He was here very early this morning. I think he had been out all night... partying? with the lady dog up the road. They were both covered in mud.

It was a bit of a surprise for me to see him sat on the bench at 7.20am this morning when I opened the shutters. He waited briefly till the collie mix girl had been called home, and then set off on his rounds. Way too early for me to contemplate taking a picture or going for a walk (hadn't even had a CUP OF TEA).

No sign of him since.

Today we all went walking together in the sunshine. When we got back T lay in the sun on his back for a belly rub. All is well with the world.

No sign of him Tuesday. On Wednesday we went for a quick walk for which he waited patiently for 3 hours...

Lady H went walking alone Thursday. Half way round in a neighbouring village T came bounding up to her and joined her for the remainder of the walk in glorious sunshine.

Look... he's on the front doorstep waiting to go for a walk. The shadows are getting longer. I'd better not work too much more...

So yesterday's walk was uneventful comparatively. Except when T decided to enter the bulls field. He was standing minding his own business when the bull came to sniff his arse. T suffered it for a while and then turned gave a warning growl which had no effect. So he barked and went for the bulls nose. The bull gave ground and both walked away.

This standoff turned into a farce.

Out walking with T, we passed through the Mayor's territory. The three dogs barked at each other, and looked set to leave it at that, when the bitch went for T (crazy, when you consider how much bigger and fiercer he is). We got them apart with no blood shed.

The bitch then seemed to fall in love. Everywhere Taillaut went, she was set to go. She wanted to do everything he wanted to do. He leapt ditches way too big for the little dogs. The bitch jumped them too. Poor lampshade-head blindly followed. Whatever T sniffed, the bitch sniffed. Lampshade-head went through the motions. T's wild run across the field lost even the bitch for a few minutes. And lampshade-head was left standing, perplexed. They found us again a few minutes later, the bitch determined to be wherever T was, lampshade-head shuffling along behind, indifferent to his charms.

The Lady H shooed them away home every 300 yds. To no avail. Finally the handsome farmer's son came by and between us we loaded the two dogs unwillingly onto his tractor for him to take them the 3km home. T trotted back with us relieved to be rid of them.

So we went on holiday to the US. And we've been gone a good while. Within 10 minutes of being back, T came trotting down the road. He sat on the bench in front of the house and waited while we unloaded the car. Then we went for a quick walk up the lane. He has not been much accompanied in his walks so far in 2009.

He's been by a couple of times in the 6 days since then. But no walks due to cold, rain, snow and sickness (not his). Let's see if he comes by today...