Hello everyone! I haven't written a blog for a little while, as as the title of this one suggests, it is an extremely busy time of the year, and what we call in the Grooming World "crazy time". November and December are the most profitable but the most dreaded months of the year by Groomers. The time when you're trying to squeeze half a year's worth of appointments into two months. The worst is the calls from people whose dog you last groomed in February now calling to have Fluffy nice for Christmas and being disappointed and surprised when you can't fit...

It doesn't seem possible that Halloween has been and gone for another year. It feels like only a couple of weeks ago I was talking about being too hot to walk the dogs. Halloween does seem to be getting bigger and bigger each year. We had more Trick or Treaters this year and people are really making the effort with their costumes and decorating their houses. I don't remember ever going Trick or Treating as a child......I blame the Americans as they've always been massively into it and their influence has obviously come over here. It's lovely that the kids can do this now though and the hounds ...

As it's been a couple of weeks again since I last blogged, I'll start with most recent events and work backwards. Last Saturday alarm call at 5am. The hounds were none too impressed at having their breakfast an hour earlier than normal, but we had to set off to the ExCel for Discover Dogs. Leave home at 6.45am still in pitch black didn't hear a peep from the back and in fact wondered at one point if we did actually put the hounds in or were they still waiting on the drive? We arrive at the ExCel around 8.20am and the car park is a mass of vans and cars decorated in varying degrees of paw print...

I missed doing a blog last week as I simply ran out of time, so this week's one is epic! First things first, I must talk about the Muddy Dog Challenge that Peach and I took part in at Hever Castle on the 30th September. I'm sure you've all seen the Facebook post and pictures, but I am so extremely proud of my little girl. She did over and above what I asked her to do, and I couldn't believe that she ran the whole way round and even swam on the first hurdle. Of course, some of the obstacles she simply couldn't do because of her physiology (high trampolines), but being the only Basset ...

So after a short absence while we took a little holiday, we are back, and apart from a weekend in the New Forest, we have no more holidays now until Christmas. I wrote a separate blog about Dog-friendly holidays, but needless to say we had a fantastic week in the Forest of Dean and the Wye Valley. Out of all the places we've visited with the Hounds, this certainly wins the dog-friendliness award. Anyway, as we now enter the last quarter of the year, it doesn't seem possible, but we do need to start turning our thoughts to the Festive Season. In all seriousness, my diary is already fi...