A busy weekend. Yesterday, we popped into town first thing, as when Andrew returned home on Thursday, he had taken his shoes off. You might think this a natural thing to do, and you'd be right. Unfortunately woof decided that they would make a delicious chew and decided to make lots of lovely punctures in them and eat out a hole in the back of one, rendering them completely unwearable. Of course, he had to choose Andrew's best, formal shoes rather than a scabby old pair of trainers. Husband thus rendered shoeless, an emergency buying plan was put into action.

Followed this by a trip to Toys R Us, which I generally hate, for all sorts of reasons. Managed to successfully purchase presents for assorted nephews. Then to Fordthorne, our friendly local Ford dealer to look at estate cars. I have mentioned before that a Ford Fiesta (which I love deeply) is simply not suitable now we have a long-legged greyhound, and even less so if Andy is joined by another canine family member. I have always liked Fords and we experienced excellent service with this garage, so went there to have a look. Anyway we are now the proud owners of a Mondeo diesel estate with a boot so capacious you could spend an entire holiday in there with a whole pack of greyhounds. It is silver grey, with air con, climate control (which I don't really understand yet) and a CD player. It also has a clock. I will be very very sorry to say goodbye to the Fiesta, which is a fabulous car and I love it to bits, but it is impossible to justify having two cars except on the basis of self-indulgence. We are both very proud of spending the last ten years (if not more on reflection) as a one car couple, especially now that tax and insurance seem to increase so much. Andrew is picking it up on Tuesday, when he will drop off the Fiesta - I don't want to go with him, as it will be a real wrench saying goodbye to our gorgeous little Tizzy.

Today we travelled over to Bath, to see Andrew's sister Claire, her husband Basil, and their three sons, Thomas, James and Alex. It is James' birthday shortly, so we had presents for that, birthday presents for Claire (whose day had just been) and non-birthday presents for the other two boys. Andy was extraordinarily good - three small, excited boys didn't faze him at all, he was very chilled and I was hugely impressed. Went out in the afternoon to play with some funny long balloons that squeak and swoop. The boys and Andy loved them and we had a ball. Left there about 4.30 and came home. Young master now doing some planting in the garden and I will be preparing him a Bloody Mary quite soon. I attach a couple of photos taken this afternoon.