"Please let me back inside you bloody humans...its 4,000 degrees hot out here...and if you show me any more photos of those lucky Corgis playing in the snow ... or looking wistfully out side I'll bloody well howl the house down... ifn I can get inside to do it. "

Not true...he's lying on the cool floor right at my feet right now in the airconditioning...

Poor Thorn...he's been limping a bit lately so we took him to the Vet yesterday...in about 1998 he had a lump (non cancerous) cut out of his shoulder...then again in 2001(?) but this time they had to take out muscle and he almost didn't come around after the operation. That vet said not to risk another big op because of his reaction...

The lump (tumor...we hope not malignant...or at least if it is slow growing) has grown and he's a bit sore. He'ss eleven now and as the vet says they tend to live about 15-18...so we are hoping it is slow... but to look at his big smiley face and know is harder than with a human being.

I love to go down and chuck his ball and watch him bolt after it and he loves it too, but know now just to give him small throws and not too many as it was making it sore...he doesn't know why...

He's such a wonderfully spitited dog, full of that total joy of life that a happy dog has... so all I hope for him ia that it grows slowly as it has been and that he lives out his life with not too much pain...

To operate would be to take out the whole shoulder, leg and underlying as it is just into the neck now... he would not survive this.

Quietly, as in here I can say I feel sad ... but its not as if anything is going to happen right now...its just the thought of the future...he's sitting here being so loyal and in the now... we could be a bit more like dogs in many ways and the world would be a better place... except when they go round sniffing each other...might not go down too well with some Hey!