Do you ever have moments when you’ve done something so utterly brilliant that you need to have an immediate show-and-tell moment with your nearest and dearest? Biggles does.
He was so pleased with his latest project that he just had to show me. He tried scampering past me a few times but I was too buried in work to react, so he did the one thing that’s guaranteed to get my attention: he banged on the kitchen baby gate. Experience has taught me that it’s always easier to respond to this signal than to clean up the floor after ignoring it, so I left my desk and reported to Mr Biggles. On my arrival it was immediately obvious this wasn’t a request for the outside loo; he was looking at me not at the gate, and was wagging furiously.
For a moment I had no idea what it was all about, and then I saw my thermal running gloves, or rather what was left of them. They’d been due for a wash; dried sweat blended with chicken juice from several weeks of beach runs had left them smelling so strongly that even my nose noticed, but instead I’d just hung them up on a peg in the utility room to air a bit. “One more run this week, then I’ll wash ’em” I’d thought. Well, certainly there was no point in washing them now – the thumbs and first two fingers of each glove had gone completely. This was an unusually high degree of modification for The Bigglet, but presumably the rancid whiffs had inspired him to go further than usual, producing what he clearly considered to be his best ever work.
I looked at the gloves, and then looked at him. He was so pleased with himself I couldn’t possibly tell him off, though I may have said “Oh Biggles!!!” a couple of times under my breath. In the end I just did what he’s trained me to do: I picked them up and swapped them for a biccie. Yep, The Biggly Boy chewed the fingers off my best running gloves, and I paid him for his efforts. That’s how it works in our house.
At least Biggles and his smaller big sister Beanie were almost perfectly behaved on our weekend trip to Loch Doon. I say “almost perfectly behaved” because they felt the need to woof at other people when we parked up by the Roundhouse Cafe to go up Glessel Hill. They also woofed when they saw some sheep, and they woofed at me when I ate a sandwich without sharing. And Beanie rolled in some poo, and left a small bum-print on my t-shirt when we were sitting in the van before heading home. But apart from that, they were as well behaved as Beagles can be :)
Biggles poses heriocally on the Glessel Hill cairn..
..while Beanie licks up the bird poo
Of course a Beagle can’t live on bird poo alone..
Loch Doon from Glessel Hill
For some reason the hill fort on the Ness Glen walk also caused a bit of woofing
Loch Doon Castle later in the day
The castle interior let us get our paws nice and muddy before going back to the van
Sunset in the castle before the journey home
Oh, Biggles!! Yes, I too have learned that if there is unexpected spurts of galloping in the house, and scampering back and forth behind my back, that it is likely Ringo is working on a modification project (and that’s why his primary nickname is Chainsaw). The usual victims beyond the toys he’s supposed to destroy are my expensive running socks, some knitting project I’ve spent hours on (and the needles still attached to them), or remote controls. Fortunately Lady really isn’t a chewer, although she’ll devour unattended used foam earplugs. And once again, beautiful pictures from another great adventure in the Beaglemobile! Thanks, Paul!
Fortunately Biggles does mostly socks and gloves. He’s never tried a remote control (though batteries don’t last long because the remotes always end up hidden under a Beagle bottom). I must say that foam earplugs sound like they’ve got a lot of potential though :)