Walking The Dog

Fart - definition: do I have to spell this one out? We all know what a fart is. It's Bertie Baggins emptying the room faster than even he could leap up at the rustle of wrapper and hint of a biscuit. Perhaps it's his passion for all things biscuit-crumby and sticky and generally curled up and slowly decaying that he finds on the kitchen floor or dead in the middle of a field that leads to the efficacy of his room-evacuating talent. The picture of innocence Farts are also the bubbles suggesting the early morning swimmers are using some internal combustion engine to propel themselves up the pool and that the changing room toilets are probably best avoided when the swimming session ends. Farts are universally unpleasant and embarrassing; always and instantly orphaned and totally necessary. We all do them. Yes ... we do; all of us. At all ages; next time you're near a very young baby watch it jump in  surprise when it noisily passes wind. Fart as flatulence is from

I haven't done this for a while. Blogging, I mean. The while has been spent tackling the annual creative writing exercise otherwise referred to as the NHS appraisal.  There must be a better way of establishing if we are fit to practice. A way that doesn't involve finding fifty differently worded paragraphs in which we comment on how we reflect on out learning activities. Yes - okay - it does make us think about our role. Yes - it also confronts situations where we might have acted differently. And it does force us to keep current with latest research and treatment protocols. So, maybe it does enable us to practice better medicine. But how many ways can I find to say 'I am working to relevant standards.'  I prefer this creative form of linguistic perambulation.  Perambulation - this has become our home, code-word for walk. If we mention the w word, Four-legged-friend and Berti-Baggins go into paroxysms of over-excited tail- wagging and barking. We, therefore,

Ok - so I fail at the first hurdle: of course I can't list all the D words in this post. Well, theoretically I could, I suppose, but it would create a dull, dreary and not particularly daring blog. I'd lose my readers quicker than a duck, diving for dragon-fly larvae, in a duck-pond. But incase you missed it, I'll pick up one of those D words again: daring. That's the one. Daring - adjective: definition - to be adventurous, fearless, unafraid or bold. Origin: Old English, durran - to brave danger. So ignore the " All the D words " bit of the title and insert ' Some D words; one D word in particular; a bit of a rant and a doggy catch up. " Huh! I hear you cry - actually I don't, but I like to delude myself that you noticed; that there even is a you to notice that I inserted another D word. The canine, four-legged, lick-you-in-the-face-if-you-get-too-close D word, that is, after all, appropriate for a blog called Walking the D-og. Dogs! It

Summer skies over the Yorkshire Dales and my mind is set to rest mode. But that rest is not totally restful; there is a niggle ... a memory, a hint of childhood, something that unsettles slightly - a light brush stroke of discomfort; a gossamer breath of discombobulation and a 'Woah! Wait a moment!' moment of 'that's-not-right!' - we're about as far from the sea as it is possible to be in middle Britain and yet, I can hear the distinctive Peep! Peep! of oystercatchers and the piercing cry of curlew. Here -  in the blue skies of the North Yorkshire dales and along the footpaths - and above the endless miles of drystone walls are birds that should be at the coast.  Oystercatchers, with their distinctive red pliers attached to their heads feed on - you've guessed it - oyster beds. All along the coastline of the British Isles, their distinctive cry is the call of summer. Drowned out somewhat by the banter of seagulls but sharp and

It could be argued that I watch too many films. Arguably - and more accurately - it is not the watching of too many films that I am guilty of, but the  purchasing of films in abundance: more per month than I could ever watch, apparently - or so I have been told. But this is probably accurate, as I frequently have to explain myself, when asked have you seen such-and-such a film and find that I have no option but to reply yes, sort of. By 'sort of' I mean that I have seen bits of the said film. Sometimes, enough to get the gist of plot and theme and story, but more often a taste that is puzzling and unsatisfactory and teasing in a cruel you-can-see-me-if-you-can-catch-me sort of way. And I never have time to catch it. It is the lot of a mother - she who washes and cooks and clears and cleans and finds the odd socks (sometimes) and walks the dogs and feeds them and wrestles the ironing-mountain and answers the phone and waters the garden and bakes the bread and never sits still

Well this has been a rather different day. First - just as I was beginning to think it was time to stretch; to push my uncle's legs off my tummy and wonder about what might be causing the beginnings of an itch behind my right ear - our mum woke the whole house up. She ran around upstairs - at 6:08am - telling our two-legged sisters to get up. Because she thought they'd slept in. Because she thought it was 8:06am. Because she hadn't put her glasses on. She then giggled loudly for about ten minutes. Which our two-legged sisters thought a bit odd. And a bit unfeeling, given that they would much rather still be asleep. So we got an early breakfast. Littlest - our smallest two-legged sister - did sleep in after that. And had to take her breakfast to eat on the bus on the way to school. Mum had stopped giggling by the time she had breakfast. I think the look on Littlest's face probably helped. Anyway ... next we overheard the W word. And jumped around an

Honestly - "Aaaaargh!" Can I really not think of a better title? No, not this morning - an alternative using the words I'm thinking would probably be unpublishable. Yesterday's blog was also entitled "Aaaaargh!" For different reasons - which I will get onto later - but yesterday's blog DESPITE SAVING IT DURING A BRIEF WINDOW WITH INTERNET IN LONDON YESTERDAY LUNCHTIME disappeared overnight. All those words and pictures evaporated off the screen. So this is definitely an "Aaaaargh!" moment. "Aaaaargh!" x2 if you like. And there's a big Grrr! prowling through my head trying to remember why I was thinking "Aaaaargh!" yesterday. It started with a benign quote with eight of the most inspirational words I have ever read - Somewhere something incredible is waiting to be known Carl Sagan I grew up watching Sagan's wonderful television series, Cosmos. It was perfect - from the velvety enthusiasm of his voice,