Long time followers of this blog may recall that our Brittany Spaniel 'Fleur' died a while ago. She'd been part of our family for over a decade and left avoid when she passed away. A void we now want to fill. Without a four footed companion, the family seems incomplete.

Brittany kennels are few and far between, but by the end of last month I had tracked down a litter due early September. Contact made, and to cut a long story short - we drove to Bristol on Saturday for a look. Love at first sight and in a few weeks we'll have ourselves a puppy.

One of my regrets is that by the time we had a boat big enough to take the dog sailing, Fleur was too old and too set in her ways to come along. We tried it once and she did not enjoy it one bit. This restricted our weekend sailing to day sailing as we had to return every night for the dog.

A 'mistake' I'm not going to repeat this time round. Next Spring the puppy's coming along - hopefully she'll feel at ease and we'll be able to welcome 'Steps' to the crew.

It's going to be fun (fingers crossed).