This morning
There was bitching and whining and moaning and groaning.
There was bitching and whining and moaning and groaning.
That was me!
“I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to get out of bed.
It’s cold and wet and it’s dank and dark and it’s Stormin' Norman” I wailed.
I gazed out of the window morosely to see a giant wheely bin sail across the street, lid gawping open,
and gobble up a mini like a scene out of the witching hour of a Harry Potter movie.
“Winds are reported to be gusting to 164 mph on the Cairngorms” the BBC weather man reported at 8am
“There you see” I accused Himself.
But it was no good.
Himself, my 12 stone Leonberger dog called Aslan, was stood up on the couch; nose pressed up against the window,
eyes glistening and with his Aslan of the Mounties hat stuck firmly in place.
It has to be said that I had invested in a waxed Barbour Stockman coat, the proper job, for dog walking against the Scottish winter rain.
It has a wired hood with double raglan shoulders and with my short legs it’s so long that it goes all the way down to my ankles but alas
in this tempest it would only wrap around my legs and strangle every effort to walk. So there was nothing else for it
but to don my ocean pro racing sailing gear, sailing boots, high fit salopette trousers and cagoule with day glow hood.
Aslan crouched impatiently while I notched up the extreme weather flap and pulled down the hood until the ring contracted around my face
…early morning puffy eyes and a red nose.
Aslan raised an eyebrow in doggy contempt at the human condition.
Thus equipped we ventured out.
We were met by a wall of wind that pinned us to the porch as if by a supernatural sumo wrestler applying a submission choke hold and a triple Nelson.
Aslan was ecstatic and acting all giddy, bouncing around as if I had arranged it all especially for him, the same when he sees the snow.
It’s as if he sais Goody I’m home.
Apparently this storm was nicknamed Hurricane Bawbag by Scottish wits on twitter
(Bawbag is a friendly insult in reference to the gentleman’s area)
Debris shotgunned by us.
However nothing can deter Aslan from studying a sniff, no matter the weather. He looks it up, he looks it down,
he’ll taste it like a master sommelier.
He enters into a demagogic state and the outside world fades into nothingness.
No frantic calls from his owner or heaves on the lead make any difference.
He’s also very choosy about which wall and pavement he’ll poop on.
Usually the narrowest pavement is the one he like the best so that everybody that passes on the school run
has to squeeze by on tiptoes around his bulk.
Miserably I dug cold hands deeper into my pockets as we were machine gunned by hail and sleet.
Aslan had reserved a special for this morning, a double scooper, so called because one hand
couldn’t possibly handle all the material into the poop bag.
In fact especially for this morning he had conjured a two bag double scooper.
The question is how to separate the bags which had congealed into a soggy mess with your gloves on, peel one away from another,
and agitate it until it opens. Five minutes later I creaked down and settled into the poop-scoop crouch and reached into my pocket
for the prepared poop bag. The technique requires a precise pincer motion of the two hands until the fingers meet, lifting them up together.
I’ve got it down to a fine art. I was almost there in this delicate procedure when the wind whipped it of out my hands and flung it into the ether.
It did a mad dance in the air, pirouetted, and then in a surreal Homer Simpson moment plunged straight back at us.
We fled in panic.
“Oh the shame of it” I exclaimed recovering my breath
“Chased down the street by your own poop bag.”
One bag left.
Do or die.
I assumed the position, grasping very firmly onto the last remaining bag and carefully loaded all the material into the bag.
The wind buffeted me around as if I was on the heeling deck of a transatlantic racing yacht
As I was looking down with pride on this accomplishment the wind shrieked demonically
and tore the last bag, poop and all, into the heavens……......!?!
It should have entered Norwegian air space as I speak.
God knows what the Norwegian rapid response jets will make of it.
I can just see it
“ Yah,Yah, another Scottish bawbag.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
PS A wind speed of 148 mph was recorded within 1k of us.
“I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to get out of bed.
It’s cold and wet and it’s dank and dark and it’s Stormin' Norman” I wailed.
I gazed out of the window morosely to see a giant wheely bin sail across the street, lid gawping open,
and gobble up a mini like a scene out of the witching hour of a Harry Potter movie.
“Winds are reported to be gusting to 164 mph on the Cairngorms” the BBC weather man reported at 8am
“There you see” I accused Himself.
But it was no good.
Himself, my 12 stone Leonberger dog called Aslan, was stood up on the couch; nose pressed up against the window,
eyes glistening and with his Aslan of the Mounties hat stuck firmly in place.
It has to be said that I had invested in a waxed Barbour Stockman coat, the proper job, for dog walking against the Scottish winter rain.
It has a wired hood with double raglan shoulders and with my short legs it’s so long that it goes all the way down to my ankles but alas
in this tempest it would only wrap around my legs and strangle every effort to walk. So there was nothing else for it
but to don my ocean pro racing sailing gear, sailing boots, high fit salopette trousers and cagoule with day glow hood.
Aslan crouched impatiently while I notched up the extreme weather flap and pulled down the hood until the ring contracted around my face
…early morning puffy eyes and a red nose.
Aslan raised an eyebrow in doggy contempt at the human condition.
Thus equipped we ventured out.
We were met by a wall of wind that pinned us to the porch as if by a supernatural sumo wrestler applying a submission choke hold and a triple Nelson.
Aslan was ecstatic and acting all giddy, bouncing around as if I had arranged it all especially for him, the same when he sees the snow.
It’s as if he sais Goody I’m home.
Apparently this storm was nicknamed Hurricane Bawbag by Scottish wits on twitter
(Bawbag is a friendly insult in reference to the gentleman’s area)
Debris shotgunned by us.
However nothing can deter Aslan from studying a sniff, no matter the weather. He looks it up, he looks it down,
he’ll taste it like a master sommelier.
He enters into a demagogic state and the outside world fades into nothingness.
No frantic calls from his owner or heaves on the lead make any difference.
He’s also very choosy about which wall and pavement he’ll poop on.
Usually the narrowest pavement is the one he like the best so that everybody that passes on the school run
has to squeeze by on tiptoes around his bulk.
Miserably I dug cold hands deeper into my pockets as we were machine gunned by hail and sleet.
Aslan had reserved a special for this morning, a double scooper, so called because one hand
couldn’t possibly handle all the material into the poop bag.
In fact especially for this morning he had conjured a two bag double scooper.
The question is how to separate the bags which had congealed into a soggy mess with your gloves on, peel one away from another,
and agitate it until it opens. Five minutes later I creaked down and settled into the poop-scoop crouch and reached into my pocket
for the prepared poop bag. The technique requires a precise pincer motion of the two hands until the fingers meet, lifting them up together.
I’ve got it down to a fine art. I was almost there in this delicate procedure when the wind whipped it of out my hands and flung it into the ether.
It did a mad dance in the air, pirouetted, and then in a surreal Homer Simpson moment plunged straight back at us.
We fled in panic.
“Oh the shame of it” I exclaimed recovering my breath
“Chased down the street by your own poop bag.”
One bag left.
Do or die.
I assumed the position, grasping very firmly onto the last remaining bag and carefully loaded all the material into the bag.
The wind buffeted me around as if I was on the heeling deck of a transatlantic racing yacht
As I was looking down with pride on this accomplishment the wind shrieked demonically
and tore the last bag, poop and all, into the heavens……......!?!
It should have entered Norwegian air space as I speak.
God knows what the Norwegian rapid response jets will make of it.
I can just see it
“ Yah,Yah, another Scottish bawbag.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
PS A wind speed of 148 mph was recorded within 1k of us.