Death - there's a lot of it about

It's been a grim old week. Following our double date with death on Friday, our dear friend Neville's father passed away on Saturday morning, following a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. Our thoughts are very much with Neville and his family.

As a result, we currently have four chocolate labradors gambolling around the house while Neville & his wife (Claire) are up in Birmingham with his mum. The dogs make a formidable sight as they charge around the woods terrorising anything that moves. The garden's resemblance to the Somme becomes greater and greater by the day.

Helen and I attended the Chambers annual dinner on Saturday night, leaving Molly for the first time for a whole evening. Given that we already had four dogs and my niece that needed to be babysat by Emily and Charlotte we felt that it was unfair/unwise to expect them to be able to look after Molly as well. Luckily, our very good friends Viv and John were prepared to step into the breach. Indeed, they volunteered with worrying enthusiasm and apparently spent the whole evening playing with Molly and taking photographs. Given that they are both doctors we were pretty confident that Molly was in safe hands. It seemed very odd being out without Molly and both Helen and I were keen not to stay out too late. Molly seemed perfectly contented when we picked her up at about 1.00am and slept through until almost 6.00am.

This sleeping through thing is a becoming a bit of a habit.