Last week the whole family (including dog) went down to the Cotswolds for a long weekend break and for one of my wife’s old friends ‘wedding’.
I put ‘wedding’ in parenthesis because it was a civil ceremony between two women.
Even now, I’m not sure how I feel about it.
I wish them well though as they are both lovely women.
A big plus was being able to dance with my wife.
The evening bash was at a place called ‘Lower Slaughter Manor’.
Not an appealing name but beautiful none the less.
Scottish dancing with a fair bit of clumsiness and a lot of laughter.

Christmas at our house this year was the typical madness.
Every year I'm amazed at 'Santa's' generosity.
The Children were all happy though and I even managed to choose a successful present for my wife!
Trying to prevent the dog eating all the chocolate tree decorations and edible presents was a new one though.

We currently have some builders in.
They’re a nice bunch and I’ve had no problems with them but..,
They started to replace the back fence that separates our garden from the open fields outside.
They started…
Unfortunately for several reasons it took them two weeks to finish the job, in which time our dog ‘Willow’ burrowed and barged her way through the lashed up barricade pretty much every day.
She knew where she was and would always wander back half an hour or so later.
On one of the early attempts she managed to pull off her name tag and identity chip tag.
‘I’ll replace it later’ I said.
A few days later a ‘Good Samaritan’ caught her in the fields and due to her lack of name tag, dragged her to one of the local vets.
My wife got worried when the dog hadn’t returned after an hour and went out looking for her. After two hours she started phoning the local vets.
It turned out that her identity chip had been ‘over looked’ and she been sent to one of the local holding facilities, but they didn’t know which one.
At 4.15pm someone phoned her back with the address, but the facility closed at 4.30pm and it was an hours drive away.
I took my eldest daughter with me and we went to collect her the next morning.
I was expecting a whimpering and scared dog, but the reality was very different.
The dog wasn’t there!
I spoke the girl on reception.
‘Oh she was such a lovely dog, that we couldn’t bear to leave her here over night. One of the handlers took her home with him.’
They turned up just after 11am.
Willow bounced up to us, full of herself and obviously very pleased with her adventure and the evenings pampering.
Lesson learned?
Not likely.