Beef and good cheer

Chilled morning, walked to Sam and Jade, and we all went to Kellie castle, where we had a cup of tea, and then left again as we had arrived a bit late to look at the interior, and it was hosing with rain which made the gardens a damp prospect. 

Jade dropped us at Roger Street, and I had yet another long sleep. Felt a good deal brighter afterwards, and Lorraine and I mooched across to Sam and Jade's place. We had all been invited for a roast beef dinner with Mog and Jerome, and Mog's parents Peter and Shelia, and another 'communard' staying with Mog and Jerome, a historian of the Spanish civil war, Roseanna. Mog, Peter and Roseanna all wearing fetching green hats with tassels that Shelia had made. Mog looking particularly lovely in hers.

A jolly time of it, in their amazing dining room, with a table that comfortably sat nine. Really liked everyone there, and had my first slice of roast beef for quite a while. Lovely it was too (all praise to Allopurinol the drug I take to prevent gout, which in me is triggered by red meat). 

Mog and Jerome have a pony-sized rescue greyhound, called Olan. It has a tendency to nip, and bit Jade on the backside as she was carrying some food this evening. This sparked debate on the best way of preventing this. Peter had been a psychology lecturer and said that its behaviour needed to be modified through a punishment of an electric shock collar. While Roseanna, who has also been nipped objected to the term nipping, as it felt like more of a bite. Sam said he had been nipped playfully, and also bitten more aggressively. I'm just pleased it didn't savage me. Apparently Olan the Barbarian (as I privately thought of it) was taken from its siblings and family too young, and failed to learn the no-biting rule.  

Otherwise a lovely evening. Great food, including a wicked pudding made by Jade, 

Fond farewells, particularly with Jade, who has to fly off tomorrow. Lorraine and I walked home, and saw a hedgehog by the field opposite the bee hive house.