I don't like trains anymore.....

Well as if being dropped on the road last week wasn't bad enough!

I went down to England with Gail this weekend, to visit her lovely parents. We travelled, as usual by train.

I am never ever ever ever ever going on the train, ever again. Got that? Not ever.

Have you any idea how frightening it is to be stuck on a train for ages and ages when you're just a little chap, and you don't know why the train is taking much longer than it should, and you can't walk up and down the carriage because it's too crowded and people keep stepping on you, and knocking your head with their suitcases? So you start barking to let everyone know you're REALLY fed up, and you can't go for a pee because a train counts as 'indoors', and it's so noisy, and you can tell that everyone else is in a bad mood too, and people are saying nasty things about you because they just don't understand how upset a dog might be feeling....

Do I sound traumatized? Well I still am, a day later, simply thinking about it. Our 6 hour journey to Nottingham took almost double that, both there and back, and PLEASE don't give me all those excuses about floods on the line and signal failures, I don't want to hear them.

I hereby withdraw my application to be special canine ambassador for Scotland, until SOMEONE DOES SOMETHING ABOUT THE TRAINS.

I am so pleased to be back in Aberdeen. And I must say that it was nice to find these beautiful flowers and a card from Yvonne waiting for me on the kitchen table. Well, Gail seems to like them anyway (I confess I would have preferred some liver, or a bone perhaps....)

Oh, and I'm happy to report that my paw is feeling totally fine again now.

The wrong kind of snow

Railway travellers in Britain will be familiar with the concept of 'the wrong kind of snow'.

Well let me tell you that a Westie's progress too is dependent on the cold white stuff being of the correct texture and consistency. Especially if that Westie is a older chap with sensitive paws.

Wet snow's just horrid and cold. Frozen wet snow forms ice crystals that feel like you're walking on broken glass. Well-trodden snow becomes all slippery, a challenge to stability, although low- slung dogs do fare better than poorly designed bipeds.

And have you ever come across the snowball problem? I think it only happens to us longer-haired breeds. Snow clings to the fur on your legs then melts and refreezes into hard little balls of ice, and eventually you grind to a halt, weighed down by what looks like a bunch of grapes hanging off each limb. If you're really unlucky, your owner will try to pull them off, which is painful. Far better to find a warm house or car and sit there slowly melting in comfort. 

Soft fluffy snow is relatively gentle on the paws, and fun to roll in, but if there's more than about four or five inches, then normal walking becomes difficult and really I'd prefer to be carried. 

Yes, on the whole, I think the trains have it easy.