Indeed, it may be considered more than shameful as Farage has been identified as an alleged fascist on more than one occasion.
In 2013, the Independent newspaper ran a story headed “Nigel Farage schooldays letter reveals concerns over fascism” in which it reported that “Channel 4 News obtains a letter about Ukip leader Nigel Farage, from his days as a schoolboy, in which teachers are quoted as accusing him of being “racist” and “fascist”. Later, a former schoolfriend ‘outed’ him in a similar manner.
Farage has, of course, denied those claims, but one can’t help but recall Mandy Rice-Davies’ response when rebutting Lord Astor’s denial of an affair at the time of the Profumo scandal: “Well he would, wouldn’t he?”.
And then? Well, we then had the unedifying and grossly offensive sight of former UK minister Anne Widdicombe seeking to compare the UK’s exit from the EU with the emancipation of slaves during the nineteenth century. That is the point at which, for once, I agree with one of the Conservative party’s current ministers, David Gauke, who recently said:
“A willingness by politicians to say what they think the public want to hear, and a willingness by large parts of the public to believe what they are told by populist politicians, has led to a deterioration in our public discourse.”
“Rather than recognising the challenges of a fast-changing society require sometimes complex responses, that we live in a world of trade-offs, that easy answers are usually false answers, we have seen the rise of the simplifiers.”
“In deploying this sort of language, we go to war with truth.”
Here’s the limerick:
So, Farage and his execrable chums
Showed the electorate that if it succumbs
To the lies they propound
They’ll soon turn around
And show that they’re nothing but bums.
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