One Dog Nights

Ben The Trailhound, readers will be delighted to hear, has been enjoying his excursion to The Deep North far more than is strictly good for him: days spent charging across desolate fields in pursuit of distantly-scented deer and terrorising rough-cats in the neighbouring steading; nights spent curled up on the centre of a warm bedspread driving the present writer, lying beneath it, to the margins of the mattress. Ben's lean good looks and raffish charm have made him the absolute sensation of le tout Aberdeenshire, so it is probably just as well, and entirely for his own good, that I'm taking him back to Cumbria in the morning.