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.

Back from London

I went to London for a quick visit on Monday lunchtime and flew back yesterday afternoon.From the delighted reaction of the two boyz when I got home you would have thought I'd been away for a month not 24 hours! No sooner had I walked into the house than Wilf appeared with a ball in his mouth ready for a game. The two of them were so fired up with joy that we played ball on the soft grass of the courtyard for thirty minutes solid .

Sheepdogs are so incredibly family orientated. If one of us is travelling Wilf seems to feel that he has managed to lose part of his flock. He shows his unhappiness by not sleeping well and by sitting at the gate for hours on end looking out along the road for the car coming down the hill. How he can tell with absolute certainty which car is ours, as opposed to the vehicles owned by the local farmers, is one of those recurring canine mysteries.

We're back from Oxford, the boyz are back from the kennels,it's nearly ten at night and it's still 35 degrees !

At the weekend we went back to the UK for a wedding of an old friend. The weather in Oxford was perfect and the town was full of American tourists wondering why the Brits compain about the weather.While we were away the temperatures here in Umbria got to 38 degrees - that's 100 or so in old money. We picked the two boyz up from the kennels on our way back from Rome airport - they are not happy with this heat. They are currently sitting out under the trees munching on ice cubes and displaying a cool indifference to the family that deserted them.Canine disdain!

Coming down the drive I notice that the weirdest plants I've ever seen have sprouted all over our newly laid grass. Will post more tomorrow - it's too hot to blog.

Glad to be out of London

Phone calls from friends in London say the place is under a tight security blanket - particularly the financial district. Travelling in London is bad at the best of times but with a strong police presence for tomorrows G20 meeting getting around is taking even longer. Am glad to be out of it. Hope that the leaders can get their act together to agree something but French President Sarkozy's announcement that he will walk out if he doesn't get what he wants doesn't make me optimistic. This reflection on the world economy is occasioned by articles in this mornings local paper saying that hotels and B&B's in Umbria have had very poor bookings for the upcoming Easter holidays from Brits and Americans.They are hoping that there will be a last minute rush of bookings. Feel like telling them not to hold their breath.

Snow in London, Heathrow by 5.00 am and two twenty kilo bundles of fluff.

Why I booked myself on the first flight from London to Rome at 7.30 this morning I can't for the life of me explain -particularly as there was a second flight at a much more reasonable 10.30. As heavy snow was forecast overnight it meant getting up at 4.00 and leaping in a cab from the hotel by 5.00 at the latest if I was to play safe and make it to the airport in time. Naturally, I was awake on the hour,every hour,all through the night looking out of the window and checking on the weather to see if there would be a replay of the storms that closed London down totally earlier in the week. The end result was that I got to the airport after a sleepless night at 5.00 and had two and a half hours to wait in the terminal- the roads were clear and deserted so the cab sailed straight through,I was the first at security and the flight was of course on time to the minute.

Was greeted by two twenty kilo bundles of fluff when I got home. Is there anything to match the enthusiasm , undiluted happiness and devotion of dogs when their family is reunited? The look on Wilfs face in the second photo says it all.

Views from London.

So the forecast for 2009 is that the British economy will decline by 2.8% and the Italian by 2.1%.Looking at London you wouldn't know that we are in the midst of an economic crisis - maybe the appearance of electric rechargeable cars in Berkeley Square is a sign of austerity.

London - the recession is now biting

Travelling around it seems to me from purely personal observation that the US is in the eye of the economic storm, the UK is just entering it and the Europeans haven't woken up to what is happening.

In London with the exception of American and European tourists enjoying the collapse in the value of the pound the shops were not as busy as I had expected them to be at the height of the January sales. Clothes that I had seen in Jermyn Street in December were now being marked down 50% but the buyers were primarily from outside the UK - the accents in the stores were primarily New England, Swedish and German. The pictures taken on the camera phone give a pretty good indication of how quiet London was at 11.00 am. It wasn't Armageddon but certainly much quieter than usual. One cab driver told me his takings were down 30% from the same time last year and would have been lower if it wasn't for the influx of tourists on weekend shopping trips.

Back from London- boyz delighted

Just back from London. It was quite quiet if not the recessionary desert that the press would have you believe. Lots of American tourists enjoying the good exchange rate and shopping like mad.

Boyz were delighted that the family has been reunited - 25 kilos of sheepdog leapt into my arms as I came through the gate.Will post later about London and the animal that has built a nest in the engine compartment of the four wheel drive. Must go now to throw a ball.