Sunday morning and lots to write about. It's been a while since my last post. Andrew was away for most of the week, on an epic journey that took him from deepest Cornwall up to Scotland. I missed him. Wednesday night, Sarah arrived, fresh from finishing her GCSEs. She came up by train, her first unaccompanied train journey, and she managed it brilliantly. It only cost £4 for a single - I call that good value. We had a fairly quiet evening, I cooked some pasta with garlic bread, which Andy nicked a bit of. Bad dog.

Thursday, we took the dogs over to Tredegar House first thing. Later, Sarah had a hair cut at the local salon where she has gone before. She was very pleased with it, and also had some beautiful coloured extensions put in. They look great. A quiet afternoon spent crafting, and in the evening, we ordered a Chinese takeaway, and watched Casino Royale, using Sky Box office. That is such a handy feature, when you want to watch a film but you can't be arsed to go to the video shop.

Friday, we went into town, and indulged ourselves in some serious retail therapy. Sarah was disappointed as she was looking for a CD but not able to find it in Virgin. However, this was offset by a variety of new purchases. As the sales were on, able to make the money go further. In the past, Sarah has bought stuff at MKone, and again she was successful, with a selection of nice tops, but a strange dearth of trousers. As some of the tops were reduced to a princely £4, she was able to buy 5 so is now well stocked for the summer.

We completed our trip with a pilgrimage to the Mac shop. As is usually the case, the helpful assistant ended up doing a complete eye make up for Sarah to demonstrate the colours - in this case, beautiful swirly purples. She looked stunning, and picked up some very useful tips too. I watched closely as well, as it is always interesting to see an expert at work and learn from them. I ended up buying myself a beautiful eye crayon, and Sarah was very happy with her new goodies.

Friday night, the young master returned, hoorah!!! We watched the BB eviction, and had a nice curry. Sarah was glued to her MSN.

Yesterday, took Sarah back to the hairdressers to have her nails done. We took the dogs for a walk in the pouring rain, but were smugly able to do so as their new coats arrived on Friday afternoon, all the way from Maine. They fit beautifully, look very striking and having road tested them, we can now confirm they are brilliantly effective too. The dogs seemed delighted to wear them. Andy has black, so looks like a special forces hound now, all sleek and prowly and Booty has purple, so looks like a foxy minx. Given the astonishing weather we are having at the moment, I'm really glad we didn't wait until the autumn for them - this rain is never-ending. Yesterday afternoon, I met a friend for a coffee, and then we all went off down the Bay to catch Shrek 3. Not surprisingly, the cinema was full to the rafters of excited little crack monkeys, all sugared to the max, shrieking and howling. Wasn't particularly impressed by the film, but I'm a curmudgeonly old grump, so not the target audience. Sarah liked it though, which was the main thing. Came home and had some pasta, and watched the series finale of Doctor Who. Ooh, The face of Bo....!!!!! Wow. Good old Russell. Collapsed into bed as I do these days, and woken this morning by a cold needle nose at 6 demanding a cuddle, let out and breakfast. Andrew did the manful thing and I got up around 8, had a shower and am now writing this. Got the monthly greyhound walk this afternoon. Although it will be more like a swim in this weather.

My other news is that I sent off a picture of my sampler to the World of Cross stitch magazine as that's where the pattern came from. Bought the latest edition on Thursday, and to my surprise, there is my letter and photo - hoorah! Apparently I am now eligible for a prize so will see what turns up. How exciting!

And finally, news from Plymouth. New Asst Director is Jayne Donovan, who takes the new job which is a combo of Les and Steve. I am delighted as she is both a lovely person, and a very able manager. Three cheers for her.