Murphy (15 of 15), originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

Dribbling contentedly on my foot is Murphy. After a brief – but forceful – explanation of exactly how democracy works in our family, it was agreed the black hound of lower hell should go by the name of a Guiness wanabee. And there are good reasons for this, the best of which is my refusal to shout “Ziggy, STOP” if and when the toothy pup starts chewing on someone else’s car tyre.

Such an action is clearly contravening the RULES. This document has a series of non negotiable behavioral patterns as laid down by the pack leader. So for the first time in my married life, there is something organic lower down the hierarchical chain than yours truly. Before Murph arrived, that was a rank allocated to a jar of sandwich pickle.

A brief immersion into the four closely written sides of A4 which constitute the rules will demand said dog shall not:

– Wee, Poo or Barf in any location other than within 10 feet of the compost bin
– Eat the Cat Food, the Cat, the furniture, the kids toys or anything chewy, rubbery and previously representing a mountain bike tyre
– Whine, howl, whimper or bark when shut in the cage*
– Fall headlong into the pond while chasing spiders.

This is merely a summary and once the dog has learned to read, I fully expect them to be followed in full. Until then, and based on experiences so far, almost all of these rules are merely guidelines to be ignored in the spirit of puppidom. So far, I’ve fetched the dog out of the pond, removed a tyre from its’ teeth and given it a stern talking to whenever ‘squatting’ and ‘indoors’ are brought together in a single smelly sentence.

This afternoon I have promised to paint a door. This task is made somewhat harder since Murphy – respecting my status as pack leader – follows me everywhere. It is likely I shall be phoning the emergency vet later this evening to enquire on the correct procedure which follows emulsioning a Labrador.

Cute tho isn’t he? And doesn’t the bugger bloody well know it.

* Although ten years being sort of responsible for children has equipped me with the appropriate tool here. It’s like politicans and whinging kids, if you ignore them long enough, the noise falls back to a background hum.

Scotland has many qualities. The sense of wilderness, the rugged beauty of the mountains, the endlessness of stunning landscapes and some pretty wild riding. Of course, this must be tempered with single digit summer temperatures, moistness from the ground up and the sky down, and a trillion midges hell bent on sucking you dry.

On balance though, a fantastic country to ride bicycles in, as a few chosen photos full of heroism and downright British grit will soon ascertain. However, that’s for later because the photo at the top of this post is clearly lacking anything within chucking distance of mountain bikes, except perhaps for noting that we’ve acquired a singletrack dog.

Large paws, low centre of gravity, short paw-base and excellent additional rear facing steering appendage*. It’s an odd story – today I was still meant to be in Scotland but five days hard riding, dubious ongoing weather and a wrenching missing of the family saw me spend seven hours heading south west last night.

Which led to an apathetic carpet treading furniture buying mission turning into a full on “I tell you what, let’s get a dog” event through a set of coincidences about as likely as finding your sister was also in fact your mother, your aunt and a small bag of aniseed balls.

The rambling antique furniture barn was only gained via a suspension wrecking drive and guarded by a friendly, slobbering Labrador. We quickly discovered that our financial radar was seriously awry because the cheapest thing on offer seemed to cost about the same as a new car. I don’t know what Queen Anne did for the furniture trade, but they’ve repaid her by placing discreet price tags that brought on an involuntary “F*ck ME!”.

I didn’t even dare look at the larger items because I shall never ever be able to part with that much money for something that doesn’t come with about 4 acres of land. Anyway, distraction was adequately provided by a friendly puppy attempting to chew about 15k’s worth of table. He seemed very happy to see us and we discovered he was the last of a litter of 12 and had been returned by a distraught family with a dog allergy.

So with 11 puppies already sold and this one surplus to requirements, it seemed somehow fated that we’d end up spending two hours fetching its’ nose out of – well – everything and trying to find reasons no to add four more legs to the family.

We failed. So meet Murphy. Or Ziggy. Or possibly Max. Although looking at the size of those paws, I’m thinking Beelzebub may be more appropriate

* Those in the know call this a ‘tail‘. To be it looks like a rudder.

Harvest (7 of 12), originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

Aside from the abruptly terminated squeals of those too slow movers deep in the food chain, not much disturbs the peace and quiet of plants growing round here. Except at harvest time, when all manner of noisy machinery stalks the landscape pulling, shredding, lifting, slicing and dicing the crop.

We’ve become accustomed to the rhythmic thump of the bonkers potato grabber, and the whining of heavily overloaded tractors. But tonight, the rapeseed was given a proper mowing by a man piloting a frankly terrifying big, green threshing machine.

Although he appeared fully in control of the behemoth, I did worry that a slight steering miscalculation would see him harvest the Mighty Honda. In fact, both of them and the kids who’d stationed themselves on the car roof for a better view.

When we finally get a lawn, I might ask him for a mates’ rate haircut of our grass.

Not mains gas of course as that would be far too a) easy and b) cheap. At some point in the unspecified future, a man either qualified to mess about with lethal gases, or the proud owner of the Queen’s favourite mutt shall connect Flange ‘B’ to Gusset ‘F’, and the bloody enormous cooker shall be ready for use.

For Carol this means the ability to feed the family using all manner of interesting flames – some confined to the oven, others threatening eyebrow removal up top. For me, it’ll provide the perfect partner for Sunday fryups built around a signature dish of eggy soldiers. I’m not much for cooking but the ‘external thermally coupled griddle with afterburner thrust” is essentially an indoor BBQ, and no real man can resist that.

Until then we were resigned to all weather BBQ’ing augmented by any fine delicacies than can be fried by microwave. But saved we were* by our insanely kind sellers who still live next door, and happened to have a cooker going spare.

This helped the ease the moving trauma which began at an unholy 7:30 this morning, and included such highlights as yours truly being felled by a hail of coat hangers, the terrifying loss of all our booze, and the broken inevitably of two large men being overrun by a large wardrobe.

Still they’ll probably be fine. Spinally compressed and a bit shorter, but basically fine. They build them different out here and I’ll leave you with an example of exactly how different that can be.

Various builders, electricians and random interlopers have been glassy eyed confused on my retelling of how we saw a bridally bedecked tractor heading off to Church this morning. Everyone thought this was strange, me because it’s a TRACTOR for God’s sake, and everyone else not understanding why I should find this amusing.

And when they had all gone, I walked up the hill and spent ten minutes in the viewing company of absolutely bugger all. It may not be for everyone, but here and now it feels bloody fantastic.

* No ariel. No TV. Been practicing my Yoda method acting through repeated viewings.