First

In fact my parents were surprisingly welcoming when they discovered us asleep in their driveway this morning, and very hospitably invited us in for breakfast.

We thought this was splendid, and given that my usual breakfast doesn’t often happen before lunchtime, and indeed, when we are in the camper van quite often consists of jelly babies, it was a magnificent start to the day.

We had a walk around their woodland afterwards, where they showed us what they thought were badger setts. I was not at all convinced by this. What we saw was a vast mining operation which seemed to have uprooted several trees, and which frankly looked as though Cerberus might have decided to bury a couple of bones on his way down to the Underworld. I would not have been in the least surprised to see smoke issuing from them, and a few scales and gold coins scattered about. Even the dogs gave them a wide birth. If they are badger setts, they are the sort of badger setts you might get if you had crossed a badger with a gardening rhinoceros.

We walked back to the house in speculative silence, and the hope that the badgers do not extend their operations up as far as the cellars, you would not wish to find a creature like that creeping hungrily up your stairs at midnight.

The dogs came with us, including the new poopy, who has been called Rosie, because it is a small pretty name, completely inappropriate for a fat black creature which seems to be a miniature cross between a gorilla and a piraña fish.

She woke us up wagging enthusiastically first thing this morning, and we discovered that she has a passion for food which far exceeds anything either of us has ever encountered in a dog before. She makes small snorting noises, like a pig, when she eats, which she does with huge excitement and satisfaction. We gave her a dog treat this afternoon. We do not buy dog treats but these came with her from her previous owners. She was so utterly thrilled that she did a wee on the floor there and then, and had to be removed into the garden, where she galloped up and down in the greatest excitement, with the dog treat sticking out of her mouth straight in front of her. It was a good job she did not run into anything or she would have poked her brains right out.

Apart from the dog treat, she has been driven into a state of dribbling ecstasy by pieces of cheese. We have contemplated using these to teach her things, but I do not think it will work really, because as soon as she realises that we might have some in our pockets, the rest of the world fades to black and ceases to exist. Our voices become mere background rumblings, and nothing matters but the wonderful possibility of cheese.

I do not yet have any photographs of her, but I will take some and put them on here. Imagine a small, mad, black face, rather like the gremlins after their transformation in the film, with bulging eyes and a flat nose, and you will have the idea.

Incidentally her breathing is much better today, and I think Mark was right that the sore eyes were likely to have caused it.

Roger Poopy is torn between hopeless admiration and horror, and it has done his father no end of good. His father has realised that Roger Poopy is not the most annoying creature in the world after all, and a new rapport has sprung up between them.

They are all curled up on their cushions together as I write, in a furry, snoring pile. They will be just fine.

Finally, you will be very pleased to hear that my course has marked my second assessment piece, for which I have also been awarded a First. I am very pleased indeed. The marker said some very nice things which my modesty will not allow me to repeat here. Well, I might repeat one bit. She said it was a superlative piece of work.

Mark has let me read her comments to him several times on the way home instead of listening to Watership Down. I explained that I needed to process it all properly but obviously I was just showing off. This is wasted on Mark, but we are not supposed to tell the other students what mark we got, so I had to just keep telling him instead.

I will tell you again as well.

Did I mention that I got a First for my course assignment?