Two lessons learned

Today we met Pippin, a gorgeous wee female cockapoo, and Merlot a fabulous big red merle collie - never seen one of them before. Both were good playmates for Arch. Merlot even let Archie grab his tennis ball, though he then didn't know what to do with it.

Merlot's person wasn't the owner, just looking after him for eight weeks. He needs a lot of exercise, and she takes him out four times a day!! Thank goodness we got a wee dog with wee legs who doesn't want to run all day long.

Archie barked at two toddlers across the street. I realise this is my fault - he was fine with small humans until I made him get too close to Squealing Spiderman aka Leo. And so I'm going to try carrying one of his squeaky toys to distract him, instead of the water pistol. I need a wee calm toddler like this one.

I then went to afternoon film. And I wish I hadn't. Quite the most awful film I've seen in a long time. (Note to self: never go to another David Cronenberg film - I've hated the few I've seen) I'd seen shorts of Julianne Moore having meltdowns, and thought it might be a bit like Blue Jasmine (Cate Blanchett was brilliant in that one). But it wasn't. What a waste of £3! (£5 if you include the big bag of Maltesers).

When I came home across the Meadows it was such a beautiful evening. Which made the waste of 111 minutes of my life watching awful rubbish (which will be hailed as another of his masterpieces) even worse.