Walking Sam in the gravel pits and training him to dummy launch retrieves
Walking Sam in the gravel pits and training him to dummy launch retrieves

On another chilly day with rain in the air, I found Della much more willing to go to school and not eyelash plucking so much. Walking Sam in the gravel pits and training him to dummy launch retrieves as I heard from David Winser with an invitation to join a GSPA training session on Sunday.

I expressed my concern to Nigel about the balance of evidence in his insurance fraud case

The same routine and weather as yesterday morning and it was reassuring to see how willingly Della now goes to the bus-stop with me and Sam taking her. Her eyelashes are growing well but the eyebrows seem to take much longer. I took Sam for a longer walk and stalk around the gravel pits, investigating the positions of the muntjac and looking for signs of them. There were plenty of tracks and small trees marked for territory but no sign of the deer themselves. I am beginning to realise just how good the habitat is there with interlinked islands and thickets even though many locals walk their dogs around all the time.

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Mary called by in the afternoon having prepared a short-list of properties for buying. I joined her to go and view four of them from the outside and we selected one in Duloe Brook in Eaton Socon as the best for following up. I heard from David Winser of Wistow Toll today at long last and he invited me to join a GSPA training session in Harlow on Sunday and I accepted. I introduced Sam to my shotgun today - just letting him see me carry it and aiming it - and then I launched a dummy four times from the dummy-launcher and he retrieved all of them and was quite happy about the loud bangs from the blanks.

He seems to have trouble picking up the flight of the dummy but uses his sense of smell very well to find it afterwards. Calls also to Nigel and then some political colleagues. I expressed my concern to Nigel about the balance of evidence in his insurance fraud case and left him in no doubt that he would have a difficult time with a jury. Still cold and chilly today but rain was in the air this evening and I took this as possibly heralding a change of weather on the way.