2 minutes
The September Winston Report
A long, dry summer, a great many clean paws, and a patch of ground by the gate that Winston is watching closely.
Estate supervision & opinions
Winston
Head of Estate Supervision. Specialist correspondent on mud.
Winston is the resident golden retriever at Martins Farm Estate, where he oversees fifteen acres of Sussex countryside from whichever position currently requires the least effort.
His responsibilities include inspecting footpaths, assessing mud, monitoring kitchen activity and maintaining a firm position on hot-air balloons. These are addressed with sustained barking until they leave the area. His record, by his own assessment, is excellent.
He writes about walks, weather and the questionable decisions of the humans who live with him. Recent subjects include tractor operations, unnecessary machinery and why a sensible dog watches proceedings from a safe distance.
Winston holds no formal qualifications, although he has extensive field experience and has personally lain in several of them.
Recent advances in artificial intelligence have finally made it possible to translate Winston’s barking into written English. Early results suggest he has been saying “balloon” for considerably longer than anyone realised.
Ali Hine checks the translations and takes editorial responsibility. Winston maintains that several of his stronger points have been removed.
Bylined pieces by Winston
2 minutes
Winston and the Hot-Air Balloons
Winston has made a decision about hot-air balloons: they are entirely unacceptable. A report from the window, the garden and the tree line.
3 minutes
Winston and the Tractor Travesty
Winston watched the whole thing from a cool and sensible distance: the fields left long for the birds, the flail mower with a mind of its own, and a new gravel drive rearranged in an afternoon.
6 minutes
The July Winston Report: dry underpaw, dog on strike
We invented a Mud Index and then July removed the mud. The inaugural report is therefore about heat, shade, water, and a golden retriever who twice decided the walk was over before we did.
5 minutes
Winston’s Night Watch
Humans call it silence. I call it a busy night involving one insomniac, four church bells, fox amateur dramatics, suspicious owls, and an unreasonable number of deer ignoring every known boundary.