My Portrait

Hello again people and pooches. Joe the Cocker here. This is a blog with a difference. In today’s post there was an amazing treat for me. Not an edible one for a change, but a portrait of yours truly!

When we were hiking the Great Glen Way last year we had a shock one morning when we awoke with the tent flattened onto our faces. Snow had caught us by surprise. A light dusting had been forecast, but a fair amount was dumped on us in a couple of hours. My humans sleeping bag, along with some of his clothes, ended up soaked through. Luckily, we had parked the car for the duration of our hike, at the site where we had camped that night. We walked around Fort Augustus in an attempt to find somewhere to have a hot breakfast. Unfortunately, nowhere was prepared to welcome a pooch like me. So, we jumped in the car to drive to Invermoriston, which was due to be next nights camping spot. We were welcomed into the Glen Rowan Cafe where the big feller ate a huge Scottish breakfast. I was fussed over while we were asked about our hike. The lovely ladies who ran the cafe asked if we needed somewhere to stay while we dried our gear. We agreed that it would be for the best, so they made a fortuitous phone call.

They called Pat and Thomas Dobner of the Bridge Suite, just around the corner in Invermoriston. Luckily for us they had a vacancy so we jumped at the opportunity of a warm dry night. We abandoned our walking plans for the day and drove back to Fort Augustus to pick up our wet equipment. Not long later we were welcomed by the very friendly couple into their self catering cottage.

We had a lovely warm and dry night and my human slept on a comfy bed. Our tent, sleeping bag and clothes were dried out overnight and we were back on track. The next day was to be a hike over the ‘High Route’ to Drumnadrochit followed by a wild camp in the area. We awoke the next morning and after a hot breakfast, we packed our gear into the rucksack. We had a chat with Tom before we were about to set off. He asked if we wanted to stay in the Bridge Suite again on that evening. He offered to pick us up in Drum and to drive us back to Invermoriston. It was a no-brainer and we jumped at the opportunity. A hike in the snowy hills followed by another comfortable night was too much to refuse.

Tom and Pat picked us up as promised in the afternoon after the best day we had had in the hills for a long time. We had a good time driving back to Invermoriston while we chatted about our plans for the next couple of days. We had two days of hiking left to complete the trek. Tom and Pat suggested that we could leave our car outside of their place and stay another night at the end of our trip. Amazing! So, another comfortable night was spent in their accommodation.

The next day we were driven back to Drum to continue our journey. We completed the hike over the next two days and then returned to spend our final night in the Bridge Suite. Pat and Tom had made our trip into a massive success and helped us out so much for which we are so grateful. Since then both Pat and Tom have followed our blogs and Facebook posts. We plan to revisit Invermoriston as soon as we can and plan to visit this lovely couple.

Pat, or Tricia Dobbysocks, has a Facebook page called Tricia’s Crafty Treasures where you can see her fantastic pooch portraits. The Bridge Suite, Invermoriston also has a Facebook page if you fancy a break at Loch Ness.

I’m sure that you will agree that my portrait is amazing and that you can understand why we love these people. Pat has a passion for the preservation of the woodland in Scotland and if you would like to help her to provide space for wildlife to flourish in the Highland you can visit the treesforlife.org.uk website.

You can find our day-by-day blog of our Great Glen Way on our WordPress blogsite if you want to see more.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Pat Dobner for my portrait and it will take pride of place on our wall. Sending big hugs!