Inside this issue:

Rita s Ramblings

transfer the water into. Three water butts, filled to the brim, enabled me to reach the bottom, which was covered in a substantial layer of mud. Charlie Dimmock suggested using a dustpan to scoop it up and, overall, it worked pretty well. The plants were tidied up and put back and the water returned. Much to my surprise I discovered that a small fish had been transferred to one of the water butts; he didn't seem too worse for wear and quickly swam away once back in the pond itself. Despite the trauma all the fish seem to have survived and I don't think I left any in the muddy dredgings!
Bonnie has now finished her training and received a certificate to mark her achievements. One thing is for certain, though, I will not be getting it framed to hang on the wall - not even above her basket! We both found the 6-week course beneficial and it is now a question of maintaining the daily training sessions. The lady running the course suggested teaching the dogs a new "trick" every month as it keeps both the owner's and dog's brain active. Now let's see: if Bonnie is now 6 months old and can be expected to live for about 12 years I will have to think up another 138 tricks! Hmmm, I don't think my imagination will stretch that far so if anyone has any good ideas (apart from the basics) please let me know.   
On that note I had better say cheerio for this month, take care and enjoy your Christmas shopping!

RITA NICKLES

Hello again, how are you this month? Autumn is well and truly with us now, with some nasty little frosts overnight. Hopefully everyone managed to get the more tender plants under cover and any casualties were minimal. Although I don't like the warm summer months coming to an end I do like the beautiful colours that can be seen on many a walk locally. The red and golden tints seem to glow in the sunshine; the dark crimson coloured bushes (are they spindles?) along the Stoke Ferry bypass are simply stunning. Someone in the paper was suggesting that with so many berries around it looks as though it could be a cold, hard winter. Time will tell but weather reports from up in Scotland are slightly disconcerting - 4 inches of snow in the Aberdeen area already! Looking back I really enjoyed the time we spent living in Scotland but the weather definitely had its drawbacks. I'm certainly glad that we were able to move back down south again - back to our lovely village.
Our garden is slowly coming along, although parts of the vegetable garden are still knee high in weeds. It will get cleared in due course but other jobs have had to take priority and I'm learning not to get too upset about it. Worse things can happen! I have managed to clean our pond this year - YUCK. First of all there was the problem of finding enough suitable containers to