Some domestic dramas since I last wrote. Andrew has a deep, almost pathological hatred and fear of dentists, owing to an unpleasant experience when he was very much younger. He hasn't seen a dentist for a number of years, and any suggestion that he should is met with horror. Anyway, some eight weeks ago, he lost half a tooth and on Thursday night said tooth began to ache agonisingly. He was in so much pain he took a painkiller (something he never normally does, unlike me) and still had difficulty sleeping. On Friday morning he seriously considered pulling it out himself, but I went ballistic. Eventually, after a lot of nagging and drama, he allowed me to phone the Emergency NHS dentist service. To my amazement, the service was fantastic. Spoke to a lovely helpful lady, who managed to find an appt for the young master in Butetown at 11 am (I phoned just after 10). Dashed down to Loudon Square, where the health centre looks incredibly grim, but again staffed by lovely friendly and charming staff. He had no waiting and was whisked in to see a delightful dentist promptly at 11. In fairness, I can honestly say that in 11 years of marriage I have never seen him look so awful - not just white but a kind of grey colour, with a pallor on his skin. They thought he might faint so gave him glucose tablets. Anyway, after injections, he was still able to feel the tooth, so the dentist decided that the infection in it needed to be settled before it could be extracted, so home we came with a prescription for antibiotics. They have worked brilliantly and he's booked in tomorrow at my dentist for an extraction. He's on soft food, so I've made lots of soup and we've eaten tonnes of rice. I will update on the patient after tomorrow.

We had a good weekend. On Saturday, Busy Bees (where I go for quilting lessons) was celebrating its tenth anniversary by holding an exhibition at the Dyffryn community centre, just at the back of the Tredegar House carpark. We visited, and it was stunning, full of beautiful quilts and other handmade textile goodies, all done by people who'd attended classes or workshops at BB. Very inspiring. Then went over the shop to choose some sashing and backing fabric for my latest quilt top, and to pay for my forthcoming chicken course in August. Also treated myself to another charm pack in delightful Christmas colours. Will update further on this on my craft blog.

Sunday was equally enjoyable. We went down to visit Penny (another greyhound friend) who lives close to old friend Liz in the wilds of Carmarthenshire, on a very nice farm. She is the owner of two wonderfully affectionate and bonkers lurchers who bounced all over us, chased each other round the garden and through the raspberry canes and then collapsed in a heap, looking contented, before getting up and repeating the exercise. It was lovely to sit outside in the garden and Penny also took us up to see her latest foal who was beautiful and also had a really stunning mum, a gorgeous Section B palomino mare with a very sweet nature who came over for a neck tickle although I think she really wanted her feed bucket.

Today, it's actually been hot and sunny. This morning, after walking the woofs, I set about cleaning. In the afternoon, I decided to do some stitching out in the garden, to take advantage of the sunshine. I was only out there for a little over an hour, but my arms have caught the sun. I am normally very careful about not burning and religiously apply SPF 15 moisturiser every day for example - I guess I've got so used to having constant cloud and rain, I completely under-estimated the power of the sunshine. It was lovely to sit out there though - butterflies and bees in abundance, lots of birds, distant hum of lawnmowers, really relaxing and summery.

Talking of birds, I am sorry to report that they have nicked the majority of the ripe blueberries. I have now learned my lesson and the ripening berries on the other two bushes will be picked as soon as they are ready, rather than being left on the bush. Next year, I might invest in some netting or a cage to keep them off.

Some delay in posting for a variety of reasons. Firstly, computer has the sulks and the big decision to be made is whether it is terminal. Unfortunately, it looks that way. DH has kindly rigged up a very old laptop, so we are making do with that at the moment. This does allow access to the Net, although many of the bookmarked sites have of course been lost, so am busy trying to re-establish that.

Anyway, what else is happening? Andrew returns from Scotland in about an hour and a half. As I write he should be in the air somewhere over Manchester (Jonathan, I'll hope he waves at the builders at the flat). I'm about to go and put the oven on, to cook some chicken that's been marinading in a red pepper and peri-peri marinade. Free range, natch, nearly a fiver for four thighs, and they were selling whole battery chickens for less than three quid. Also there were only two packets of FR chicken on the shelf, so I didn't feel we had a lot of choice.

I've been working on a quilt now for a few days - I can't say too much about it as the person it will be given to occasionally reads this blog, and it will be a surprise for them. In any case I will do a more detailed posting over on my Silver Nutmeg site, with all the exciting technical details. All I can say is that I am absolutely delighted with it, and I hope the recipient likes it.

Over the weekend, we popped down to visit a fellow greyhound enthusiast who lives on a lovely farm in Carmarthenshire, actually just down the road from my friend Liz. She has two lurchers who were delightful, although one was incredibly shy, owing to some previous bad experiences before being rescued. We also had the pleasure of a tour round her stables and had a nice horsy natter. Andrew (who doesn't share my love of horses) made friends with the stable cats and ended up wearing one as a kind of draped parrot, as he strolled round the yard. Came home wearing lots of sweet little muddy paw prints and sniffed very thoroughly by Andy and Booty who could obviously pick up the aromas of the other dogs.

There isn't really a lot else to write about. Andy has been going through one of his phases of collecting random objects for his nest upstairs, which has been downright surreal at times - may be he is a surrealist? The world's first surrealist greyhound - now there's something to conjure with. Objects I've had to rescue have included the cheese grater, a rug, several very sharp knives, a saucepan, cushions, some quilting batting (the stuffing in the middle), a fish slice, a measuring jug and Andrew's Duke of Edinburgh Award certificate. He also wasn't very happy today that I washed his duvet - I think dogs spend a lot of time working on the patina of fragrance (to them) in their den, and we humans come along and remove it, and replace it with boring old fabric conditioner.