Walking The Dog

Confetti - noun: small pieces of coloured paper thrown over a bride and groom following their marriage ceremony. Also the bane of church yards and wedding venues - who wants to exit church after their favourite spinster aunt's funeral and slip on the papier mâché mush of last weekend's weddings, or step, in your wedding gown, onto a pink spattered step when your colour theme is lilac? Confetti - derived from the Latin confectum, meaning something prepared. Which suggests that there is something missing from the traditional wedding rhyme 'something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue ... something prepared.' How about something shared ... declared ... or ensnared?? Nature's confetti is all over the ground at this time of year - The garden, footpaths, and pavements are covered in blossom snow. And, when he falls asleep beneath the apple tree, it speckles Four-legged-friend's black coat. The confetti we know today - bits of b...

The wee beastie - 'weight for weight more ferocious than the Bengal tiger' * - or Scottish midge, is as effective a spoiler of the 'best laid plans o' ... men' (and probably also of mice, since they feast on other unfortunates too) than any other 'spoiler' I know - better than rain, or forgetting to write a list, or an attack of the lurgy. Because the wee beasties are just so utterly and incredibly MADDENING! Nothing else lets you plan an early evening drink outside with friends, enjoying the last of the summer sun and then sends you running into the house in a frenzy of screaming 'Open the door!-Shut-it-QUICK!' while simultaneously spilling your wine, tossing your canapés all over the ground and slapping your ears, scratching your ankles and generally behaving as though suddenly demented. At least, you would look demented to anyone watching, though anyone in the near vicinity (anywhere North of the Clyde) poised enough to be watching, would be do...