The gamut.

It's darker in the mornings. We now head off down into the valley at seven thirty. This means running the gamut of the children waiting at the war memorial for their school buses. The little one greet Bob and Sophie with a polite 'Bonjour'. The older boys say 'Bonjour' to me then bark at the PONs. 

The angelic duo race around the hay stacks for an hour. Bob decides to de-threat each of them. There are more than a dozen which requires a special kind of diligence. Task done he exudes a contemplative happiness. Sophie ferrets in the drainage ditches.

The miserable bakers wife is in a particularly miserable mood. 

'' What do you want ? " she asks by way of greeting. We buy a pear flan. There is no small talk. 

Ordinarily, 'The Font' takes one mouse sized bite of a desert and then leaves the rest to Angus to polish off during the week. This time however the flan is said to be both light and delicious. 

Bob and Sophie spend the rest of their day barking at tractors, chasing red squirrels and generally making sure that the universe is as it should be. For dinner there is chicken, rice , green beans and gravy. No dishwasher could clean their bowls as thoroughly as they do. The PONs start their day happy. They end it even happier. They go to sleep knowing that tomorrow is going to be even better.

Just one of those quiet days with dogs. Too unimportant for a diary but too important to go completely unacknowledged.