As usual, I find that my life seems to be a case of trying to squash in about 29 hours worth of activity into every 24 hours of real time. Since I last wrote, a number of things have happened. Firstly, my status has changed from being a housewife into tentatively dipping my toe back into the world of work. After over 20 years in local government, I am now in the private sector, in fact I am self employed. Regular readers will recall that the young master works for a management consultancy, a small but busy company, that uses a core of employees and a wider range of associate consultants that are brought in for specific areas of expertise. After some discussion, I have now become a consultant, primarily and initially doing desktop studies and assisting with the management of company databases and so on, for the company he works for, but with the freedom to take on other work as it suits. In the traditional manner, I am now available for weddings, funerals and bar mitzvahs and would be pleased to discuss any proposals via the usual contact mechanisms. I can't stress enough though that I am not wishing to return to full time,permanent work - that's not a lifestyle I want to rejoin, for all sorts of reasons.

My first project was started last Thursday and completed on Friday - involving some research on a local government related project, with added suggestions for useful reports, data, public polling and so on. This is the sort of work I really enjoy - there is some very good quality data out there now on public services, and pulling it together in a useable package is right up my street. It uses the skills I accumulated doing my MBA and the wide experience I have in local government informs the crucial practicality tests.

After such a positive day on Thursday, I went to my usual ECDL class in the evening, feeling happy and anticipatory. I've commented before on my disappointment that the class is not using up to date software, but am plodding on with it. The tutor wanted to get me set up to do my first exam, in word processing, probably my strongest module. It took her over an hour and a quarter to be able to gain access to the website through which the exams are conducted. Eventually, just before 8 pm I sat down to do my test. Initially, all went well. I was flying through the questions very comfortably. Then, with two questions to go, the computer crashed.

By this point, I had passed through the fury stage and had reached the state of expecting a piece of space junk to land on the roof, a power cut to take place or some other similar freak of nature. Due to some quirk of the system, you cannot resit your test on the same day, so I will be taking it again this Thursday night. Fingers crossed we don't have an invasion of locusts, or killer squirrels or something equally improbable.

On the weekend, we travelled over to Somerset to stay with Andrew's parents to celebrate both Andrew and his father's birthdays. The birthdays are separated by one day, and in fact Andrew was born about ten minutes to midnight, the family story being that if Andrew's mum could have held on for ten more minutes, they would have shared the same birthday. Naturally and understandably, Andrew's mother is less sympathetic to this point of view, making the reasonable point that by that stage in the proceedings, waiting was not really an option!

Anyway, we drove over there on Saturday, which is also Booty's official birthday (as we don't know the real date). After a short lunch, we headed out in the afternoon to Hestercombe, near Taunton. This is a lovely house and garden, the estate of which had fallen into a state of some disrepair, but has now been lovingly restored and is open to the public. There is a formal garden at the front of the house, designed by Lutyens and Jekyll and then behind the house there is a traditional 18th century parkland setting with lakes, follies, vistas, a ha-ha and all the usual accoutrements. It was a glorious autumn afternoon and we enjoyed walking up through the grounds to the highest point and then descending, before strolling round the formal gardens. Maintaining the follies, planting, water features and so on is a massive task and it had changed and improved since Andrew and I last visited some three years back. His parents are regular visitors as they hold a variety of garden and indoor events there. I attach some pics.

In the evening, we stayed in and enjoyed a delicious celebratory dinner, before retiring. In the morning, after breakfast, we were joined by Andrew's sister, her husband and their three small boys. The boys had made Booty some gorgeous cards, and there was a present for her of a squeaky rubber chicken. This was a huge success with both dogs and I will try to attach some video footage of them playing with it, along with the boys climbing the apple trees in the garden. The day passed very quickly and soon it was time to return home, with both woofs and people tired and happy.

Just going to try to upload a couple of the special greyhound pics.

Two eventful weeks to catch up on. Weekend before last, was our annual craft-fest at the CIA (Cardiff International Arena). Hilary came up from Swansea on the Thursday, and Thursday evening was spent in excited discussions on shopping lists. On Friday, Andrew dropped off two eager shoppers and aunt and niece embarked together on their annual twirl round the craft show. The show brings together goodies from a number of crafts, including quilting, stitching, knitting and papercrafts with demonstrations by people doing lace making and tatting and the Quilters Guild, as well as costumes from The Duchess, film starring Keira Knightley and Helen Mirren.

By now, we have our strategy well worked out. First, we simply view the stalls, working round the outside first then moving up and down the respective aisles. As we do so, we note stalls of interest, with items that we want to check out. Then we have a coffee and gird our loins in preparation for the attack ahead. Then and only then does any shopping take place, and we try to make sure that heavy or bulky items are left until the end.

Then the actual shopping takes place and this year we really enjoyed it. This is not a craft specific blog so I won't review what we saw in detail, except to say I took the plunge and after three years of dithering, I finally took the plunge and invested in a Big Shot, a die cutting machine. More about this over on Silver Nutmeg. Very happy, and exhausted, we finally emerge blinking into the light and are collected by Andrew. At home, we collapse in a heap, examine our purchases with gleeful little squeaks of joy and review the day, helped initially by coffee and later by a bottle of wine...

On the Saturday, our original plan had been to go back into town to visit Lakeland, the kitchenware shop. However the weather was terrible and Andrew was poorly with a sore throat and high temperature, and wisely spent the day in bed. Hilary suggested we stay home and have a day of crafting, in particular playing with the new die cutter and showing her the marvels of alcohol inks, which she was curious to see demonstrated. So we had a happy and successful day of crafting, while the rain poured down and took her to the station for her train, later in the afternoon. Had a quiet day on the Sunday.

On the Monday, we had a special visitor. The greyhound charity we are involved with had been contacted by an author writing a book on racing greyhounds as pets - effectively their second careers. She wanted to chat to some greyhound owners and take some pics of them in a home setting. Naturally, the offer of talking to someone about our beloved hounds was too good to turn down. So she came over, asked lots of questions and took some pics. She very kindly sent us a CD of some of the pics later in the week, and I will attach them, although possibly not to this post. As they are high spec images, the file size is quite large. I feel there are some entrancing images of the hounds there. Naturally, I am of course hugely biased but I do feel in general that greyhounds are leggy supermodels - very photogenic with their swan necks and aristocratic shnozzles.

The rest of the week seemed to fly by, with Andrew away, then on Friday we had an evening I have been anticipating for a long time. Regular readers will recall that we saw the Ring Cycle in 2006, an ambition of mine and were hugely affected by it, loving the complexity and beauty of the music, the singing and the emotional intensity of the story. On Friday, the Mariinsky Theatre were back, from St. Petersburg and this time they were doing an opera gala concert, with the entire second half being the final act of Die Valkurie with Bryn Terfel singing Wotan. One of my regrets was not being able to see him singing this role in Covent Garden recently - tickets were like gold dust, so it was a wonderful treat. The first half of the concert was a mix of orchestral pieces and sung opera extracts, with stunning quality in the voices. Not a duff one among them. As I mentioned in the Ring review originally, all the Russian singers had a very distinctive posture with ramrod straight backs, open chests and a careful placing of arms and hands. Much less naturalistic than current European practice, but not unwelcome. We had excellent seats in the front stalls and again were able to savour the joys of the theatre building - it is an excellent auditorium. It was also a pleasure to see the orchestra on the stage, as opposed to the pit - allowing a really intimate feel to proceedings.

The second half flew by - I loved it. Bryn Terfel was excellent as Wotan, making his entrance via the stalls in dramatic fashion, and along an apron at the side of the stage. Sieglinde was beautifully sung - the encounter between her and Siegmund to me is one of the most powerful and beautiful pieces of music I know, earlier in the opera. The orchestra were superb, conducting was excellent, with tempo moving very briskly along. Bryn Terfel really does have a superb voice for Wagner and also has that imposing physical presence needed. He is a big man, tall and broad and really inhabits the role and the stage - you find yourself drawn to him. It seemed the singing was over in what felt like ten minutes but when we emerged it was nearly 10.45 and the evening had started promptly at 7.15. Bliss.

Saturday morning was a quiet time for all of us, being quite tired after a busy week, Andrew still recuperating and a late night the night before. My head was (and still is) full of Wagner music. Then it was off down to Swansea to see great aunt Floss, now 91, recently ill but still on wonderful form, as independent, funny, and sharp as ever. She is enjoying her central heating, recently installed in time for the winter (and long overdue). We went out for lunch in a pub in Morriston that one of her other great neices had recommended - not bad, but not one we'd rush back to, I think. After lunch, we had a run in the car down the Mumbles and parked up in Bracelet bay, looking out over the waves, before returning her home, and then making our own way back up the motorway to Cardiff. A quiet evening spent catching up on some TV and a fairly early bed.

Today was an interesting day, as we had managed by great good fortune to track down a greyhound charity just over the bridge in England who have a field available for greyhound play, off lead in a secure setting. Sighthounds generally are notoriously bad at recall - being prone to selective deafness when a more interesting object is engaging their attentions (such as a rabbit or a squirrel). This sort of field offers a safe, responsible way for greyhounds (and other sighthounds) to enjoy themselves running about without endangering anyone else - fantastic.

We had been given directions to the field, just under the old Severn Bridge, and were able to find it quite easily. Andy and Booty had a whale of a time, running and scampering about, chasing each other round in circles, racing round the perimeter at top speed. Seeing a greyhound at full tilt is one of the most awesome sights - that deep chest, and long legs really are designed for a purpose and boy do they go FAST. Both dogs have a wonderful habit of running full tilt towards you - the trick is to stay absolutely still - as they will pass within literally millimetres, so you can feel the wind of their passing, very finely judged. Our hour seemed to race by, and at the end, the next people to use the field were waiting politely with their hound for their "slot". Came home with two exhausted but happy woofs.

Andrew is now in the bath, enjoying a Dorothy L Sayers and I am catching up with downloading photos and videos, and of course updating my blog.