Another Year Over and a New One's Just begun!

Well that was goodbye and in a lot of ways good riddance to 2007!

The year that gave us Gordon Brown as a prime minister when we hadnt even voted for him.

Madeleine McCann disappeared and divided the nation with their opinions on 'did they or didnt' regarding her parents. It was the year that Benazir Bhutto came back to her homeland of Pakistan only to be gunned down a few weeks later. It was the year that Northern Rock went t*ts up. It was the year of...rain....and more rain and more rain. Hull, Tewekesbury and Boscastle all flooded as the rain just didnt stop. In other countries however, heatwaves and no rain caused drought and bush fires especially in California.

It was the year that smoking was banned in public places. HORRAH! I can now have an evening out without coming home smelling like an ashtray and having a hoarse voice!

Lewis Hamilton missed out on his first F1 Championship title in the final race - and only in his rookie year!

We lost the Rugby World Cup to South Africa due to a dodgey judging decision.

Jose Mourinho was sacked by Chelsea's peasant king Abramovich.

We lost Evel Knievel, Colin McCrae (tragically young), Bob Woolmer and Anna Nicole Smith.

We very nearly lost Richard Hammond of Top Gear fame when he famously crashed a jet car.

We lost Grandstand.

We were yet again continually preached to about global warming and turning a light off here catching a bus there - like that's going to make a difference when China is increasingly churning out deadly smoke into the atmosphere and the South Americans are burning rain forests faster than you you can say Husqvarna Chain Saw!

St Pancras Train Station was re-opened after it's incredible refurbishment and I can personally confirm that it IS a complete masterpiece - a beautiful building, lovingly restored and modernised.

On more a more personal note it was the year that my very promising young dog Harvey's show career was ruined. A week before Crufts some ill-informed, ignorant rambler kicked Harvey in the head because he thought he was running at him instead of running past him - and this was yet another consequence of the never ending rain. I was trying to find higher and higher ground to get my dogs out of the mud so walked in places that I wouldnt usually run a setter ie narrow footpaths and not wide open spaces - an unfortunate series of events all round and as such have had a whole year with nothing to show while his sister and brothers all do well in the show ring and I have to miss a whole years dog showing.

My village also made the news with the MFD outbreak. A very sad time for farmers and the rural community alike all thanks to a research labs incompetence. The footpaths around the village are still closed and will be for a lot longer - FMD lives in the soil for a couple of years.

It was also the year that an EU and Government made decisions about things they know nothing about (as usual) and so decided to ban tail docking in traditionally docked dogs. I notice however that you can still cut a pigs tail off - hmmmm.......good, logical thinking!

Work was appalling with no-one caring for anyone else and everyone trying to stab people in the backs and point score against each other. The Indian influence is still biting and continues to take replace jobs many experienced and worthy colleagues with incompetence. The German influence is also still very apparent with most of the British Directors now being replaced by Germans. The last of which was the IT Chief whose idea the Indian offshoring was in the first place - but of course it's too late now - all the good staff and knowledgable, loyal colleagues have been made redundant. Ironically, something that's very difficult to do in Germany!

As the year drew to a close there was at last one piece of good news for me. Harvey my young, gorgeous, solemate is going to be the proud father of six puppies in the new year - and that is worth more to me than money (although obviously I will have a stud fee from this) and has almost blotted out all the bad things about 2007.

Welcome 2008 - lets hope it's a better year.

Happy Christmas

Well, we spent Christmas on our own this year - probably best after a very tiring stressful year. I had the most awesome presents. The best thing that Father Christmas brought me was this wonderful MacBook with widescreen which replaces my old and somewhat dilapidated iBook.

I also have a lovely digital photo frame which when you have so many pictures and no a lot of space is a brilliant piece of kit! I will load photo's onto the frame this evening!

The turkey was cooked to perfection, my home made Christmas pudding was yummy and the whole dinner went incredibly well - I even made my own gravy thanks to Jamie Oliver's advice on TV the other day.

Harvey's the Daddy!

The waiting and worrying is over. Raven is expecting a litter of six pups - due in the first week in January. So whatever happens now I can confidently offer Harvey at stud!

This is so exciting - cant wait to see the pups!

Brussels, Belgium and not a bun or a sprout in sight!

So yet another early morning to get to somewhere I'm not sure that I want to go to! I HATE getting up in the middle of the night. It takes at least four hours before I am not grouchy and just hoep that when I get there it's all worth it. I neednt have worried, I had a great time. We travelled over there with our friends and colleagues from work, spent most of the morning up until lunch with them and then went out own ways.




We bumped into the procession that celebrates the mannequin pis and they were changing his outfit to the Santa Cluas outfit. It was loud, colourful and great fun!

Bought chocolates and loads of beer then went back to our hotel - a lovely five star hotel. Totally loved it there.

It's a bit of a grubby place with loads of graffiti and no HSE at all but I liked it and had a wonderful weekend away.

The other point worth mentioning is the refurb of St Pancras. It looks wonderful and although its now a pain to have to go from Waterloo to St Pancras the speed of the train almost makes up for it. We reached Belgium in just under two hours!