School reunion

A curate's egg of a day.....

A very early start this morning, woken by the most terrible stench, at 4 a.m...... Downstairs to discover a repeat performance by Flossie of last year's awful illness - lagoons of malodorous liquid offerings throughout the ground floor. Evidently, I had slept through her usually-effective whines of "Let me out - now! NOW!"

No sign of Flossie herself though. Eventually I found her hiding, ashamed and upset, behind the sitting room curtains, and coaxed her gently back into her bed while I cleaned up - for almost an hour. Cats were thrilled to have back door and windows opened at such an early hour, and went on neighbourhood patrol with enthusiasm.

Off to the feared vet, wondering if we should cancel our planned reunion with Flossie's Auntie Fran. The vet said "There's a lot of it about." He had seen five dogs with the same symptoms recently, all of them Jesmond Dene dogs, and advised no river or sea bathing till she had recovered, but said that she could visit with other dogs. Flossie was given two injections whilst hiding behind me, and some antibiotics for the week, and I rang Fran to see if she was still happy to have us visit. Fran was cavalier about the whole thing, so off we went. And after such an unpleasant start, what a lovely tonic of a day we had!

We were early, so we had a walk round lovely little Warkworth, stopping to take photos on the ancient bridge. The tranquillity was shattered several times by the screaming sounds of fighter planes from the nearby RAF base.

Flossie was thrilled to see Fran again, having said goodbye to her in October, when she left after her 12 days at boarding school to come and live with me. Very touching to witness. Fran's dog club chum A was visiting too, and together we went off to walk another of their friends' three labradors through the Morwick (pron. Morrick) estate; we made up a pack of three humans and nine dogs. The sun shone, the weather was delightfully warm, and everyone got on famously together.

Flossie, tongue hanging out a mile, was in heaven. She loves being part of a pack.

A group photo was set up. Tongues were rudely stuck out at the photographer, and two of the boys, as boys will, went a little further (click on photos if you really want to know....).

From left to right: Flossie, Wellington, Smokey, Louis, Luka, Molly, Georgie, Polly and Pip

We called in at the nearby Morwick Dairy Ice Cream Parlour, and sat in Fran's dog-laden van to eat our tubs of deliciousness (in my case, two scoops: chocolate and coconut raspberry ruffle - I must try to make the latter this summer!)

After a late back-to-front lunch, dessert first then egg sandwiches, we said goodbye and came home, and Flossie put herself to bed very early indeed. She had enjoyed her reunion very much, but thinks that getting up so very early in the morning isn't something she wants to do every day. I quite agree.

We hope for a peaceful night.