Doggy memories

 Spotted Coco, the pug, with her owner in  Stirling’s Springkerse Retail Park this afternoon where I had gone to pick up a bargain £10 carpet remnant.
 
I have a soft spot for pugs. Years ago I worked in Iceland where dogs were forbidden in the towns except for members of the diplomatic corps (no I was not a member) but one of my jobs was to walk the British Ambassadors pug, Fanny.
 
Well she was a sensation every time I took her out in Reykjavik because the children had never seen a dog like her.  They would rush up demanding to know if she was a dog, cat or some strange animal they had never heard of.
 
And Fanny would be subjected to the indignity of them trying to straighten her tail.
 
So every time I see a pug I think back to those carefree halcyon days living for a year on the edge of the Arctic Circle.
 
Oh yes, that’s where I met Blipper Ceridwen, then a student on a university geological expedition to the north of Iceland.