lazing on a sunday afternoon

dear readers, i know many of you will have been waiting with bated breath to find out what happened to the dishwasher. would the wonderful engineers manage to fix it or would the peeps be doomed to wash up by hand for ever more?

well, sunday dawned fine and herself was up with the lark to go and feed bonzo and libby. young dave and i tagged along and were rewarded with a walk along the south downs way. on the way we came across a man trying to tempt rabbits into a wooden box. young dave and i were just about to offer a little help when we were rather unceremoniously placed on our leads. we never did discover why the man had not just got himself a lurcher.

i digress. we shot off home and herself set to with gusto preparing a large brunch for her old friend traveling john, who had stayed the night, the snake-charmers and the next doors. there was a lot of frying and grilling, during which young dave managed to liberate several chipolatas. i think he would have settled for one but herself had failed to cut them apart from their fellows before cooking them. of course i had to help him finish them. there ensued a cheerful interlude of munching and chatting. eventually the guests began to head off to get on with stuff.

then there was a knock at the door. it was our aunty! and mr jos! they had come prepared with bags of tools and, hardly pausing for a cuppa, set to work dismantling the dishwasher. they very politely did not comment too much on the battered panels caused by herself having tried to lever them off without removing all the screws. aunty jos even refrained from commenting on herself's failure to keep track of which screw went where. things were going swimmingly until herself offered to help*. she was persuaded to stick to taking pictures of proceedings, so i will leave it to them to illustrate how our wonderful engineers sorted out the beast in double-quick time.




















and here, dear readers, you can see a lot of shiny, clean pots and pans! yay!

it only remains for me to say, unaccustomed as i am to this sort of thing, that the peeps, young dave and i are forever grateful to aunty and mr jos. the peeps, for not having to wash up by hand, and young dave and i for the resumption of the canine pre-wash, which was put on hold for the duration due to handwashed plates not getting sterilised afterwards. bit fussy if you ask me but its all water under the bridge now...


*this sentence was actually thought up during the operation by aunty jos, but i am sure she will not mind me stealing it.

don't whine

dear readers, yet again i must apologise for the long gap in communication. things have been busy as usual. herself has been particularly busy. her additional energy has been due to a sudden healthy lifestyle choice. she has decided to give up wine, and indeed all alcohol. this was in part brought on by a desire to put to the test the saying "you can never be too rich or too thin". herself, as regular readers will know, is neither rich nor thin. but the theory is that she will be less poor and less fat under the new regime. and will no doubt live longer, allowing her to nag my boy for the foreseeable future with impunity.

the downside of this is that she no longer sits down and relaxes of an evening with a glass of wine. this has extended the period of frenetic activity each day considerably. spring cleaning is happening with a vengance, including a foray into my boys's room. my boy's room is a place where untold things live under the bed, and spiders swing from the ceiling. or did. herself hoovered under the bed, for what must be the first time since we moved in. this was accompanied by a fair bit of screeching at the sheer horror of it all. but my boy was happy with the result and can now breathe more easily.

the hoovering has not been confined to our house. as part of the 'help bonzo knit his own hay' project, herself has got herself another cleaning gig to pay for his shoes. horses need big metal shoes to stop their delicate little hooves from wearing out. (that may sound a little bitter but since when did anyone ever worry about my paws?) the big metal shoes don't come cheap. so the snake-charmers are going to pay for the shoes in return for hoovering duties.

mr snake-charmer has very dodgy lungs which get irritated by the tiniest bit of dust so herself is charged with taking their new monster dust-defying vacuum cleaner and giving their bedroom a forensic makeover once a week, followed by the rest of the house if there is time. i just hope the snakes keep their heads down. trying to get a snake out of the innards of a hyper-allergenic hoover might prove tricky.

other news - our aunty is going to visit tomorrow! and she is bringing her other half with her! this visit, so soon after the last one, was necessitated by our recalcitrant dishwasher. (i have mentioned to herself that if she had put those anti-calcium tablets in the dishwasher it might not have become recalcitrant but she was having none of it.)

regular readers will recall that a plan was formulated to mend the dishwasher with the aid of a webcam. suffice to say this, like many of herself's ideas, was not a success. it all started promisingly enough. the dishwasher was pulled out from under the worktop, and unplugged (our aunty had placed great store by the unplugging of the beast, no doubt because of the water involved.) herself's laptop was placed nearby with the webcam.

here the first problem became apparent. herself's laptop did not have the correct drivers for the webcam. there was a short interlude while she searched the internet in vain for them. then my boy's laptop was brought down. this too did not have the drivers but, being a pc rather than a mac (don't get me started on that whole thing) was more likely to be able to work with the webcam. but my boy's laptop was equally unable to assist. this was because it requires a little gadget in order to be able to pick up the wireless network and my boy could not lay his hands on the gadget.

herself had a cup of tea while she thought things through. then, before you could say "stick to the day job" she had disconnected all the plumbing from the dishwasher and wheeled it into the living room where big mac, her computer, lives. big mac knows how to use a webcam and has even been known to try skype on occasion. having positioned everything properly and procured a torch, herself made contact with aunty jos. aunty jos was already giggling. i fear she knew what was to come.

"it is really important that you make a note of which screw came from which bit," she said, "mark them with a magic marker or something." herself did not quite understand how important 'really important' was, and very quickly muddled all the screws up. but this was not the main problem. the main problem was that the webcam was of very low resolution. couple this with the dark innards of a dishwasher, illuminated only by a torch, and you are beginning to get the idea. aunty jos was unable to tell her actuator from her elbow. coupled with herself's inability to remove the side panels from the beast without using a crowbar (best avoided dear readers, if you want to use the appliance afterwards) it appeared that the endevour was doomed.

however, in the background was mr jos, who is also an engineer, and a filtration engineer at that (aunty jos is some sort of hydraulic engineer, i think). a plan was hatched whereby aunty and mr jos would come down and deal with the beast in person. i think even our dishwasher will have to admit defeat in the face of two engineers.

so the dishwasher was replaced to await its fate. however, true to form, herself failed to reconnect the drain pipe. this was because the dishwasher is no longer working so did not need to drain. what herself failed to appreciate was that the washing machine was still draining, and without the pipe from the dishwasher, was draining all over the floor.

it is just as well the floor is already ruined from a previous leak. and also just as well that the peeps have not yet got round to having it replaced. the insurers might have pulled a bit of a face at two claims for a new floor within as many months...

an aunty!

dear readers, young dave and i have found ourselves an aunty! we haven't asked her yet but i hope she will take us on. she is already an experienced aunty to a couple of young chaps who sound like human versions of lurchers so we are hopeful that she will add us to her portfolio of nephews.

our new aunty came to visit at the weekend. she is called jos and is a friend of herself's. she lives a bit of a way away so she stayed the night. my boy offered to sleep on the sofa with young dave so aunty jos could have his bed. or more accurately his sofa - he has a bed and a sofa in his room, but the bed is full of things like guitars and boots so he sleeps on his sofa.

this bed-lending arrangement was necessary because of a certain fear of dogs on the part of aunty jos. young dave tends to make himself comfortable snuggled up on the pillows of guests who sleep on the sofa, and if possible inserts his long and woolly body under their duvet. this is all very well if you are a lover of hairy grey beasts but not so great if they make you nervous. as you can see from the photo, by the second day of her visit, aunty jos had been charmed by young dave to the point where she read him a story about clouds and let him lie in her lap.

as well as being a perfect aunty, aunty jos is also an engineer! we could not have chosen a more useful guest on this particular weekend as the dishwasher had decided to give up heating the water. young dave and i offered to take over dishwashing duties but we were rudely spurned. a brief discussion with our clever guest identified the problem as the element. as himself fried the eggs for breakfast herself and aunty jos got online and found a place that sells elements. herself ordered one, which should arrive in a few days.

however, obtaining an element and getting it into the dishwasher are two very different things. it appears that the element lives somewhere deep in the floor of the dishwasher. aunty jos was of course rather blase about how easy it might be to fit such a thing, being an engineer. herself, somewhat uncharacteristically, was a little concerned about making sure the dishwasher did not become live and dangerous. aunty jos offered to talk herself through the operation on the phone, once the element had arrived, but this still left room for human error.

"how will i know which wire you mean?" she squeaked, "it might all go zap when we switch it back on!"

but a solution presented itself in the form of skype. skype is a sort of webcam telephone thing. herself is going to rig up a web cam pointing into the innards of the dishwasher and aunty jos is going to tell her which bit to do what with. there is an added complication just now in that herself has laryngitis and has very little volume. my boy may have to be roped in to provide audio from our end.

if this proves a success there are plans to post the recording of the whole operation on my blog. watch this space...

a bit cleaner

dear readers, here you can see the magnificent bonzo at rest, with his dear friend libby standing guard. it may not seem that someone as small as libby would be required to protect someone as large as bonzo, but let me tell you, this libby is a fierce little creature. young dave and i have learned from bitter experience to stay well clear of her heels. so bonzo can doze in the sunshine safe in the knowledge that no mountain tigers will be leaping on him from above.

i would have used a picture of the actual subject matter of this post, but this is a family blog and while this post is about something connected with family, using a photograph might result in it being filtered out by those helpful little creatures inside your computer that protect you from scary things. (herself had cause to wish she had some of the helpful creatures in her computer this week. bonzo and libby's field is drowning in mud so herself decided she needed to put down more hardcore. all i will say, dear readers, is do not google 'hardcore' without adding 'ballast' or 'rubble'.)

the reason for my caution is that this post is about the magnificent bonzo's magnificent wedding tackle. (i have added a link to the definition of this phrase as last time i used it there was consternation among my readers in canada. and possibly elsewhere.) it seems that horses, unlike lurchers, are unable to keep their own wedding tackle clean. this is because of the way they are designed. so their owner has to clean it for them. mr snake charmer is the sponsor for the wedding tackle, but herself does not trust him to approach the task of todger husbandry with sufficient gravitas. (i would advise my readers against googling 'todger' without turning off the image search facility. for those readers of a curious nature, the correct term for this operation is 'sheath cleaning'. again i would recommend switching off image search.) herself has bought some special stuff to do this with. on the label it says 'sheath cleaner' and then underneath, to my great relief, 'for horses'.

herself has never owned her own horse before so has never had the responsibility for this task. many years ago she had a horse on loan, but this was a lady horse and therefore did not have any appendages. herself was rather alarmed at the prospect of tackling the wedding tackle, and has been trying to rope in her maamship to provide moral support, using blandishments such as what a good story it would make if her maamship was asked to give an after-dinner speech at a judicial function.

herself delivered her sales patter by e-mail. she thoughtfully attached a description of what was involved which she had found on the internet. unfortunately the e-mail arrived at her maamship's at lunchtime. her maamship was not overly pleased to receive this helpful discourse and e-mailed herself back to say it had put her off her soup.

herself made a couple of attempts to persuade the magnificent bonzo of the importance of a clean todger but he was having none of it. uncle gary was approached and gave herself instruction on how to proceed. mrs lupin asked her brother, who has a horse, and was told that baby oil was the way to go. herself continued to prevaricate and was chatting to mrs toby, her new friend who has a horse near bonzo and libby's field, about the problem.

"oh, i'm an expert sheath cleaner!" said mrs toby, "toby has a bit of a problem down there so i have to do it quite often. i'll give you a hand." i should explain that toby is mrs toby's horse. mrs toby went on to explain that once a horse understood what was going on he generally got to quite like the experience. it seems toby likes it rather more than is entirely decent, and goes into something of a trance.

mental note to self: make sure my boy does not come out with comments about horse porn when the nice ladies from social services are next round...

a good read

dear readers, i have asked herself to help me with a very short post this morning, just to direct you to a new blog written by a dear friend of ours, which is a refreshing antedote to the daily grind in which we find ourselves mired.

forty days of happiness

and if you pop by, make sure to let her know who sent you.

channel hopping

dear readers, here you see the sad remains of our zapper. there has been a certain amount of confusion relating to the telly lately. herself, as part of the ongoing "save money so bonzo can spend it" campaign, has moved her mobile phone provider to a much cheaper one which also meant she could get a free new phone.

as the old mobile phone provider was the same company that provides our broadband this meant that she could change the broadband provider to a cheaper one too, which she did with great speed. what she had not bargained for was that the telly digital box would no longer work as the telly was coming down the broadband wire. himself was somewhat peeved about this as he has a special 'wall to wall football' channel which also ceased to work.

herself settled down to research the issue and came to the conclusion that the only way round this was to buy a new digital box which would allow the 'wall to wall football' to be accessed. however in the meantime there was no telly at all coming down the broadband wire so the peeps had to go back to what is called 'terrestrial telly'. i am not sure why it is called this as the signal comes down a different wire from the roof.

the terrestrial telly has a different zapper to the digital box. this would be fine, but for the fact that the terrestrial zapper was a little the worse for wear, as a result of young dave having tried to change the channel from wall to wall football to the dog whisperer when no-one was looking. unfortunately for the zapper, young dave had to use his teeth, which resulted in a problem with the number 3 button. the peeps were aware that young dave had been at the terrestrial zapper because of the teeth marks, but until now have only been using it to turn the volume up and down so they were unaware of the number 3 button issue.

"why does it keep trying to find channel 333?" wailed himself (terrestrial telly only has the 4 channels).

"i think it must have been when dave chewed it up," said herself, changing to channel 33 with no appreciable effect. the screen was just as blue as before, as was the air.

when himself had left the room, herself got out the toolbox and de-constructed the zapper. this allowed the number 3 button to express itself again and thus gave access to 4 channels. the only snag was that the labels for most of the buttons were on the case. herself gleefully showed himself the newly operative zapper when he re-appeared.

"the only thing is, you can't see what half the buttons are for now, but i'll keep the top bit so we can use it to work out what's what."

i just hope the new box turns up soon...

some new readers

dear readers, yet again i must grovel and apologise for the lack of contact. it is a wonder i am able to retain my loyal readers with such a poor service. my problem is, as always, that herself is so busy horsing around that it is very difficult to pin her down to do my typing.

however she was shamed into finding a moment after an exchange of text messages yesterday with the gypsy. the gypsy, who has known herself for hundreds of years, keeps a quiet eye on the peeps from afar and reads my musings in order to gauge the level of chaos and madness in our house. of course when there are no musings she has to resort to her crystal ball, or to more modern methods such as text messaging.

last night the peeps were watching telly when herself's new phone gave a little dingle. it is a rather pleasing little toy with a touch sensitive screen. what this means is that pretend buttons appear on the screen and you press them, rather than real buttons like the old phone. the phone has a little stick that you can use to press the buttons, in the interests of accuracy. herself, needless to say, is in too much of a hurry to get the little stick out of the bottom of the phone, so tends to rely on her less accurate thumb.

anyway, the dingle was a text message from the gypsy.

"hiya u. is everything ok? u.ve not written your joker blog for a while. i.m just checking! Xxx"

herself was mortified that her poor approach to her secretarial duties had caused her old mate to worry. quick as a flash she texted back,

"i'm fine, great to hear from you. come and visit soon"

the gypsy replied that she would when she could but her dad is not well. this was when things went a bit haywire. herself's reply merely said, rather cryptically,

"o4"

the gyspy replied,

"whats o4?!!!"

herself made the mistake of trying to be cool and use text speak. her next message said,

"SoS have spent the last half hour"

this clearly did not convey the fact that the peeps were snug on the sofa watching telly and the gypsy wrote back,

"Nope! Messages r garbled. Either your phone is [bust] or you r trying to tell me something that i am not getting. R u having an emergency that i need to seek aid 4?"

this last message was not discovered by herself until this morning so it is lucky that the gypsy had not summoned the emergency services. i suppose she knew that i was here keeping an eye on things...

as well as writing a post to let the gypsy know that we are still alive, i also want to welcome some new readers. young dave and i were charging around mrs collie's front garden, after a visit to mrs collie for herself to scrounge breakfast. i got into the car when asked but young dave, true to form, decided to pick up a piece of the magnificent bonzo's hoof and run round in circles with it. i should point out for the benefit of my more sensitive readers that the piece of hoof was no longer attached to bonzo - the farrier came yesterday to trim up his feet and put on new shoes and there are always tasty morsels of hoof left around afterwards.

herself was doing the usual thing of trying to look more interesting than what dave was playing with, unsuccessfully, it has to be said. it is rather poignant that she is less interesting than a discarded bit of horse hoof. just then some greyhounds came into view. one had a coat on and a basket muzzle just like the one i had to wear after the misunderstanding about the deer. the other one had a rather elegant embroidered collar. herself managed to grab young dave while he was making eyes at the lady greyhound, and got chatting with their people. it seems these lovely creatures are called lily and dennis. i am not sure what the people are called.

the magnificent bonzo and little libby came and peered over and through the fence respectively, hoping for carrots. the nice people said that next time they went past they would try and remember to bring carrots. herself told them about me being a world famous lurcher and they said they would try and find my blog. so in anticipation of them succeeding:

hello dennis, lily and your people!

one and a half hosses

dear readers, another eventful week!  at the weekend bonzo's new friend arrived.  she is being lent to bonzo to stop him escaping in search of company.   she is called libby and is very small and just like a bear.  she has very thick fur and lots of hair over her eyes, just like bonzo.   bonzo took to her straight away and soon they were happily charging round the field.   

things were going swimmingly until bonzo realised that he had to share his food with libby.  this caused a certain amount of ear flattening and teeth baring.  libby pretended not to notice this rather ungentlemanly behaviour but drew the line at bonzo nipping her rather large behind.  she turned round and let him have it with her back feet in his chest.  this is called establishing the pecking order.   it seems that whoever can behave in the most scary fashion is allowed to peck the other one.  young dave and i have a similar arrangement.  

so the equine friends settled down to domestic bliss, punctuated by argy bargy at mealtimes.  for a couple of days this was fine.  then yesterday herself was getting the food for the pair of them, while young dave and i were pootling round the field, and all of a sudden bonzo sped up to libby at full tilt.  bonzo is not called 'the magnificent bonzo' for nothing.  he is a sight to behold at the best of times, but at speed is something else.  libby sped along beside him, her little legs running at twice the speed of his.

unfortunately bonzo has not read the highway code and had no idea about stopping distances.  as he approached the new wooden fence we could see his large but rather slow brain working.  it was clear that even with an emergency stop he was not going to avoid catastrophe.  but behind all that hair is a hint of genius.   as bonzo approached the fence he suddenly took off!  young dave and i had never seen anything like it - a flying horse!  unfortunately bonzo had got his calculations slightly adrift and, while he cleared the lower two rails, he smashed through the top one as though it was matchwood.  

libby galloped around the field neighing.   bonzo galloped up and down outside the field shaking his impressive head and neighing.  young dave ran round the field, dodging libby, with a plastic bottle in his mouth.  the only creature with any sense was myself, as you would expect.  i sat quietly and made mental notes.

eventually herself managed to catch young dave and we were placed in the car.  then herself whistled for bonzo, who came running in a way that put young dave to shame.  with the help of the nice lady at the stables eventually everyone was where they were supposed to be.  herself stood staring at the wreckage of the new fence.   i could not hear from inside the car but it looked to me as though she may have uttered an expletive.

the rest of the morning was taken up with fitting little rubber screw thingys into the new fence to take an electrified tape.  this gives bonzo a zap or two, after which he avoids it like the plague  (the problem with the previous electric fence appears to have been that the electricity was not traveling down the tape).

aside from all this horse-related drama, things have been a little sore in the thumb department.   regular readers will recall a little problem i had with my thumb.    it appears that, true to form, i am taking a while to heal.   so this evening, after a busy day of horsing around, off we went to the evil vet.  dr andy had a look at the thumb and gave it a little bathe.  then he stuck more needles in me.  having the ear of the vet herself asked about my poor old hips, which give me a fair bit of gip these days.

"i have a friend who is an acupuncturist," said dr andy, "it is very good for arthritis in dogs."  herself looked amazed.

"you mean stick more needles in him?  wouldn't the screaming be unbearable?"  at this i pricked up my ears.  i have no idea what an acupuncturist is but if they stick needles in you then i would be out of there before they could get their sewing kit out.   

anyway, i now have more pills and painkillers.  as soon as we got home from the evil vet's i felt better.  i gave young dave a little duffing up, just so he remembered who is where in the pecking order...

no snow

dear readers, at last the magnificent bonzo is coming home!  regular readers will recall that after herself fell off him in december, bonzo was sent to uncle gary's hoof camp for some lessons in coping with an incompetent rider.  this included modules on standing still while said rider clambers aboard, keeping all four feet relatively near the ground, only galloping when told to, and saddle management, with special emphasis on its positioning on top of the body and not underneath.  

just before christmas uncle gary declared that bonzo had passed with flying colours.  he took herself out for a ride.  herself was a little apprehensive.  her apprehension turned to panic when bonzo started to get a little irritated with a small dog who was running in and out of his feet and barking incessantly.  bonzo prefers his dogs large and hairy, like his good self.  fortunately young dave and i are able to oblige in the largeness and hairiness department.

"gary, i'm really scared!" squeaked herself.

"just breathe," said uncle gary.  uncle gary is not herself's uncle, by the way.  he is bonzo's uncle, although i fail to see the resemblance.  i think it may be one of those courtesy titles.

herself breathed.

"i'm still scared!"  i suppose at least she was scared but breathing.

"if you calm yourself down, bonzo will respond," said uncle gary, "make your voice lower."

herself understands the importance of a low voice.  going into court and squeaking tends to give the game away to the other side that you are on the back foot.  over the years herself has learned to sound deeper voiced and more confident that she feels.

"good boy, bonzo," she said, sounding like a sumo wrestler.  or perhaps a bishop.  the rest of the outing passed without incident.  

a second attempt a couple of days later was much more successful and uncle gary said bonzo was ready to return home to his field.  however, the night before the big day it snowed and carried on snowing for some time.  everywhere was bathed in white.  the stables were snowed in.  the field was snowed in.  bonzo wasn't going anywhere.  it has to be said that bonzo had no objection whatsoever to this.  uncle gary's place is the horse equivalent of a health farm, with a warm barn, friendly people to scratch bonzo's big head, nice horses to chat to and lots of grub.  bonzo was very happy to spend christmas in the warm rather than in his drafty field.

eventually the snow thawed and plans were made for the journey.  but the day before bonzo was due to come home it snowed again.  this time it snowed even more.  mrs collie was snowed in up the hill where bonzo's field is (or more properly where mrs collie's field which bonzo lives in is) and had to be rescued by herself.  i was beginning to think that bonzo had come to an arrangement with the weather people.  it is decidedly suspicious that each time he was due to come home a blizzard arrived.

time passed and last week both the stables and the field were accessible.  herself began to make the final arrangements at the field to make it comfortable and safe for the big fellow and his new little friend.  there was one last bit of fencing to do, which fortunately a proper fencing man is doing today (the prospect of a fence erected by herself does not bear thinking about).

there is a ton a gravelly stuff to spread where the mud is but first herself needed to lay her hands on some hardcore to build up the area by the gate. yesterday she went on the internet and found some.  she rang the man and arranged to come and collect a trailer load.  the only downside was that the man was an hour's drive away, but at least the hardcore was free.  herself peeled herself off the computer and took young dave and i out for our walk.  as we approached the house the new neighbour the other side of the next-doors (this is not the owner of the little dog but the other way) came out.  he and his dad are doing major building work before his wife and baby move in.  the building work involves knocking down walls.

"you wouldn't have any hardcore, would you?" asked herself.  i didn't know where to put myself.  herself is a totter of many years experience.  she finds it hard to go past a skip without peering in to see if there is anything useful in it.  the advent of recycling as a worthy lifestyle has made this less of an embarrassment than it must have been in the past but by all accounts herself was at this lark long before recycling was invented.  but this poor man had hardly got the wall down and there she is scrounging it.

anyway to cut a very long story short (a saying, dear readers, no stories were injured) herself popped young dave and me into the house and wheeled her trusty trailer along to where the building was happening.  the arrangement is that the builders will fill the trailer with hardcore and herself will take it up to the field.  on the way down she will bring a load of the unmanageable and prickly old fence which she is slowly taking to the dump.   it made the fencing job cheaper if herself got rid of the old fence but she is regretting this particular money-saving ploy.   getting several hundred yards of rusty wire netting into a small trailer is something of a task.  it involves herself standing in a very precarious manner on top of the coils of wire in order to squash them into shape.  i may start selling tickets.

anyway, i am being told that i must draw this musing to a close as we are off to the field with the first load of hardcore.   i just hope that hoss appreciates all the effort...

a new toy

dear readers, thank you all for your good wishes for my recovery.  i am now back to normal and much relieved to no longer be in pain.  this evening young dave and i had a surprise.  mrs next door knocked on the door saying that there was a little dog running up and down the road.  herself, being a lover of animals, put on her coat and joined mrs next door in trying to ascertain what the little dog wanted.   herself immediately recognised it as being one of the little dogs from next door but one.  

the peeps had been over the road at her maamship's house when the new next door but one moved in, giving them ample opportunity to view her and her two little dogs.  and a few days later the same little dog had been found in the road, having escaped from the garden through a very small gap.  

herself and mrs next door tried to find the little dog's owner, but could not get a reply.   as the temperature is sub-zero it was clear the little dog could not be left outside.  mrs next door has a house full, what with young ruby and the next doors, and mrs next door's friend who is staying while she recovers from pneumonia.  added to this mrs next door has had a tooth out and is suffering.  so the little dog was brought into our house and a note was placed on the door where it lives.  

i have to say i was at first rather concerned at the appearance of  a canine visitor.  young dave, however, was thrilled.

"look joker, they've got us a toy dog!" he beamed.  it was only when he approached the little dog that he realised it was alive.  and not only that, it bore more than a passing resemblance to the chihuahua that chases him at the local park.  young dave circled the little dog very cautiously, sniffing its ears.  

the evening has proved entertaining.  young dave is huge compared to the little dog but is very alarmed every time it moves.  the peeps were hoping to have an early night but are rather worried about going to bed before the little dog is claimed by its owner.  i think young dave and i may have to share our sofas again...

ps: the little dog's owner arrived to collect her at 10.45 so all is well!