George... and a Scooby Doo birthday!

This is George, a very fine beagle who belongs to Lynne and John in Bedworth. It's been some time since we'd travelled down to Bedworth, so we hadn't seen George for ages, but he certainly recognised us!

We'd arranged to stay with Lynne and John overnight after yesterday's trip to the memorials at Lichfield, so after we'd had enough at the Arboretum it wasn't all that far to renew acquaintances with George. George is a fantasic dog with a great personality and he soon settled down after greeting us, being quite content to sit in the garden and relax with us whilst we enjoyed a cup of tea.

Later we took George for a walk down by the recreation ground, past the Saturday cricket match and back through some woods, where we could briefly look out over the canal. Once we got back our exertions gave us the perfect excuse to open the wine, not that we needed one!

As the evening rolled by, the wine continued to flow and John did an admirable job on the barbie, even though it did take longer than planned to get going.

The food was good and so was the company, and the evening was rounded off with a surprise birthday cake for me! It's many a year since I've had to blow out candles on a birthday cake, and fortunately there wasn't strictly the full number of candles to go at. If there had, the fire would have lit the garden and we'd have been up all night whilst I tried to put them all out.

I certainly wasn't expecting a birthday cake, especially a Scooby Doo one, so it was a nice gesture which was warmly appreciated.

Thanks to Lynne and John for putting us up, putting up with us and for a relaxing weekend - even the weather was reasonable!