meanwhile in the far north

I was ready for an adventure so I planned a long weekend away with some hiking and some visiting on the agenda.  Jay isn't really one for clambering around mountains, so he stayed home to take care of the puppies.

In the small hours of Thursday morning I hopped on a plane in Exeter, touched down not long after in Manchester and flew from there to Aberdeen.  Flying in those tiny planes when it's really rather windy was an experience.  Twice.  Kudos to both the pilots of those Flybe planes for landing them like feathers after getting chucked around like dice while trying to land.

And how sorry did I feel for the woman who was vomiting the whole way a few rows from me?  Frankly, not quite as sorry as I felt for the man sitting next to her.  Just glad it wasn't me.

First stop was the car rental office where I was expecting to collect a Peugeot 306, load my gear and my own satnav and then head for a nearby wood for a walk.  Apparently they were in desperate need to get a BMW 5 Series to Glasgow by Monday because that's what they gave me.  I declined their extra insurance (£120 for the duration) but I also declined their £1,000 excess and got Jay to call my own insurance company to cover me with £150 excess for £38.  That's more like it.  I wasn't impressed with the hard-upselling of extra unnecessary stuff, but I did really like the guy working at Sixt.  He was a real gem. 

It was so great to see Anna and Infindigo Mailat Koru, who is so much like Ulla and looks like his dad, Salo.  I hadn't seen him since he moved to Aberdeenshire at the age of 8 weeks.  I had heard he was BIG, and so I was prepared for him to be another stonker like his brothers Siinto and Jake.  However, he wasn't a stonker at all.  More the size of Loki, but with quite a sizeable coat.  I took lots of photos of him, but sadly most of them were over-exposed.  There are only a couple of usable shots.  That lovely coat in that sunshine, I guess. 

 

  

Massive thank you to Anna for clearing her day and driving all the way down so that we could meet and have that fantastic walk.  I must say that Aberdeen was an eye-opener.  I didn't know what to expect weather-wise or how cold it would be.  The forecast said chilly, but we were shedding layers hand-over-fist as the sun came out and the waterproof jackets disappeared.

Then I jumped into the rental car and headed west, destination the Isle of Skye.  The drive from Aberdeen to Inverness was nice enough, if somewhat unremarkable.  I did pass through a few pretty towns, the star of which was Elgin, and I did see more than a few beautiful rivers, my favorite of which was the Lossie.  I think.

In Inverness I found the huge Tiso Outdoor Experience shop and managed (somehow) to limit my purchase to some OS maps of Skye.  Then it was back into the car for the second half of the journey.

I had intended to go via Loch Ness, but the satnav took me a different way.  I challenge anyone to find a more beautiful drive than the Lochcarron route to Skye.  If you can manage to find a day with some sunshine and blue between the clouds, as I did, so much the better.  The scenery was breathtaking in every direction for the entire drive.  It should have taken me about 2.5 hours to get from Inverness to Skye, but in the end it took rather longer because I kept stopping to take photos.  Most of which don't do the views one iota of justice.  And there were plenty of amazing sights that I missed because I passed them before I was able to get the camera out.  If you go to northern Scotland, do yourself a favour and take this trip.

The closer I got to Skye, the better the views.  And sometimes I got a pretty good shot just by sticking the camera out the car window.

Finally at about 7pm I reached my hotel - the Viewfield House hotel in Portree.  To be honest, the only reason I chose this place was because, apart from one or two hostels offering 20-to-a-room, this was absolutely the only accommodation I could find available when I booked my trip 6 months ago.  You need to plan in advance for Skye.  Anyway, it's a lovely hotel, a gorgeous Victorian country house with friendly people and very comfortable rooms.  I could do without the dead animals adorning the walls, but even some of those are impressive.

 

The landing outside my room smelled alarmingly like mothballs, but fortunately the room did not.  As for the location of the hotel, full marks for views.  Just for a change.

Being the summer solstice, the nights way up here in the north come late.  Really late.  It didn't get properly dark until sometime around 3am and then the sky started to lighten up again.  Dusk at 10:30pm.  

I didn't sleep really well.  Perhaps it was nerves because the next day was my planned trip up the Quiraing.  And that turned out to be an entirely different adventure than I was planning on. 

8 weeks old

In case you ever wondered what it looks like when puppies are ready for their new homes, it looks something like this.  Mayhem reigns in the outdoor pen.  It's a bit trashed, there are a couple too many squished-in poos, there is shredded cardboard everywhere, the toys and vet beds are all a bit worn around the edges, and in the case of these particular puppies, the water bowl is up on bricks like an old jalopy.  I'm warning the new owners now, you literally cannot keep water in the water bowls. 

Many of my puppies have been water babies to one extent or another.  I've usually had at least one who would sleep snuggled up to the bowl, or with head or other body part dipped in.  Occasionally there would be a water digger.  In fact, at least two of Tuuli's last puppies are water diggers to this day.  I have assured their owners that they will grow out of it ... eventually ... we hope.

These puppies were a tad late to the water party.  I was pleased and, frankly, surprised.  You have seen their sire, Salo, right?  No?  Well, check out the videos at the very bottom of his page.  Yes, that is the father of these puppies lying in the waterfall and swimming with the goldfish in the ornamental pond. 

In the end, genetics kicked in and the puppies did discover the water bowls, and, lo, they did create a mess.  Over and over again.  It's mainly Jaakoppi and Ulla, though, so perhaps the owners of the others will be off the hook.  We will see.

Anyway, jacking the water bowl up on bricks did work briefly, but Ulla eventually delighted in finding a way to climb up there and still get her front feet in, occasionally tipping the bowl entirely over.  But often it's too much trouble, apparently, so it usually remains more or less intact. 

The indoor bowl is another matter entirely.

Tomorrow the first puppies fly the nest (or the damp pen).

lunch

We had no visitors this weekend for one reason and another.  Considering the weather, it was perhaps just as well!

However, Mark did pop by to drop off some stuff, so while he was here I took advantage of the opportunity to get a little video of the puppies having lunch.  It took all of, what, 35 seconds? 

You get the feeling they like scrambled eggs?

7 weeks old

Busy, busy, busy.

Apart from the pints of stuff that these puppies produce that needs to be cleaned up every 5 minutes, they are also now very fond of ripping things to shreds.  So the puppy pen inside & out is always a complete mess. 

The puppies have been busy socialising this week.  They have all had a little ride in the car and have visited the town centre to meet strangers & get cuddles.   The coming week will be full of more social activities and more car-time as well as vet visits for their eye tests and microchips.

They're pretty much ready for anything.  I hope their owners are.

At long last, there is an Infindigo Facebook group, so if you would like to join us, hop over there:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/infindigo/

photo shoot

Thank you to Mark Treasure for our somewhat rushed photo shoot yesterday.  We managed to grab a few shots between showers and just before it got dark.  More or less.

These puppies will have the middle name "Maila" which is a Finnish word meaning tennis racquet and also a girl's name.  If you're wondering what tennis has to do with these puppies, then have a quick look at the birth announcement.  It also explains where their baby names came from.

As usual, all these names are subject to Kennel Club approval.

Infindigo Maila Siinto
(Novak)
Siinto is a Finnish word meaning "gleaming"

Infindigo Maila Koru
(Roger)
Koru is a Finnish word meaning "jewel"

Infindigo Maila Loki
(Stan)
Loki is the Norse god of mischief

Infindigo Maila Ulla
(Serena)
Ulla is a Scandanavian girl's name

Infindigo Maila Jaakoppi
(Andy)
Jaakoppi is a Finnish boy's name

6 weeks old

Admitting defeat here.  I won't go into the series of catastrophes that we had this week, let's just say it culminated in the fridge dying yesterday (or in fact sometime before yesterday) so that we had to throw away more or less all the food inside (and clean up a rather big mess).  A quick prod later and it's in perfect working order again now.  Ever get the feeling someone is conspiring against you?

Or perhaps the culmination was actually Keskiyo getting up for a poo three times in the night last night because he had a rather wonderful fresh bone yesterday.  If you don't keep up with the fresh bones, then when they do have one, it does have this unfortunate effect.  Keep up with the fresh bones, people!

Or - horror of horrors - the culmination is yet to come!  Don't even go there.

Anyway, yesterday's photo shoot was a rather hurried affair.  And it was raining or drizzling all day so the light was terrible too.  Cue some truly awful photos!  But better than nothing, is what I'm hoping.  Right?  Right??

It has been just about all decided which puppy is going where.  I have given a choice to one person because her family has had a looooong wait for this day.  As soon as they choose, the rest will fall into place, so to speak.  Then I will be able to reveal all the names as well.  And the best news is that Mark and Jane will be visiting today and we have a photo shoot on the cards, so I'm hoping for some really terrific shots for the name-reveal.

Of course, it would help enormously if it stopped raining sometime before they get here...

busy

Took a little post-lunch video a few days ago before it started raining.  Somehow forgot to post it.  Six-week pics tomorrow.