Photograph by Alistair Pryde of Words & Pictures,

Ask not for whom the hound roos; she roos for thee.
(From: "Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." John Donne, 1624)

We are delighted to announce the engagement of our daughter, Hannah, to Ben Steele.
They are planning their wedding for October 2024.
Further details to follow as they emerge!

Ben is a teacher and Special Constable, orignially from Newcastle and now living and teaching in County Durham. Hannah and Ben met at Edinburgh Napier University and have been together for a few years now. We're genuinely delighted and very excited to have Ben join the family.

We thought that this was a boring run-of-the-mill month after September; but actually it’s been quite busy. There was a fast turnaround of Prime Ministers which gave the BBC trouble because it meant that they just had to devote the entirety of their news output to who would be the next one … but they love politics so they coped!

More importantly, Tara had eleven teeth removed – poor thing. No-one with experience of older dogs shows any surprise at that number, but it surprised us … and her! They have 42 normally – 10 more than us, and given that we’ve had a few out in our time, she’s still ahead in the number of teeth! The poor thing was very miserable for a few days afterwards, and the carpets took some cleaning with the amount of blood that came from her mouth, but she soon rallied and she was very brave. Yobs with fireworks next – oh bliss!

Hannah and Ben have finally moved in to their new house, in Birtley (just up the road), after many delays caused, it seems, by solicitors at both ends of the purchase. We were all worried that the deal might be stalled by the sudden hike in mortgage rates caused by the current hassles in the world, but the Halifax stuck by them and held it; they have done well. It’s a lovely house and they are busy turning it into a home. The excitement is palpable! They appear to be moving much of our loft in to their house, supplemented by a pantechnicon load from IKEA! But it’s great to see them so happy in their new place.

We both had our Covid boosters and our flu jabs, both were as uneventful as ever! As well as feeling more protected, we believe that it’s a societal duty to take opportunities to be properly vaccinated. We know that some people don’t agree, but that’s up to them.

Finally this month, we were delighted to see that the Darlington Retired Greyhound Trust had resumed their monthly walks in Hardwick Park. We went along and it was great (for all of us) to catch up with some old friends from the last time which was pre-Covid!