So here we are in what feels like a heatwave!! We've now had what seems like a couple of weeks of progressively hotter and sunnier weather, with not a drop of rain, and temperatures climbing steadily upwards. We're having to water bits of the garden, not just the pots, we've ditched the duvet on the bed, and dog walks are now taken very early in the morning. By half past nine, it's up in the high twenties (C) and the dogs are miserable. All of them have lost their appetite, are much more listless and just lie around panting looking uncomfortable. Being greyhounds, there's not exactly much excess weight especially on our two oldies, Booty and Boola so we are continually battling to keep them eating and not to lose too much. This is particularly frustrating with Boola as we were making great strides with his condition, and were managing to just cover the bones while maintaining his musculature. He's still thinner than I would like; remember this is a greyhound we are talking about so we are starting from a pretty skinny base.

We've had an exciting time out in the garden - the toadpoles and tadpoles have finally hatched (is this the correct technical term? Fledged doesn't seem right), lost their tails and the garden is now plastered with adorable, tiny little froglets each about the size of a penny, hopping about, making their way in the world. We've also bought a little inflatable paddling pool for the woofs - so far, only Booty has been in it. Andy looks at it as though it is an evil trap and Boola prefers a sofa. I must admit though I love sitting out there and swishing my feet around in it - very cooling and refreshing.

Thursday was a very interesting day. I had received a kind invitation to speak to the all Wales Dog Warden group as I have been doing a great deal of research on microchipping of dogs in Wales, particularly in relation to Welsh Councils' policies. As far as I'm aware, nobody has compiled these policies together in this way before and it has proved to be a very interesting and worthwhile exercise, while also generating lots of further questions and pointers for policy development. So, I had put together a PowerPoint presentation of the key findings plus some ideas on how these could be developed in the future, particularly considering the wider issues around the public sector in Wales (major budget restrictions, particularly). The journey up to Rhayader was spectacular and of course filled with very happy memories of our life in Powys last year. It was a real treat to drive through the National Park, see red kites wheeling overhead and to be surrounded by the beauty of mid Wales on a glorious, sunny day. I arrived at the Leisure Centre, set up my talk and soon it was time to get to business.

Some very interesting points came out of the discussions which I think are worthy of further following up. There is a real issue over the patchiness of out of hours coverage for stray dogs - some authorities have excellent facilities, while others, bluntly, don't, similarly with websites, policies and so on - there is a huge variation of policy and practice. One of the points I hope I got across is that the public, when faced with either finding or losing a dog, don't really care which Council they are dealing with, or what department, they just need to get the problem sorted. Anyway, there's lots of scope for further work on the issues raised, so watch this space. One of the things I am seriously considering is setting up a dedicated microchipping website for Wales, with lots of information for dog owners on the comparative policies of the various Councils and policy updates, recommendations, news, links and so on. At the moment, with my Welsh Festival of the Horse stuff going on, this probably isn't realistic, but after the Festival which is in early September I may have a bit more time to devote to this, and am currently giving it some serious thought. I'd welcome comments or ideas or suggestions from readers.

Anyway, back at Rhayader, after finishing my presentation and having a really nice chat with the meeting chair it was back to Cardiff. One of the subjects we discussed after the meeting was the presence of many Christians in Council Trading Standards departments - there is a large amount of Biblical teaching on this, particularly the importance of not trading with false measures, trading honestly and fairly, paying fairly and not cheating, not passing counterfeit goods and so on. It's good to see a job that has so many and such positive Biblical precedents.

Driving back, I listened in the car to a compilation CD that I had burned from an Ipod playlist. I have come comparatively late to the joys of these playlists. For a long time, I've been a huge fan of Spotify and tend to listen to that while I am working on the PC. The ipod is very much something I tend to use while travelling, and downstairs I listen mainly to CDs and of course in the car. In any case, much of my listening is to Radio 4 rather than to music, so playlists just hadn't crossed my radar very much. Anyway, I set one up (called a 70's Cheesefest, so that gives you an idea of the contents) and haven't looked back. Like most people, I've got lots of CDs that bluntly have got two or three excellent tracks on, and a lot that are so-so. The playlist lets me select my favourites according to mood and so on, and set up a lovely assortment without any duffs. Burning a CD once this is set up is straightforward, and hey presto your playlist is ready to travel. Brilliant. I realise most of my readers will at this point be rolling their eyes and thinking "Where has she been?", but I'm not ashamed of my belated conversion to this lovely idea. I should also point out that I continue to be steadfastly opposed to the free downloading of tracks that have not been bought - I probably couldn't do a very good job of explaining why, so I won't try except to say it feels wrong.

The weather has been beautiful this week and the garden looks great, with new flowers practically every day. The honeysuckle this year has done brilliantly. We planted it a couple of years ago - as one of a series of climbers that we hoped would soften the expanses of fencing round the garden. For the first couple of years, it was a real plodder, and really hasn't done very much, but this year, wow. It's put on a lot of growth both sideways and vertically and is smothered in buds, which are just starting to open. It's interesting with plants, how some seem to take a while to get into their stride while others get going straight away. I also have a theory that the two dismal summers we had last year and the year before were actually very good for our garden - in that we have a number of plants that are pretty immature and are still settling. Dealing with long, difficult droughts on clay soils would have put a lot of extra stress on young plants - the wet meant that they could take their time getting settled in without being under a lot of strain, and this year we are seeing the benefits of this, not just with the honeysuckle but with the other trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials.

I went with my friend Paula up to Velindre Hospital (our local cancer hospital) on Thursday afternoon. She's going through chemo at the moment, and is having the sort that lasts for nearly 48 hours, so she goes on a Tuesday to have the process started via her PICC line, comes home with the drugs in a little bag she carts round for the next couple of days, then back on the Thursday to have it removed, have the line flushed through and so on. She's doing a bit better this time round, but is still feeling pretty tired and needing to take things easy. We were chatting to another patient there at the same time for the same process, and he was feeling remarkably unaffected by it, so much so that he was still working, through the process. It's interesting how it affects people very differently. Fortunately, she only has two more chemo sessions to go, and then she will hopefully be able to build up her strength a bit more.

Friday was a busy day. I drove down to Pontardawe in the afternoon for a planning meeting for Welsh Festival of the Horse. I'm responsible for the website for this event, and also the related Facebook page and Twitter feed. I do this contribution on behalf of GRW, who are organising the canine part of the event. You can see the link to the website on the sidebar of the blog.

Friday evening, we trundled into town for an evening of pleasure seeing Crowded House at the CIA. I've written before about how much their music means to both Andrew and myself. Sadly, there were some empty seats, but those who were there were highly appreciative. Andrew pointed out, looking round that there were far more people drinking coffee than beer, which does seem to reflect their demographic. CH have in any case been poster-boys for what can only be kindly described as "Dad-chic" with the look in general of a convention of geography teachers and on this occasion were well up to usual standard with the bass player wearing a bow tie (in that heat!) and Neil Finn wearing a jacket, slightly mismatching his trousers, and a very sober Oxford shirt. The only let-down was that Neil Finn had grown a small toothbrush moustache - and in some lights he looked as though a furry animal had come to rest on his face, or that he was channelling a Hitler impersonator, especially as he has a rather charming pudding basin hair cut, which sticks up progressively as he gets hotter and the gig gets livelier.

CH usually do a fairly stripped down set decor - this was the case with some fun lighting/slide effects and a few little teddy bears and glowing ducks dotted around the stage. No sign of the sheep we saw last time. Musically, they were on top form. They played a number of songs from their new album, plus a canter through their huge back catalogue. When you've been playing as long as they have, there's plenty of material to choose from, and they also had adapted a slightly looser, rockier style, letting the drummer unleash his inner John Bonham and Neil Finn having a cute little Korg synth set up by his mic stand, allowing for some fine, 60s style early Pink Floyd warblings at appropriate moments. All in all, we loved it, singing along enthusiastically to a huge number of songs. If you get the chance to see them on their current tour, I can wholeheartedly recommend although I loathe the venue more every time I go there, and wish deeply that someone would blow it up and start again.

Since then, the weekend has been pretty quiet with just the normal early morning dog walks to avoid the heat, various errands and I've been working on a presentation I'm doing at the end of the month to the all Wales dog warden group on some research I've been doing on microchipping of dogs. Talking of which, one of Andrew's very nice clients lent us the DVD of the film "Best in Show", from the same stable as Spinal Tap, about the world of dog showing. Well, it was gloriously, howlingly funny and also uncomfortably accurate about how some dog owners treat their woofs. I can wholeheartedly recommend it. On a similar note, I recently came across a blog that I must namecheck and have added it to the sidebar for your commendation. Bad Vestments is a collection of all that's gloriously wrong with ecclesiastical dress - if you love the church, and you love fashion, and you love vestments, and you love bitchy writing, then it's a must-see.

Breaking news. After a quiet morning spent having a lie-in and walking the dogs in the drizzle over at Tredegar House, we came home and as usual, fed the dogs and ourselves. I settled down with the newspaper while Andrew went upstairs to have a look at the news headlines on the PC - this is what we found.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, a large and serious fire took hold of Swansea greyhound stadium, requiring the attendance of a number of fire engines, and causing severe damage to the site. Regular readers and indeed Swansea residents will recall that the stadium closed last November following a prosecution brought by the local Council against the owners for poor welfare standards in the greyhound accommodation. Since then, the site has been standing empty waiting for redevelopment. You can see the story here on the BBC website - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west_wales/10203323.stm or on the South Wales Evening Post website - http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/news/Riddle-cause-stadium-site/article-2237275-detail/article.html