The steady depletion of assets next door continues. I hope for her sake she is keeping track of the materials being removed in case he comes back and has a go at obtaining half the house. But I remain uninvolved.

The dog' obedience lesson didn't go quite as planned. I turned up with him only to find the instructor had double booked us (ie forgotten it was his wedding anniversary and he was supposed to be pampering his wife), so was not there. I returned home and was pursued by a phone call and an offer to come up to Oatlands which I accepted gleefully. It all seems to easy when it's done by an expert but once you try to implement it yourself you realise you have to undo a whole lot of your own bad habits before you can undo the ones the dog displays. After nine days we are at the point where he is obedient but clearly uncommitted to remaining so, which means many more weeks of vigilance. As for being able to have him off-leash a the instructor suggests will be possible - well perhaps we need to pay for another lesson first!

The weather here has been fairly wildly unpredictable. The temperature yesterday morning was minus .07 degrees, and it opened out to a lovely Autumn day. Tomorrow it will be 33 degrees. Today I will be doing some cooking to top up the meal supplies in the freezer and struggling to get BMW to accept my order before they sell out of the items currently on special!