Rabbits are back.

After a lapse of six years wild rabbits are at last back. Not enough for me to reach for the gun but hopefully they will get established enough for me to bag a few.

They never got scarce hereabouts. The place is walking with them - thousands of them. You could live off them easily - if you had to! Come the 1st October, I'll start having rabbit pie, rabbit stew, braised rabbit... etc. The dogs have rabbit nearly every day - and without even having to catch them: you can't travel a mile on the road without coming across half a dozen killed by cars. Waste not, want not!

I hope they get established here. Rabbit on the BBQ is my favourite way to cook them although they do make a half decent stew of course. Looking at my old dog lying asleep on the carpet makes me think he is no longer up to the job. Tempest Fugit.

My advice to anyone with an old dog is: get a pup! A pup seems to put new life into the old dog somehow and, when the sad time comes for the old dog to go the way of all flesh, it makes it easier to have the young dog there for comfort.