:: cute!

Andrew and I went to see baby Calum in the hospital yesterday and he's gorgeous! Kate emailed today to say they were discharged this morning and he's doing fine. He didn't have to have surgery after all, though I gather it's not completely ruled out in future -- his aorta is a bit narrow apparently. Kate is very glad to be out of the hospital -- the neonatal unit is in the new one, and it's a strangely barren place.

After visiting Calum we headed north, to Tentsmuir and had a long walk up the beach, a little picnic and then back through the forest. Bertie was in heaven, it's one of his top places. Andrew has never been to St Andrews, so we stopped there and had a look round, then had a wonderful curry dinner at Balaka, a Bangladeshi restaurant. I had an Afghani lamb dish and it was subtle and rich, delicious to the last morsel.

A bit of madness through the meal was that we kept trying to text Andrew's cousin Grace, who we were to meet for drinks later on. Eventually she called, but the reception was bad and we kept getting cut off. So I switched the phone off, and we made contact later on. They were in Callander! Grace was tired after a long energetic day and begged off drinks, and we were pretty tired too so that was ok by us. We headed home and I managed to get slightly lost by dint of following two cars in front of us -- they ended up driving down a farm track! But we got home at about 9pm and collapsed on the sofa with a beer and the TV remote. Sooooo sophisticated!

Today I dropped Andrew off at his aunt and uncle's in Edinburgh and took Bertie for a walk in the Braid Hills, another top place. Lots of interesting new dogs, dog-friendly people, lovely weather and a stream to drink out of. Among the interesting dogs were two unusual sight hounds, a pharaoh hound and one I've never heard of before, a sloughi, a North African hunting dog. They were both lovely, and their owner and I had a great chat. Bertie wanted to play, but the sloughi was confined to a harness due to having once broken his neck (!) and the pharaoh was too delicate.

Next stop was the pet supermarket, where a voice said, "look, it's Bertie!" It was the owners of Shadow, Bertie's greyhound girlfriend. He's a legend in his own lunch-hour is Bertie, a well-kent face.

And now I'm at work, where we're very much on a war footing. I'm working my usual hours tonight, but for most of the rest of the week I'll be on a late start and late finish. Then on Friday I have a nice early start -- 2pm -- so I can start work on the Scottish election results. (The election's not until 1 May, but I have to make sure we have the right coding for when the results come in on the big night.)

I haven't been on any anti-war protests since war broke out, but if there's something on this week I'll go if possible. Pretty horrible news so far, so many "friendly fire" deaths, including a journalist. And then there's the US administration's outraged reaction to film on PoWs being paraded in Baghdad; what about the pictures of Iraqis being marched off after surrendering? Not to mention all the photos from Camp X-Ray...