Across the pond

To my astonishment Muffin, a springer spaniel hailing from south-west Scotland, has started to read my blog. This is a special edition welcome blog for him and any other doggy readers I may not have heard from. I include this picture, which is of Larkin, the only dog I have ever owned in my life. Muffin, in his doggy way, has been sniffing around the Blogosphere, with the determination of a terrier. So much so that he landed on a blog I wrote as long ago as 3 February, 2007. That blog, An attic with a view, happens to be the first blog I wrote in the house in which I now live in Charmouth on Lyme Bay.

Then, this house was a B&B, where we were staying for a long weekend. The blog waxed lyrical about the joys of the coastal walks up Stonebarrow Hill, which I can see as I type, and up to Golden Cap, a mile or two beyond. It obviously tickled Muffin’s fancy, probably because it mentioned a chat I had with a dog-walker.

Larkn died, aged 15, a few years before  I started blogging. He, like Muffin, would have loved the walks around here. But I doubt, if they had ever met on the hills, here, or in Scotland, they would have got on. Larkn, a border collie/spaniel cross, tended to regard most other male dogs as potential enemies. Particularly if they were bigger than him. So he mostly went for Rottweilers and Alsatians. Happily those he met were well-trained middle class dogs, who brushed him off as if he were an irritating flea. So he lived until old age deprived him of the use of his legs. And never made tabloid headlines of the dog eats dog kind.

This is a link to Muffin’s blog.