We enter Perth from the south, through the South Inch, a large area of parkland with football pitches, tennis courts, a boating pond and an extensive children's play area.

At this time of year the crocuses appear in a broad strip, bordering the road.

This view is looking south from practically the same spot as the previous photo. The castellated building in the top left of the photo is the recently revamped Perth Prison, which houses some of Scotland's most notorious criminals.

This border of crocuses has the church of St Leonard's in The Field in the background.

...and a closer look at these colourful spring flowers.

The garden, warts and all!

This morning a strange urge came over me and I decided to tidy up the rather unkempt rockery plants that grow in our back garden. I'm not a keen gardener, although I'm quite partial to Garden Centres, especially when they have a good coffee shop, but I like to see our garden reasonably tidy. We have to, as our back neighbour is of the type who throws a wobbly if he sees a weed! He appears to be off on holiday so I let the dogs come with me into the top part of the garden and they had a grand rake around in the normally forbidden territory.

The terrible twins, Roley and Maisie, "helping" to weed out some ivy.

After raking up lots of dead leaves and twigs from the foot of the dyke, this little fellow clambered out of the heap. I haven't seen a toad for a long time. Eventually he disappeared into a crevice in the stones out of harm's way.

Has Spring sprung?

Out of my kitchen window I spotted this gloriously blue clump of miniature irises, Iris reticulata, I think. It prompted me to do some weeding and clearing of dead stems and they now stand out in all their vivid blue glory. I don't recall ever seeing them there before!

Cruft's photos--Apologies!

Ringlands Treasures Story---4th in Open dog---apologies for the previous photo of him in the collage to Mrs. Pat Munn.

..and also to Mrs. Mary Whitehill for the part photo, in the collage in the previous post, of Amicae Lets Twist Again, 2nd in Special Puppy Bitch.

Some photos from Crufts 2010

A view over one of the halls at the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre where the show was held.

The judge chooses her short list for Open Bitch class.

Top left shows the Best Bitch, bred in Belgium but now in England, awaiting judging in her class.

Top right is the Reserve Best Bitch from Norway.

Bottom left shows the Reserve Best Dog from Belgium.

Bottom right is the Best Dog and Best of Breed from America.

Some of the beautiful papillons being exhibited with the centre photo showing the Best of Breed, Am./Can. Ch. Arkeno's Ears To You, a phalene, several of which type were being shown.

Life After Crufts

Pretty much the same as usual. The dulcet tones of two impatient pups at 6.30 this morning put paid to any thoughts of a long lie. Had I forgotten to tell them that I'd not long since gone to bed?...apparently not! You know the old saying, "If you can't stand the heat don't have pups!"
We had a very enjoyable day, mainly watching the judging although we did have a foray into the other halls to have a look at the stalls but that is not my idea of fun, pushing my way through crowds of people, all going in the opposite direction! I was not born to shop. Luckily, I was with a younger friend, so I didn't get lost and managed to get back to the papillon ring. The same cannot be said for my departure from the hall for the coach, with my travelling friend. I assured her this was a much quicker way than the way we'd come in. Not so. We were heading to a totally different car park and had to re-enter the hall and re-route through several others. Obviously we made it back to the coach in time. Another friend from the coach was not so lucky. She uses an invalid scooter and, of all things, the battery went flat just as she and her daughter were leaving the hall. However they were prepared and had a charger and were able to charge up the battery from a power socket just inside the exit and were able to continue to the coach.

I've had my usual two walks with dogs today and, thankfully, the mud has dried up, so no filthy mutts in the house tonight.
I don't think I'll need rocking at "lights out" time.

.

Stay at Homes.

We could have been there!

It's that time of year again..............Crufts Championship Dog Show, the most famous in the world! How could I have decided not to enter the dogs and finally cancel my seat on the coach, which had been booked since last year? Well, it was quite easy, as my friend was ill and not likely to be travelling to any dog shows for quite some time. However as the time to the show drew closer I began to wish I had entered. Too late for that now, but, at a recent show I heard that an extra coach had been ordered this year and that a few seats were still available! I thought long and hard about it....must have been all of a couple of minutes.... and promptly asked to have one of the places on the coach. So here I am now, almost ready to leave for the starting point, the Forth Road Bridge car park, but no dogs this year. I'm sure they have recognised all the signs of departure for a big show, but they will be going nowhere.

Ever had the stuffing taken out of you?

I thought I'd do the dogs a good turn and provide some nice, comfy little nest beds and pads in the kitchen to keep them off the cold vinyl. How wrong could I be! The above couple of shots show the state of the beds, several times, between repairs. I give up with my mob. How do some people have their papillons sitting on pretty little beds, which sport neither a patch or several areas of stitching?

Here are a few photos of the complete beds being enjoyed by the various dogs, all except Mo, who never snuggles into one of them and I blame him for none of the damage.

I'm off now to fetch out the sewing box yet again.

Sleeping Partners.

This is my 4 year old grandson, who emigrated to Australia 2 years ago with his parents, and his ragdoll cat, Tint. Seems like a good relationship.

Photos from the hill walk.

I took my camera this time. Although the temperature has risen to zero degrees celsius, during the day, there is still a tricky, icy part of the track to negotiate.

This is the steep top part of the icy stretch.

Tass and Swallow avoid the ice.

The westward view, still showing quite a bit of snow on the hillsides and not much sign of spring yet on the valley floor.

This muddy part had to be crossed.

Puma pawprints?--there have been reported sightings of large black creatures in some parts of Perthshire. I think not, though; more likely to be prints of a big dog which have enlarged with the slight thaw!

Swallow and Tass try crossing the ice on the downward journey but Swallow seems to have been too enthusiastic!

Back home again. No wonder my house is full of dust!

Horses at the Farm.

My brother has always had a "thing" about Clydesdales and since his retirement (semi) he has aquired 3 or 4. This is his mare, Candy, who is due to foal in April.

A front-on head shot of Candy.

Candy rubbing noses with her neighbour, a Thoroughbred colt called Josh, belonging to one of my nieces. He has been in the "wars" recently and is slowly recouperating.

A profile view of Josh.

Loch Leven and its Geese.

Winter is still with us, although much of the snow has now gone from the low ground. We were on our way to visit my elder brother at the farm and this is Bishop Hill, part of the Lomond Hills with a very white cover.

This is approaching the farm at the foot of the east end of Benarty Hill and Loch Leven is just beyond.

Looking over my nephew's holiday chalets, sited on the southern edge of Loch Leven, completely frozen over at present, in Kinross-shire. The snow clad Ochil Hills are to the north.

The large island, St Serfs, is the winter "headquarters" of thousands of Pinkfoot geese. Every evening at dusk, they fly in, in their droves , to descend on this island. Visitors come from far and wide to visit and view them at the RSPB site at Vane Farm about 1 mile farther along the road.

This collage shows some of the geese feeding in the surrounding fields. They cause quite a bit of damage to the winter sown crops.

March Header Photo.

Several people have asked which dog this is. It is, of course, old Spencer aka Pyatshaw White Heat, now aged 12 years 3 months. He was one of the dogs participating in the Law Olympics!

Castle Law Winter Olympics?

For the past couple of days we've had beautiful sunny days with severe frost at night. This is my sort of weather, especially after having been couped up in or close to the house for what seems like weeks. Yesterday and today, probably against my better judgement, I took the dogs up Castle Law. The lower flatter walking routes are now bathed in sunshine for the better part of the day and, by the time I'm ready to take the dogs out, the surface has thawed and there is a layer of mud--which is not good news if you have small (white) dogs. Thinking we'd fare better up the hill, we headed off. The first steep part of the track, on the Law itself, was ok but we soon reached a very steep stony part between the high whin bushes where normally water seeps down over the stones. At the moment this is frozen in quite a spectacular fashion. It has frozen in a sort of ripple effect and is extremely treacherous. There is a very narrow strip of dead grass on either side. I took the left hand side and the dogs took the right. At one point they all decided to cross, one after the other. Each one took off downhill at a fair old speed like competitors in some Olympic sledging sport-----could it be the Luge ?.........or was it the Skeleton? All ended up like most of the British competitors in Vancouver, (one exception, who managed to bring home Gold)., but no injuries.