Best news ever. Baxter's bloods have come back clear.

An e-mail at lunch-time gave him a clean bill of health - better than clean, in fact, for a dog his age. They can only put it down to the shock of the punch up with Muttley who would really like to be top dog now. Phew!!! So let's put the last two weeks behind us and move on - except for these pics. These were taken about 3 hours after we (Sue, I and 4 dogs) left boats this morning and just after we received the good news- perhaps he felt the release of tension in me.

 Nothing much wrong with this boy who couldn't even walk two weeks ago!

We woke yesterday to atmospheric fog rolling across the meadow and I left the boats to do a bit of car hopping and then walked back to meet the boats at their new mooring by Rushey Lock.

 The sun came out and we sat out all afternoon - some of us in shorts and some in thermals - that Muttley seriously needs a bath

Set off on the aforementioned walk to Buckland, past the ongoing major weir project 

 to a farmer's land who, clearly, didn't want us there - this is a serious 'Floyd' style. Fortunately Meg was nimble enough to find her own way over and the other 3 are light enough to lift: 6 stone of Floyd Labrador is a nightmare - same problem out the other side. Grrrr!

 But the village of Buckland was lovely and the dog friendly pub wasn't shabby either

 I loved the politeness of this notice

 Yep: it's that time of year again - look at the colours in the Virginia Creeper