We are in the midst of 3 very social weekends (unusual for us - we're
usually quite reclusive) - last weekend we had 6 members of Dave's
family visiting for 4 days, this weekend was a big BBQ lunch and next
weekend old friends are visiting for 5 days.  All this in aid of Dave
having a Significant Birthday (the magnitude of which I'm fobidden to
disclose).

Because we are quiet-living folks, our animals are not used to
visitors and we were quite concerned about how the d*gs and cats would
cope with these inundations - particularly Fox d*g, who can get a bit
nippy when stressed.

Well, we were delighted by how easily the d*gs coped with (and even
enjoyed) the inundation of strangers (and all the food that was
"accidentally" dropped near the dogs' mouths!).  We were particularly
happy that the dogs coped with various small children quite well.

That, however, is not the main purpose of this post.  We have
discovered that Mr Spock, a.k.a. Spocky, a.k.a.
"comebackhereyoulittlesh*t", is a party tart.  For a stand-offish kind
of cat who is not much interested in what people do, he just *loved*
having extra people around and involved himself as much as possible in
the goings-on.  He followed people around, he lolled in front of them,
he wound around and around legs, he headbutted and purred (inaudibly),
he lounged conspicuously, he inserted himself into luggage; he even
played a little.  In short, he was a shameless, brazen party tart and
I'm so proud of him!

Persephone, unfortunately, was not so happy, but came out of hiding an
hour or two after everyone had gone home and allowed me to make it up
to her; two is the maximum number of visitors she can cope with.  Ted,
who used to be our resident party tart, is a bit too old and creaky
for that now and did what she does most days - slept on our bed and
complained when we touched her.

Tish