Everything is off the charts with them.

Cold, overcast and windy. There's a thin layer of frost on the car windscreen. 'The Font' is flying to London for the day. We set off to the airport early, taking the back roads. The protesting farmers are again burning tyres and blocking the motorway. To add spice to the journey the frontier guards have started working 'to rule'. The lines at the passport desks spilling all the way back into the departure hall. The joys of travel.

Angus tries to arrange a family dinner in California. He phones his favourite restaurant in the Bay Area. A lady answers. '' It says quite clearly on our website that reservations can only be made a month ahead of time. Can't you read ? ". The surliness of the response catches me off guard. I mutter something apologetic and put the phone down. It's only later that a sense of irritation sweeps over me. Perhaps passive aggressiveness has become a trait of US 'fine dining' establishments. Angus makes a booking at another restaurant.

I'd like to say both PONs are deeply troubled by 'The Fonts' absence. Bob is. He searches the house high and low and finds it difficult to settle. Sophie, with a big brother doing all the work, has more of a 'wake me if you need me' attitude to herding.

Some poets have a way with words that brings the sunshine in. Here's a poem about dogs. Its telling of truth is nothing short of magical. It made me laugh.

If Feeling isn't in it
John Brehm

Dogs will also lick your face if you let them.

Their bodies will shiver with happiness.

A simple walk in the park is just about

the height of contentment for them, followed

by a bowl of food, a bowl of water,

a place to curl up and sleep. Someone

to scratch them where they can't reach

and smooth their foreheads and talk to them.

Dogs also have a natural dislike of mailmen

and other bringers of bad news and will

bite them on your behalf. Dogs can smell

fear and also love with perfect accuracy.

There is no use pretending with them.

Nor do they pretend. If a dog is happy

or sad or nervous or bored or ashamed

or sunk in contemplation, everybody knows it.

They make no secret of themselves.

You can even tell what they're dreaming about

by the way their legs jerk and try to run

on the slippery ground of sleep.

Nor are they given to pretentious self-importance.

They don't try to impress you with how serious

or sensitive they are. They just feel everything

full blast. Everything is off the charts

with them. More than once I've seen a dog

waiting for its owner outside a café

practically implode with worry. “Oh, God,

what if she doesn't come back this time?

What will I do? Who will take care of me?

I loved her so much and now she's gone

and I'm tied to a post surrounded by people

who don't look or smell or sound like her at all.”

And when she does come, what a flurry

of commotion, what a chorus of yelping

and cooing and leaps straight up into the air!

It's almost unbearable, this sudden

fullness after such total loss, to see

the world made whole again by a hand

on the shoulder and a voice like no other.