October 7, 2012 
With only a week to go, puppy fever has infected staff at The Fatdog Broadcasting Corporation. While J and The Bleating Sheep “ooh!” and “ah!” over doggie toys and blankies I am busying myself with the fortifications. At present I am torn between making the garden secure – such that the pup cannot escape, or, making the garden impregnable – such that the puppy can’t get in!
Anything vaguely chewable is being put into storage and any munchable corners of furniture, walls etc. noted.
We were most fortunate in that a neighbour has provided us with a large cage in which to house little Mabel. Hopefully the 25mm dia. bars and mains connected electric mesh should provide us with adequate protection from the Devil’s Spawn’s canines and molars.
While others check into vet services, puppy training classes and puppy feeding products I have been compiling a list of the practitioners of various faiths capable of performing exorcisms. One good thing about having wooden floors throughout the ground floor is that pentangles are easy to draw on the floor. Armed with my Dorling Kindersley guide to Demonology I am becoming well versed in how to give us at least 30 seconds in which to make our escape from the minute its eyes turn red. While J worries that the puppy may have difficulty with the wooden floors and require more rugs scattered throughout – I have concerns that removing smouldering paw prints may also prove to be difficult.
But enough of puppies for the minute.
Early in the week I took myself off around Gillies Hill, just outside Stirling for a bit of plastic tub hunting. Gillies Hill is thought to be the site of Robert Bruce’s camp at the Battle of Bannockburn and has the classic steep west scarp face associated with the west end of the igneous sill (flat layer of volcanic magma that never reached the surface as a volcano but spread out between layers of bedrock spreading horizontally) running below the Forth Valley.
Anyway I mentioned this steep west scarp face only because I managed to find a near-vertical ascent route a mountain goat would have been proud to use. It was a potential “snakes and ladders” path where one wrong footstep on the slick earth of the trail would see a speedy loss of height…and limbs. Fortunately the precipitous rocky slope was covered in woodland with hundreds of small trees clinging on for dear life to nothing much at all. Their branches provided hand and foot holds and a potential crash barrier should it become essential. Given that Gillies Hill is covered by a myriad of crisscrossing paths it seemed somewhat unlucky that I should choose the most bloody awkward one on which to begin my day…but the view from the top was worth it!
In the old quarry floor…just before taking the “snakes and ladders” trail
The photo does not quite manage to show how steep that trail actually was!
It is a rather pretty view…looking north west over the carse land of the River Forth to the west of Stirling.
On the rise in the background – on the forested hill just left of centre – that’s where Great Uncle Murphy and I walked last week.
A good part of the morning was spent along top edge of that scarp slope, eyes glued to the compass “needle” while ploughing from geocache to geocache along overgrown trails through jaggy bramble, gorse and hawthorn. As I hacked my way across Gillies Hill I reckoned climbing hills was a damned sight easier than this!
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Have you bought in the goats yet?
A timely sacrifice should keep the puppy benevolently inclined towards you…
It’s a labrador pup…the goats will be quite happily, and without any malice whatsoever consumed before I get a chance to sacrifice them!
I hope that you have purchased a generous supply of golf balls.
I thought the golf clubs might offer better protection!
Watch for the eyes turning white as well – we have to duck pretty quickly when you start to see that white being aimed at you….
I have a suspicion this refers to projectile vomiting…something we might all wish to avoid.
On that subject one evening a few years ago J (as class teacher), with The Bleating Sheep in assistance, were at J’s school show when the cast were affected by some form of superbug. In the school hall parents watching the performance were totally oblivious to the carnage backstage with kids vomiting everywhere and dropping like flies. They spent a whole evening clearing up the mess. The school was closed for a few days afterwards while it was cleaned top to toe by men in white coats and masks! The show must go on…eh?
It should have made national news that!
But no, it’s not projectile vomiting, her white eyes are her equivalent of the demon red eyes. You know she’s casting some sort of labrador curse when the whites start rolling at you…
Talking of schools though, I remember a mother collapsing in the hall in assembly one day, and the head made everyone continue with the hymn while I was doing first aid in the middle of the floor and arranging for an ambulance to be called. Luckily the lady was ok afterwards, but we did laugh about it later.
Oh…Maisie never did that! Must try and think what her version was
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Great story Chrissie! I had visions of this poor woman coming round to the strains of “Abide With Me”…and thinking it her funeral!
I,ve had my eye on that hill for a while Ken.You beat me to it.Damn
I’ve no doubt you’ll find my path Bob…it’s your sort of ascent
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I didn’t put up the photos of the disused quarries which dominate the west side of the hill. The remainder, away from the scarp slope, feels like wandering through an old, overgrown, country estate. I was on a tupperware hunt…and there are a lot of them hiding on that hill. My ex-boss, a local involved in the Save Gillies Hill campaign, has a geocache named after him not far from his house.
Will be winding him up about that at our annual Christmas dinner!