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.