Well, it's almost a UFO story. I have seen what I think are UFO's on two occasions, once about thirty years ago, and the last time about six years ago, near my house. Where we live seems quite a good area for spotting them, but I don't seem to have much luck.

Well, years ago when my children were quite young, I decided to take them out star watching. So we set out for the park with star charts, a book and a torch covered with a piece of red balloon so its light didn’t blind us while we were trying to look at the charts (apparently it can be really difficult to adapt to torchlight and then view the sky again).

We may not have been much good at identifying the constellations, but it was a lovely evening and we were enjoying ourselves. We'd tried before out in the garden but there was far too much light pollution. Everything looked orange from the street lamps, so I thought we'd have better luck in the park.

Anyway, we got everything ready, the sun set and we began watching for the first stars to come out. Then, just as it was getting dark, a bunch of what looked rather rough lads, drinking cider, came into view.

Worse, they spotted us and headed over. It was rather intimidating to say the least. As they got closer they shouted ‘Where are they then? Are they going to land or what?’

It turned out they'd seen us looking up at the sky and thought we must have spotted a UFO. They were pretty much seven sheets to the wind by then and began convincing themselves they could see things. After about twenty minutes they staggered off into the darkness singing.

Homer our Bassett Hound is very conscious of the fact he is considerably smaller than our other dogs. In particular, he cannot stand or sit and shove his head in people's dinners. In recompense therefore, he has perfected the knack of sitting up on his hind legs, looking pathetic.

Here he is, doing his Oliver Twist 'I want some more' impersonation.

Yesterday one of my daughters went to visit a friend's mother who is in hospital. Many of the patients on the ward are elderly, some are incontinent. While my daughter was there, one poor soul had an 'accident.' It took ages to get someone to clean her up, and meanwhile the smell, as you can imagine, was pretty unbelievable.

At one point another patient, who knew nothing of what had been happening, wandered down the corridor, began sniffing and exclaimed 'Oh, they're cooking meat today!'

Which just about tells you all you need to know about hospital food.