… to my multitudinous disciples for my long silence. To a great extent, this was beyond my control, though I must confess to a mild grumpiness which may have exacerbated the situation.

To put it bluntly, the house humans have gone and moved again. I’d only just managed to accustom myself to their last abode, and succeeded in training them to take me for walks in the playground rather than in the dirty, dangerous and quite frankly detestable direction they called the countryside.

This new place has its attractions, I’ll admit: it’s nearer to town and considerably larger than the last one, giving me a bewildering choice of chairs and beds to sit on. However, all these advantages are massively outweighed by the ridiculous place across the road where they insist on taking me for walks.

To be frank, it’s a wood. Yes, a wood, full of trees, flowers, birds, insects, all that jazz. There’s scarcely a decent bit of rubbish, abandoned wheel hub, half-eaten takeaway or smashed beer bottle to be found.

Of course there are a few interesting smells, but on the whole they’re the dull ones humans find enticing: pine and lilies and all that softie stuff.

Ellie doesn’t seem to object as strongly as I do – I think she’s found a few alternative food-and-attention sources among the neighbours, together with some silly daredevil tricks to distract the Dad’s attention from my more mature meanderings.

She insists on coming for walks with us and gazing soulfully into the lake as though she’s one of Them. I didn’t mention the lake, did I? Nasty watery thing. Clean water, at that.

One thing that the house humans like particularly about the wood is the bear. Yes, you did read that right; a bear.

Personally, I have my doubts about him; he doesn’t seem frightfully active and doesn’t even object when I (with a little help from the Dad) jump on top of him, but the Mum seems quite unsuspicious, judging from the way she pats his nose and rabbits away to him.

If only she could read.

Mind you, that’s not the only evidence of her senile decay. One morning in June she disappeared with the Rory and the Aidan, and it took them a week to find their way back here. They’d obviously been taken into protective custody as they came back wearing wristbands embroidered with “Wear At All Times” and “Void if Removed”. Glass Tunberry, is, I assume, one of these new superprisons utilising the latest in electronical tag technology. Well, I suppose I can keep an eye on them…