If it's rugby it must be autumn

We were up early as Xena had to be at the vet by 9am for her rabies injection - she never even noticed it being administered, so that was good. Her pet passport can now get issued and under current EU regulations she can travel to Europe 21 days from today. This of course is expected to change with Brexit, so we are pleased we managed to get this done before the Brexit due date - which will possibly be extended? Who knows and I am bored to tears with all of it


From the vet we went directly to puppy training. She is now getting to know the dogs in her group and was playing happily with all of them, including the much larger (and older) Staffie. Today we did the command down, and then did recall sessions whereby the trainer was at one end of the area and I was at the other, and the trainer released her and I had to call her - this was then made more more complicated by adding distractions like toys scattered along the way, and people lining the sides also calling her name. Then we did it with two dogs being called simultaneously - next week it will be three dogs....she did well, got distracted once, but thankfully there is a puppy in the group who clearly does not know its name and so she was looking good by comparison!

After training we went home for a quick lunch and then went back to Thomas' old school to watch the 1st XV play their first match of the season. As my boys have all now left school I did not think we would get to see school boy rugby again, but the first match of the season is traditionally well supported and it was fun to be there and see old faces again. Adam and his friends from Cambridge Uni were also there as his one friend's brother is the captain of the team this year. There is a photo of him in the extras. I took many photos of the match but then tried to do some panning shots, and this one is the result of that attempt. It was good to see Adam again and tomorrow morning he leaves for Portugal for his pre-season blues rugby training. Thomas was also there with all of his friends and as they had been to the pub before, as is the custom for this first match, they were really getting into the swing of being good supporters, singing all the rugby songs including Jerusalem.

Thankfully I don't have to cook tonight as we are getting curry take aways from the nearby Nepalese restaurant. I did however make a pudding for tomorrow as we have friends coming for lunch.