They say that dogs are like their owners but I`m never quite sure whether the owners become like their dogs.   In our case it must be the former as Barney, our Golden Retriever, is intelligent, smart, does as he`s told (most of the time,) sticks to a sensible diet, goes walkies every day and scrubs up well albeit with some eccentricities that he has picked up along the way.   

Although I do recall a competition held annually in Mrs. Snopper`s home village when, as the highlight for the Village Fete, judging took place to find the owner who looked most like their dog.  It seemed to be won every year by a grizzled old lady who owned a Pekinese but in this age of political correctness the competition is now a distant memory.   Just as well perhaps.

I think what has given rise to these obscure ramblings is that I have noticed that our house is developing eccentricities of its own.   Maybe it`s an age related thing - the house is now in its mid-thirties and probably developing a mid life crisis, possibly connected with its occupants being an elderly couple struggling to survive on a fixed income in the most difficult of financial times with eccentricities of their own.   We are beginning to creak a bit around the edges, well at least I am - knees not what they were, hearing going downhill, hips complaining, frequent visits to Boots, Specsavers and a clutch of repeat prescriptions.

Either in sympathy or out of a sense of sheer cussedness, the house has developed annoying little things - creaks around its own edges - an eccentric loo flush, an intermittent electric fire, a Sky Box that only records programmes on its own terms, things like that.   And it`s beginning to make me wonder whether the house is getting like its owners.