Routine restored.

The weather in London was miserable - warm and clammy. It rained half heartedly on Wednesday night but without enough strength to clear the cloying humidity. I was going to go to the theatre but opted for a dull dinner with a lawyer in the airconditioned comfort of the hotel. On the way to the airport for the return flight I stopped off at a mobile phone shop and discovered that my phone was 18 months old and that I was due a free upgrade. Within ten minutes I was on my way with a new mobile in a rather fetching matt red aluminium case. Most importantly, the camera is promised to have a better lens than the old model and storage capacity for 300 photos rather than the 18 that the old phone boasted. The results will be posted here as soon as it is fully charged and I dutifully plough through the instruction manual on how to download. The British Airways Rome flight was again 100% full as was Heathrow airport. BAA, the airport manager, managed to have half the security checkpoints closed on one of the peak traffic days of the year. Go figure!

Wilf and Digby met me at the farm gate on my return last night - how do dogs know when you're coming home?. They are both absolute clowns and the verve and vigour of their rapturous welcome soon dispelled any tiredness after the flight and the long drive up from Rome. A good half hour was spent playing ball and rebonding.This morning I've been looking at the massed balloonists while Wilf and Digby diligently check for rabbits in the fields. Two hares ran across the path directly in front of us on the walk up the hill but both boyz were nose down contentedly following a scent and failed to notice anything.