Sometimes I don’t know

Iwas introduced to a walk, quite close to home, where I’ve meant to take dogs probably for about 30 years, and never got round to it. So when old friend Gordon Officer – of long standing, you’ll understand, not long in the tooth – suggested we walk our dogs there, I jumped at the chance.

I don’t know if it has a name but I’ll call it the House of Dun Den Walk, as it was created by the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) after it acquired House of Dun upon the death of Millicent Lovett, the last laird of Dun.

Gordon had Tay with him, so called because her father is called Berry – I know, a dreadful pun but that’s dog owners for you.

Starting as Lady Augusta’s Walk from the car park at House of Dun, the walk follows the burn meandering through the old formal gardens. It passes under the Fordhouse bridge on the road to Stracathro Hill and carries on through the Den Wood, coming out beside a field of polytunnels. Following it round to the right brings you to the road again at the old Dun Smiddy.

It’s sheltered and the path is well maintained. The burn has its source at Duns Dish – the shallow loch lying to the north of the House – and drains past House of Dun into Montrose Basin. It doesn’t appear to have a name, either, so I’ll call it Dun Den Burn.

Gordon and I finished our morning calling on Menzies Reid who lives in a perfect hideaway cottage. A retired hotelier, he knows a thing or two about baking. Sitting in his garden sitooterie, by a blazing log fire, we drank strong coffee and enjoyed freshly baked scones with butter spread thick enough to see the tooth marks. A proper, civilised way to finish a walk.

In the midst of life...

Dead pigeons are in the news again this week. Seeing a dead pigeon lying in the undergrowth isn’t particularly remarkable but seeing another on the same short bit of track the following morning made me investigate.

There was no sign of blood on its feathers so I was fairly certain it hadn’t been shot. There was no other obvious sign of injury but I ran my finger down its breastbone, protruding like a knife edge. The flesh on its breast was almost wasted away – it had died of starvation.

Roosting in a tree the previous evening, during the frosty night it had finally lost its hold on life and fallen to the ground. I can’t find a reason for its condition because it’s common to see large packs of healthy pigeons feeding on young oil seed rape and winter barley. At school we had a biology master who dismissed any question he couldn’t answer with: “Sometimes we have to say, we just don’t know.” I guess I fall into the same category and have to say, I just don’t know.

On one of my walks with Inka I no longer see red squirrels. Have they been the victims of buzzards? The late John Smart of Edzell and his wife told me of watching the big birds snatching squirrels off the top branches of the pine trees in their garden. I guess it’s another of these questions to which I have to answer, I just don’t know.

If they think they are well enough concealed, pheasants will sit tight in cover until you practically step on them. What a fleg I got when a large cock pheasant rose at my feet with a tremendous clatter. Listening to the throb of his wings in the still air brought home just how heavy these birds are

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At school we had a biology master who dismissed any question he couldn’t answer with: ‘Sometimes we have to say, we just don’t know.’

and how hard they have to work to get airborne, climbing sharply to clear the trees, and get up to getaway speed.

Home remedy

The Doyenne has had a nasty cough but, providentially, I have been on hand to minister to her. Whenever I get a tickly throat I have recourse to the Man with Two Dogs’ own fail-safe recipe for that blessed tincture, a hot toddy. Into a half pint glass squeeze the juice of half a lemon. Add a hearty dollop of heather honey and a proper medicinal measure of whisky. Pour on hot water and stir briskly until honey has melted. Put on a semmit under your jama top (you can wear a woolly hat too, if really poorly). Don’t drink the toddy till you are tucked up in bed.

Of course, if you’re just looking for an excuse to have a whisky in bed the semmit and the woolly hat are optional.

Picture: Angus Whitson. Gordon and Menzies, with Inka and Tay, enjoying morning coffee and scones.