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STOP PRESS!! Have you tried the YouTube Playlist featuring all of my compositions for the TRANSFORMATES? Here it is:
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After another exciting week eradicating business risk with the RiskBusters the time arrived for my weekend vaunt into the mountains. Helga, the friendly car rental lady, was already dangling my key-ring on her finger as I approached her counter on arrival at the alpine airport. Hello Mister “Dog-I’ll-buy” I have something extra special to give you in the VIP car park this week.
Perhaps at this point I should explain why Helga now refers to me as Mr. “Dog-I’ll-Buy”. After hearing many variations of her attempts to pronounce Duggleby I decided to make it a bit easier for her. I explained that my name was derived from my ancestor Sir Henry Dog-I’ll-Buy in the North of England. Sir Henry was King Richard the Lionheart’s official dog purchaser. The English Royal Family is famous for its love of dogs, especially Corgis. During the third Crusade whenever they arrived in a new town or village Sir Henry would go through the streets in front of the King shouting ‘Dog I’ll Buy, Dog I’ll Buy’. I explained to Helga that according to Welsh folklore the Corgi was the preferred mount of fairy warriors and King Richard paid especially well whenever Sir Henry found this magical companion for him.
As was common in the 12th century Sir Henry’s trade became his name. Over the centuries the name “Dog-I’ll-Buy” evolved into Duggleby. I showed her using Google Map the village in the North of England where Sir Henry and his descendants lived. Needless to say there are not many dogs there these days, especially Corgis.
Helga now pronounces my name almost perfectly and I appear to have become something of a celebrity within the airport car hire fraternity. They regularly ask me how are things in the royal dog trade.
So, you may ask, what special treat did Helga give me in the VIP car park? This week’s vehicle was an A3 Convertible. At this point I had no further need for a weekend weather forecast. I drove to my apartment in the dark, parked my little topless beauty and went to bed. The next morning I woke up to see that overnight the whole village had acquired a carpet of pristine white snow. Fortunately I had left the semi naked convertible in my garage.
Although my alpine village gets lots of snow in the winter I manage to escape most of it due to my annual quest to find new sources of vitamin D in the southern hemisphere. This means that for me snow, in moderate doses, can be a bit of a treat. I slipped into some warm clothing, packed the tripod and camera into my rucksack, and headed up the local mountain stream to gets some photo’s of the snowy waterfalls.
It is amazing to think that a week earlier my son Pascal and I had been sitting in shorts and t-shirts in the garden of our local alpine restaurant. Compare this week’s pictures with the ones I published two weeks ago. Within the space of a week the temperatures had dropped over 20 degrees!
I decided that it would be sensible not to take the convertible to the local supermarket. My neighbours know that the Brits can be somewhat ‘interesting’ but I prefer not to overdo it. Just wait until I tell them the story about Sir Henry, official buyer of the King’s dogs!
(There is actually another chapter to this story in which Sir Henry Dog-I’ll-Buy had to sell the Royal dogs to help Eleanor of Aquitaine raise the ransom demanded by Duke Leopold V of Austria. This unfriendly gentleman had imprisoned King Richard in Dürnstein Castle on his way back from the 3rd Crusade. The ransom money played a major part in financing the creation of Wiener Neustadt in 1194 – should be worth a few free drinks next time I visit Vienna).
P.S. Some dog related aspects of this story have been passed down through the family by word of mouth (and via my grandmothers rather messy recipe book) and therefore the documentary evidence may be rather suspect. The stuff that is properly evidence based can be found under the Duggleby History page – just click on the link here
Chris Duggleby 