Since I last posted, we've been busy. Andy is continuing to recover well. Last week, we were trying to ensure he didn't pull his stitches or over-exert himself, which mostly seemed to be a pretty fruitless effort, as he was bounding around gleefully brimming with energy.

The in-laws arrived for the weekend on Friday. By that time, we had decided to risk taking off his lampshade, as he was not making any attempt to nibble his stitches. Had a nice meal on Friday night. Andy barked a lot at them when they arrived, and for some reason does not like my mother in law and growls at her a lot. On Saturday, I had got up early to let out woof and could not return to sleep so made some blueberry muffins for breakfast. Andy watched closely and when I had just put them in the oven, ran off with my little Magiwhisk, which had muffin mix on it. Naughty little tinker. Dodging the showers, we took him over to Cosmeston lakes in the morning, where I took the photo above. It's a lovely country park and well worth a visit. We had planned the first barbecue of the summer on Saturday evening, but although it was not raining it was pretty chilly and quite windy so we wimped out. Watched Eurovision - what can I say? A vision of nighmares and the Ukraine Bacofoil wearers were something else. Words fail me.

Sunday, our plan was to visit a rare plant fair over at Caldicot Castle. It was pouring down. Early in the morning, Andrew let out the dog, and as per usual he came upstairs and both returned to bed for a further sleep. MIL got up to visit the bathroom at around 7.30 and Andy went berserk, barking and growling like mad. FIL found this hilarious and loudly joked about her terrifying early morning appearance which did not go down well, and resulted in what is known in the family as her "Mount Rushmore" face.

Decided to brave the elements anyway and found the castle, which is absolutely delightful. Although it is the real thing with battlements, it is also an old dwelling place, and has a lovely atmosphere. Most of the stall holders had not showed up as the weather was so terrible - the lovely lady on the gate offered to let us see the number of stall holders before making a decision on whether to pay or not. We did, and bought a few very nice plants. Trundled back home and had a leisurely lunch. Inlaws departed late afernoon.

Back to work today, and only a paltry 122 emails waiting for me. In my post was an intriguing CD. APSE have invited me to judge the Refuse Service team of the Year this year, so all the entries were placed on a disc and sent to me. Now I will have the pleasure of studying them more closely. Last year, I judged the Street sweeping entries, and found that very satisfying also. This is one of those tasks which is a real pleasure and deeply interesting to undertake. Less pleasurably, I had to start the day by chairing a disciplinary hearing. These are never much fun. Fortunately, in this particular case, there was no dispute about the facts involved, or painful slanging matches, but a case where a previously good colleague had had some personal difficulties. Now these were resolved, I don't doubt he will return to his normal high standards.

Finished the day by taking woof to the vet. With all his activity, his stitches were a bit seepy, but the nurse was delighted with his progress and said he was looking great. As I write this, the young master is soaking in a relaxing bath and Andy is by my feet, looking especially relaxed and happy. Who could ask for more?