Long walks with Sam focussing on some launcher dummy training and obedience work.
Long walks with Sam focussing on some launcher dummy training and obedience work.

Long walks with Sam on a cold and frosty day with frozen puddles and gravel pits, focussing on some launcher dummy training and obedience work.

Then to my office to progress planning matters and to catch up with Freda on the phone. The evening with Daniel trying to update software on my portable computer

The weather continued to get colder and more frosty so that the puddles and some of the open water on the gravel pits was frozen this morning. The forecast was for a large mass of evenly cold continental air to come across the region over the weekend. Thankfully, no disturbances in the night again and so we were even more rested. I took the opportunity of a long walk with Sam in the crisp sunshine and we were able to cross many of the fields that were frozen rather than soggy as of late.

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It was about two hours before I got back and found Bill doing the wrong work again and so spent some time re-ordering his priorities. Glad to be inside after all that. Typed up and faxed enquiry letters to all the local estate agents to see if I could find the third property for the children's trusts and then made my own lunch of omelette salad. Problems with my Cambridge Street planning application this afternoon as they reckoned the location map was unsatisfactory, but I tried appealing their decision to the Planning Director who is an old contact of mine.

A long call to Freda as well, updating her on my efforts concerning Mum's gravestone and the estate. Redgrave Stores has undergone a lull in business which they seem to have come through but there has been no progress on Freda’s attempts to find a buyer. Out with Sam by 3.30pm again as, it was getting dark by 4.30pm, there is so little daylight in the afternoons. I did some launcher dummy training and obedience work with him. He can retrieve two launcher dummies and one thrown dummy all together in any order I dictate which shows just how well his memory and nose are developing.

His heelwork improves very slowly and I have to be hard on him when he tries to nibble me which is a shame as he is only trying to be friendly. The evening with Daniel trying to update software on my portable computer to be able to run trials of my new facsimile programme in Norfolk. I opted to drive over there in the morning as it is so cold and dark at night and Ropes Hill Dyke could well be still flooded.