Hi and bye H!!! I am very pleased to note your gift of a silver bowl - silver is antiseptic don't you know *turns face away from box of choccies

Zena is another one that I would put on the "lifesaver" list. No matter how bad or fed up you are feeling, she is bound to bring a smile to your face or give you comfort.

As for the wretched phone, I am so sick to death of settling down for a nap in the afternoon only for the blasted thing to start ringing, and it is ALWAYS some foreigner in a call centre somewhere I cannot win though, because if I put the answer phone on then I find like you did today that there is a real person trying to get hold of you.

Tang don't they ever - break your heart that is. With each dog I have always said that:
I will NOT become over attached
I will NOT let the dog on the furniture
I will NOT let the dog into our bedroom
I will NOT let it rule our lives

Hmmmm

OH noooooo, sorry Lynn and Jenny I didn't spot you there.

and now Harvey too.

Lynn, why are you not packing or something

Jenny - re the driving. I will challenge you to a race any time so there

Our resident computer expert does it again

She's the best Harvey,not bad going for a lady in her 90's!!

Nor did I, but then I was busy clearing up the kitchen, so Hi Lynn and Jenny. Glad you got the fabric you wanted today Jenny, now you'll be busy, and I'm starting on my curtains tomorrow when I get a sewing machine organised . How's that foot doing after all that dressing up lately? Hope it hasn't come back and you're enjoying your walks with the boys again out of pain.

Sally, yes, I know what I'm doing old bean, otherwise I would have given you a gold one!!!! Yes, Zena is the absolute perfect match for me, I was only thinking this morning, having had 8 of these dogs now, I sure did get it right this time with this one, she's just what I always wanted from them but never quite got there before her, always that one little niggle, but not with Zena, she's just perfick (except when she barks at visitors but I'm working on it, at least she doesn't assault them now, she just scares the h*ll out of them ). I'm on top of all those cold callers now cos I rang Sky the other day and for £3 a month I can block 10 numbers (last caller) and ever since then, I haven't had ANY. Thinking about it though, maybe that's why I'm getting all the genuine callers through cos I'm not ranting at some cold caller, but this is worse, cos you've actually got to TALK to the genuine callers haven't you and boy they don't half go oooooooon!

Oh I forgot about Jenny's poor foot......yes, how is it doing? It's easy to forget about feet until they start hurting isn't it, and then they can make life hell. As can teeth eh H old bean

We have the BT call filtering system, which worked really well for years but seems to be faltering lately. I sometimes feel bad about slamming the phone down because these people are merely trying to earn themselves a living, but it is desperately irritating to have the same calls about the same things over and over again.

I have never found the perfect dog, but I have loved every one of them to pieces. Zena, though, is that one off isn't she.

I am watching the Pawn programme........fascinating stuff

I read somewhere that even when all the Skoda jokes were going around they actually benefitted and sales went up. The old motto in the advertising world 'No publicity is bad publicity'

They are now 100% Volkswagon owned and at the time of the takeover the factory (about 25 miles from us) was completely gutted and new plant and machinery installed from the VW factory in Germany together with around 500 (tempory) workers most of whom have returned to Germany and the locals make up the workforce now and complain regularly that they are not paid as much as those in Germany, think I've heard that somewhere else

Harvey, I didn't realise that Skoda cars are still made in lagerland........it's awful though that the local workforce are not paid as much as the German equivalent though. As you say, it's a familiar story