Walking The Dog

My inner sheep-dog is troubled. By troubled I mean unsettled, discombobulated and partaking of a personal worry-fest. Am I the only human to possess an inner sheep-dog? Surely not. Sheep dog - the keen dog that rounds up its little flock, coaxes it into a safe pen, then guards it fiercely. 'Over protective' possibly springs to mind but wouldn't be strictly accurate - this sheep-dog is happy to let it's lambs stray, but worries if they wander too far, or into activities that the sheep-dog may not consider 100% safe. I suspect most mothers are sheep-dogs. Or do you need to be both mother and in possession of an over-active imagination? Currently, this sheep-dog's concern is that snow, plus slopes, plus planks attached to feet, equals potential hazard. Or many, many, many potential hazards. Skiing like sailing has been spoilt for me by having children. Instinct tells me that I have a duty to get to the end of the day without breaking anything or drownin...

Autumn - season of Halloween, Guy Fawkes and bonfires.So essentially a couple of months devoted to burning things. When having a garden bonfire, there are a few rules one should observe - never light one before the farmer has harvested the crop on the other side of the fence avoid days when the wind would blow the smoke into the neighbours gardens or the road never turn your back on it and only burn things that were once growing. Leaves for example ... Then there are the ten things to consider that if considered and acted upon make having a bonfire easy - 1. Don't embark upon bonfire building without friends. And a bench. Not for burning! For resting on. I can't remember when I last had time to sit in the garden, nor when I last wanted to sit in the garden and the bench wasn't covered in bird droppings. 2. The more friends, the merrier. 3. Wear a polo-neck jumper or a scarf. Because if you do the sparks can't fl...

Little things - the things that don't really matter, the things we can and do live without, the things we stumble upon and notice only when we're not too busy, the things that may not exist except in our imagination but that if we could capture and hold them would make our lives better - these are the little things I would wish for intelligent grass (Yes! Getting off to an improbable start.I know. But stick with me, the probability of veering close to reality improves with the other little things below. For now lets get back to this one ...) - grass that senses when it is growing at the edge of a flower bed, aligns itself neatly in the horizontal plane and never creeps vertically down the precisely cut lawn edge and would baulk at the idea of throwing runners out onto the pristine soil between the flowers.( Hmmm ... if only it were pristine.) bottled kisses - I'm not talking about the full mouth kiss of lovers but the familial peck on the cheek between parent and c...