Quite the Social Animal

Saturday morning started with a quick run over to the Feed Merchant for half a dozen bags of layers pellets and a bale of wood shavings. There is a tad of irony in the previous statement as the hens haven't laid an egg since they went in to the moult in late September and now the days are short and cold we stand little chance of eggs until the spring.

After reeling over the price of chicken food - it is not only bread that goes up due to global wheat demand - I made a mental note that I really ought to weed out the aged hens that no longer lay.

My Dad and Step Mum came over with their puppy for a lazy lunch and we had a great time catching up with each other's gossip whilst Tyson, Marauder and Tilly charged around our feet.

There was more socialising as we had agreed to join up with a couple in the village to make a team for the dog training club's Christmas Quiz evening. The couple - let's call them Anthony and Cleopatra - attend a different training session to TP and I but Anthony works with 30% and that is how we all know each other.

The evening was a fund raiser for the club which is going through an extraordinary surge in popularity and demand at the moment. To be honest I was cynically expecting a bit of a damp squib but it was really well attended. There was a splendid buffet and we had taken plenty of wine to help it down.

The quiz was really well arranged and, to top it off, our team won with a reasonable margin.

As I write this I am sat in the lounge and 80% of the family's pets are worshipping at the alter of the Log Burner that has been in constant use since Friday in response to the cold snap. We have only had a couple of millimeters of snow but, as my Dad would say, "an 'ard frost".