Last week was one of those long, busy weeks that seem to go on for ever. Tiring and humid, with lots of activity in work, including a lengthy and odd disciplinary to hear, and the annual round of budget proposals and savings. I completed these today and sent them in, along with a frankly peculiar risk analysis for each spending bid, which I don't think will be much help to anyone. Total value of bids is over £2 million - I don't for a moment imagine we'll get all of it, but it's important to bid and each individual element would add something positive to the service.

Had the fortnightly meeting with our portfolio holder on Friday morning. It turned out he couldn't find the bike shed (he's a keen cyclist) and to my horror, his bike was nearly taken away and scrapped by an over enthusiastic member of staff who thought it had been abandoned. Saturday we went over to Somerset for the day to visit Andrew's parents. The dogs were very well behaved and loved the big garden where they could run around and sniff lots of interesting aromas. Took them for a nice walk around the village. Sunday was very hot and our monthly greyhound walk over at Cosmeston Lakes. Over 80 and we were out at the hottest part of the day. I am never doing that again - I was melting!

Work today was more work on the bids before they were finally submitted - it is very satisfying when you complete a big piece of work like that. Also had some discussions with HR about a possible re-deployment candidate for a post we have vacant at the moment. I am due to shortlist with a colleague, Christine on Thursday. She is off at the moment as her beautiful daughter Lauren is just off to California for a semester as part of her university drama course. Incredibly exciting but also we will all miss her too. Still, I'm sure the time will just fly by, and Chris will be going out there later in the year to visit and see the sights.

Will post some photos of dogs in Somerset.