Return of the Famous Five

Bernese Mountain Dogs are adorable, you can never have enough, we now have five!

Our friends across the valley have gone to Cyprus for a couple of weeks and so the tally of animals at Rock HQ has increased by three canines as their owners take a well earned break in the sunshine.

Ben, our son travels out to his barracks there tomorrow where he assumes command of an infantry platoon, his lifelong ambition to be be an officer achieved.

Meanwhile life at the Rock continues with its strange mix of companions and lodging Berners.

Steve the electrician tried his best to get some more work done on the weird and wonderful electrical system of our home. The work needs doing as at present its dark by half seven and trying to get all jobs done by nightfall really is a race against time so having reliable outside lights will make our evenings a much more leisurely affair and as we progress to winter when its barely light enough to do the rounds before we go to work it will be just great to turn the lights on and get on with it.

Steve would probably get along much quicker if he wasn't hampered in his pursuit of electrical perfection at every turn by our antiquated wiring and our inquisitive goats. In the time it took me to hand him a much needed coffee he had to turf the goats out of the tack room twice, disentangle one from the wiring loom waiting to be permanently fixed to the wall and retrieve a very complicated techno gizmo box of tricks that looked hideously expensive from a very curious anglo nubian.

Its hard to explain the effect having the Famous Five in the house, two Bernese Mountain Dogs lying on the floor take up a lot of room, or sofa space, so five of them, each weighing between 45 and 55 kilogrammes, well that's a lot of canine willpower. They tend to do what they want, and luckily they are a very placid breed so problems are few and far between.

I'm not sure Earl, pictured above, our tabby who launched himself skyward when he discovered the big dog bearing down on him was not his usual tame Berner but a more boisterous version and who, despite the rain, point blank refused to come down until all mutleys were safely contained indoors would agree that having the extra dogs causes no problems.

Mind you the picture does show how good the sanding is going!