Oddments

Warning: this post contains graphic images of a revolting nature, and persons of a delicate disposition may faint away on seeing them. Have your smelling salts handy before proceeding. 

It's been quite a week, the first in the new era of Florence ownership. And having the Lovely Son home so soon after returning from Vietnam and Cambodia has brought all sorts of additional delights.

Coconut and cane sugar sweets. A green scarf.

A zillion photos, mostly fabulously, mouth-wateringly beautiful, except for this one, of the black ants and whole quail meal described so graphically in the text message that brought the phrase "Much rum afterwards for forgetting" into this family's oral tradition.

Sorry, but because of its utter vileness, I have to share it with you, hoping that you will be brave enough to click to enlarge, and inspect the lower section of the rim of the plate (unchopped winged ants) and the little quail head....

I have been introduced to Vietnamese-style coffee: a bottom layer of sweetened condensed milk, topped with strong filter coffee made with the tiniest little individual filter, to be stirred when you receive it:

And today, lunch (no ants) in Newcastle's only Vietnamese restaurant, where we had coffee again:

But best of all is to observe the growing love between the Lovely Son and Flossie, despite their team approach to the steady erosion of all house rules. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth on Monday when he returns to London.... But for now, there is mutual adoration:

And some opportunities for silent laughter at a silly dog's expense:

As well as a reminder to self to remove Flossie from the kitchen when roasting chicken:

One week on, the cats grow braver, and draw nearer - Lottie was a millimetre away from touching noses with Flossie today, until Floss tried to give her a friendly lick. Lottie withdrew her nose in a flash, with an expression of affront that clearly conveyed "Eeeeuw! Gross!" And that seems to me the essential difference between cats and dogs....

Hamish has moved downstairs, and spends some time behind the television; this is an improvement on his attic existence wearing his Arthur Scargill expression of outrage. No one has lost weight, and the cats' food dishes empty mysteriously overnight when Flossie is safely locked in, so I'm guessing that no one is really traumatised by the arrival of a large friendly black creature with a big wet tongue.

My pockets are full of dog biscuits and training treats, and the house is full of dog mats, beds and blankets. Life has changed. All we need now is a house on the edge of Exmoor....