Donkin Life: Pippa's Scotland diary

Phew, what a long slog, cooped-up in this zip-up basket that the governor bought to stop me roaming the car - as if I would. The worst is that the old man, Dougie, gets to stretch out in comfort like a lord just because he does as he's told. He hasn't the energy to bounce around anyway. At least he's independent. I've no time for these dogs that play up for the cameras. Eat the cup cake damnit!

I liked the shop on the way up with the rough carpet. That was great for stretching out, getting under people's feet while I enjoyed a full-on belly scratch. It seemed to take an age to get to this Scotland place and when we did there was all this water, just like the pond at home only bigger and moving. I didn't fancy a swim.

Nice cottage; I left a peemail within minutes of getting through the door. The governor didn't like that. There were lots of other dog smells too. It looked promising.

For some reason the governor took to standing in this water up to his waist waving a stick about with a bit of string for hours at a time. Then I met Misty, a German pointer they say, same kind of colouring as me but just a little bit bigger, friendly though; we got on well. That's Misty in the picture keeping the rain off my head.

I could take to hut living. It was like this giant kennel made for people. The governor loved his kennel. It had a stove which he fed sticks too big for me to chase. There were a couple of young people there too, Rob and Vicky who took me for walks, threw sticks and did general fun things.

I saw the lady catch this fish, a salmon they called it, much bigger and a bit livelier than the goldfish back home. I don't know why they didn't give them any fish sticks, struck me as a bit mean. No wonder those fish were hungry enough to bite the little coloured flies on the end of the string. I noticed they didn't seem to want to bring them back, don't blame them. Later the lady took off her boots in the hut. Heaven!

So that was it really, sitting around these huts all day, walking down the river banks, cooking sausages (yes that's right - sausages!), meeting other dogs like Misty and then the long slog back, only we stopped for a day in this place with giant ponds. They called it the Lake District. That was where I met the gang of three - border terriers called Jim, Rosy and Penny. Jim's the older one, Rosy seems to run things and Penny's a pup only a bit older than me and didn't she want to let me know that. We had great fun rolling about, all the same. That's me with Penny below.

Then if all that standing in the water hadn't been enough for him, the governor and three other silly buggers put hankies on their heads and took to a raft on the river with lots of other silly people on rafts. And he's the one who wants me to be sensible all the time. That's rich, that is.

It's good to be back home where I can keep an eye on the old man. The Governor was going to add a picture of old Doug in Scotland but I edited it out as just too dull. He's had plenty of coverage in the past. OK, he doesn't do much but at least he doesn't give me a hard time. Funny though, now we're back home, how no-one seems to want to catch the goldfish. I'll never learn how to understand people. But, who cares? Life is good.