Checking the hounds

Usually, we're down on Bray beach to shiver along with Dave as he throws himself into the Irish Sea for the annual New Year charity swim. Not this year, though. The event was cancelled due to high tide and heavy swells. I'm sure Dave was genuinely disappointed, but Carl and I weren't quite as upset.

Dave and Alan are now the proud owners or three dogs (two chocolate labradors and a mad bits-of-greyhound bundle of hyperactivity known as Rosie). The other two are the essence of decorum compared with dear Rosie, but all three had been banished to the main room behind a closed door when we came down this morning. Dave did check them from time to time through the hatch (and so did I). We were treated to breakfast, we compared notes about last night's madness, and then it was time for us to say our farewells and move on to Cabinteely to call in on one of the guys from the music group for what's now a New Year tradition.

Once again we were spoiled rotten, with a couple of welcoming Irish Coffees going on especially well. Lots of chats and joking and general jolliness kept us going until 3:00 pm or so, at which stage it was time to return to Carl's place. We'd intended watching another of Carl's Christmas Blu-rays (Monsters University, this time), but The Sound of Music was on TV and we just had to watch that instead. At that stage it was time for me to leave the unfortunate Carl to the revision he needed to do for college exams which begin on 6th January.

I phoned next-door-neighbour Susan en route and told her to expect me at 8:00 pm for a Christmas visit. She and I and her over-from-England son and her daughter and her new husband spent a mad time together, chatting and joking and eating and drinking until the early hours. I clambered over the wall around 3:00 am or so.

A full day.