Doric Alice and the Randyflosses and Moobags.

Up Beauty Hill, which if you leave my back door and just keep climbing, and climbing, through forest and up tracks, through gorse and long grasses, over old dry stane dykes and long forgotten barbed wire, past warrens and nests and dens, you will finally reach the top and the trig point from another age, and the result is just beautiful. 360 view of Aberdeenshire, from the Cairngorms to the sea, from the rolling hills, to the nestled villages. And wildlife everywhere.

Thankfully no Bulls to negotiate, at least not beside us in our long ago fields, only the young bulls in the fields beside us on the way up which I sweet talked into nuzzling my hand, before they all suddenly took a need to seize the day and stampede off in one direction or another, before becoming too curious again and coming back with their big sorrowful beautiful eyes for another curious sniff, hand to nose.

Now this being me, it wouldn't be the same without an embellished near death experience. And tonight was no exception. "Stick to the animal paths, stick to the animal paths!" I shouted to the big man on the way down, as there was no sign of human foot being here for a good long time. And the one time he strayed off the path, is the one time I fell down a den, not just ankle deep, nay not even knee deep, but up to my waist and then some. I felt I might be a gonner till I eventually touched.....something with my foot....And did the big man reach out, I mean down? Well, of a sorts, after he stopped laughing. And given my habit of such sudden downfalls into hidden dens and ditches, a pal has now coined the name, "Doric Alice". Which is much better than "Doris two phones".