I can see clearly now

Oops...I forgot Murdoch's birthday on Monday...he turned 8 years old. Today he finally went to the dog parlour to get groomed, which it was long overdue as he was rather dirty from the muddy walks of late. He also could not see due to his over hanging eyebrows, and there was a dreadlock starting to form in his beard..... So I pretended that today was his birthday - a pampering session and a new doggie bed, now surely that was a good day for him?

Then I met a friend for lunch and as always we ended up talking about our children, the difficulties teenagers face today and just how stressful getting a university place at a decent university is today. These poor kids are under so much pressure today with increased competition, it certainly was not like that in my day. A friend told me recently that when she was young she got a place at Imperial College to read Bio-Chemistry with a D and a C - nowadays they usually require three A*'s...

Last night the Man Booker Prize for Fiction was won by an Australian author, Richard Flanagan for his novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which is set during the construction of the Thailand-Burma Death Railway in World War Two. It sounds fascinating and is apparently beautifully written - I can't wait to read it!