Half term - itis

Half term started with a virus, my back had been hurting all week, and by Friday I couldn't move. So missed a day of work and spent most of the weekend feeling out of sorts. My Saturday snooze was disturbed at 11am by the kids announcing that they had 'found a dog in the road'. Thankfully the dog hadn't been hit by anything, but it had attached itself quite firmly to the children, more particularly to the tennis ball Elinor was holding.

The dog was a smooth haired border collie, and it spent most of the day behaving extremely well; being nice to cats, children and Fudge (who being a JRT was not so good in return). She happily fetched endless tennis balls and sat properly on the dog mat, which is much better than the normal dog of the house. I phoned the police who said I had to take her to them sometime before 5pm. Poor dog, I thought. Not believing that anyone could have lost her on purpose, but rather surprised that nobody had been around looking for her.

Anyway in the meantime the children of the area had invaded the garden and started making things with the sundry piles of building materials, which had spread from the garden to the surrounding road. This, as usual, put me into a very bad mood as I can feel the damages claims coming in from the less tolerant neighbours, and anyone unlucky enough to have their car parked in the area. I still haven't got over last year's smashed car window incident which cost me £60 for the Autoglass people and much aplogising for my hooligan 5 year old son's behaviour (he did shout Scooby Doo as he threw the stone that broke the windscreen - apparently).

So, having tried to get the dog to take me to her home (complete failure, she dragged me to the end of the road, grabbed a stick and dragged me back to my house), I gave up and took her to the police station. Sadly she wasn't microchipped but apparently it is against the law (isn't it always) to keep a stray dog without the written permission of the council! So we left her there, well I shoved her into the kennel and she whined a lot. The policeman on duty wasn't optimistic but I made him promise to ring me if anything happened. So that was my quiet Saturday.

Sunday we went off to my mum's for lunch. Came back to packing for the annual Crieff expedition, and a telephone message to say that the dog had been collected by her owners, who are hopefully microchipping her for next time. Packed up all our animals for their holiday at the kennels, and tried to keep the kids indoors.

Thinking about it the rest of the holiday was a breeze compared to Saturday...the kids have been to kids club and done Ceilidhs, Discos and Fashion Shows. I've polished off a few glassess of red wine and Jason has complained about his golfing ineptitudes.

Trouble is that it is Saturday again tomorrow. I think if I can get the kids to the 8am swimming club session my day will be a lot more peaceful.