What's in a name?

Hamish. My previous owner gave me this name for everyday use, although on my birth certificate I'm registered as "Independent Laddie", which suits me fine well, but would be a mouthful for Gail to shout in the park. Not that I pay any attention when she calls out "Hamish!", but that's another story.

It's true that I'm not the only Westie in Aberdeen called Hamish (English understatement here, by the way). People can be quite sarcastic about this. One lady heard Gail calling me the other day and observed, rather nastily I felt, that "not a lot of imagination went into naming you, did it?" A couple of days earlier another stranger patted me on the head and said "Hamish? how did you know you were going to be called Hamish?"

For those readers who aren't from these parts, some etymology. The name Hamish comes from the Scottish Gallic name Seumas, and the English equivalent is, of course, James.

Finally, I'd like to thank Wikipedia for pointing out that the name Hamish is "not to be confused with Amish, an Anabaptist Christian denomination".....

Westie language skills

I think it's time I had a little boast about my language skills. You may not be aware that I'm really rather a multi-lingual Westie. Let me explain how.

Being born on a farm near Fraserburgh, my mother tongue is of course Doric. It's all I heard for the first three years of my life, before I came down to the big city to be adopted by Gail. Now Gail as you have probably by now worked out, may live in Aberdeen but she is in fact English. Yes, we're a mixed race household! At first, her accent sounded rather snobby and affected to my Scottish ears, but I'm used to it now. Doric isn't much used amongst Gail's social circle; the only time I hear it these days is when old folk stop in the street and ask "fit age is he?" and tell me I'm "affa bonny".

Gail's friend Marse speaks the American form of the English language. Marse can be quite strict. What I would call being engaged on important tree-sniffing business, she tends to define as "lollygagging around".

When Gail goes on holiday, I'm looked after by Jacques, a lovely, kind Frenchman who lives next door but one. Jacques doesn't take me for "walkies", rather we go for a "mena, mena!" that's short for promenade, which is my favourite French word. Well equal favourite with camembert.

Ever since I've known her, Gail has been attempting, with limited success, to learn German. Of the two of us, I suspect I may be the better linguist. Most Tuesday nights we both go round to her teacher Margaret's house and for a hour and half, and she and a couple of other nice ladies grapple with their datives, word order and adjectival endings before reverting to English when they've got something really interesting to say. If I sit there quietly all through the lesson, at the end I get patted on the head and someone says that "er hat sich heute Abend sehr gut benommen".*

I do mostly try to behave myself round at Margaret's, to make sure I keep getting invited. I don't get many other chances to roam so freely in a house where food security is so lax. Oh, many's the delicious treat I've helped myself to at Springfield Road. Chocolate, biscuits, cake, bones in the rubbish bin, you name it, I've found it!

* I do hope I got this all correct. I'm sure Margaret will post a comment if not.

PS. We dogs hit the BBC news this morning. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7541633.stm . And next time you yawn, observe your dog/owner carefully.......

Hello folks. I'm Hamish, a Westie aged twelve and a half. I live in Aberdeen and now that I've been retired from scampering up Munros with my owner Gail, due to a dicky heart (mine not hers) I've decided to take up blogging. It's the first time I've had a go at this, so let's hope the 'old dog new tricks' thing won't apply.

Let me start by telling you a bit about my life here. You know I once heard Gail's American friend Marse (a very nice lady of who more in later posts I'm sure) say that if she were a Buddhist she'd want to be re-incarnated as Gail's dog, i.e. me. Why? Well the way she saw it, my life consisted of being taken for long walks in the beautiful Scottish countryside, being fed twice a day (plus the odd tasty titbit) and otherwise lying around on the sofa having my tummy tickled.

Yes well, lady Marse, I can tell you, it's not always like that! Take yesterday for example. I get dragged out of bed at some ungodly hour and taken for a VERY short stroll around the hard grey granite streets in the pouring rain. I'm not even allowed a few seconds to stretch up and sniff the fragrant rear end of my stunning neighbour, the sleek silver greyhound Marcelle. And then I'm left alone all day in the house as Aaron, the kind young lad who often takes me out in the afternoon, is away at scout camp. At least I can get out through the dog flap and into the back garden, where I have some ongoing excavation projects to keep me occupied....