Westie at Large

I was on my way to uni this afternoon, enjoying a very pleasant drive through the Hampshire countryside, when I passed a field containing thousands of sheep, which I thought would be worth a photograph (although turned out not to be, with my little camera). I pulled into a pub car park to turn round and nearly ran this elderly Westie over. I looked around for an owner but there was nobody to be seen so I parked my car and decided to go and ask in the pub. As I got out of the car I noticed a woman in wellies coming towards me with a labrador. Thinking that she looked local I asked if she had seen the Westie before and she said, "Oh yes, he lives at the pub. He has a free rein". That would never work with Basil and Polly - they'd be off without so much as a backward glance.

In other news, I recently had to have a new debit card issued by SANTANDER. I duly received the PIN and, under separate cover, the new card with a covering letter saying, "Sign the card immediately, making sure you use a permanent ink pen. You need take no further action."

So...today I used my new card and PIN in Sainsbury's, only to be told that it had been declined. I therefore phoned SANTANDER to ask why this was. The answer was that "Sometimes new cards just don't work, for no particular reason, and you have to use them in a SANTANDER cashpoint machine first to kind of activate them. We don't know why." Brilliant. I'll give it a try then...