Puppy love...

'You look lovely and sun-kissed', said my colleague Mrs T as we bumped into each other over the kettle at Binland this morning.

Sun-kissed?   More like sun-slapped with a wet haddock wielded by Mike Tyson.

Yesterday, I fell victim to some stealth sunburn courtesy of the Woolacombe sun.  I have to admit that a pint of cider might just have contributed to this, but as I dropped off to sleep on a hazy Sunday afternoon, little did I know that the next morning I'd look like someone who'd gone shopping and forgotten to put their trousers on.  Red faced and slightly tight around the eyes, I looked like I'd had a week in Benidorm rather than four nights in the Wobble Box.  

We'd had a pretty full on weekend of carousing and stuffing our faces with anything that stopped moving long enough, all in the company of my cousin Mrs B and her gorgeous family.  She has the pleasure of living in Devon all year round, although looking at the queues on the A361 this morning, I'm sure that there are times when living in paradise can take a short cut to hell on earth during holiday season.

So between barbecues, pub dinners and pub lunches (all accompanied with cider - when in Rome, and all that) it was a pair of rotund holiday makers who flopped out on the sun-loungers yesterday afternoon for a short nanna-nap.  While we slept (catching flies and snoring loudly, I'm sure) a new neighbour had parked up their motor home next to ours, and it was a rude awakening when Percy and Reg launched into their canine version of the Hallelujah Chorus.

Opening my eyes, I was nose to nose with a Miniature Schnauzer.  But it wasn't one of mine as it was half the size of my two fatties.  There were also two of them, and they were both girls.

I can't begin to describe to you the level of excited barking from Percy, the confirmed bachelor, as he canoodled with one of the girls.  The dogs' owners, having got the measure of Reg very quickly, had scooped up one of their dogs and dropped her behind a temporary fence which they had brought with them.  Now this was no barrier for the loved up Reg, and he simply leaned over the plastic fencing for some mutual beard tugging.

The two boys were completely smitten, and finally coaxing them away last night, they both looked longingly at the motor home in which their two paramours were, before slowly climbing the two short steps into the Wobble Box.

I said to the husband that it was similar to when the girls used to have holiday romances.  Three days spent with a spotty youth from Wigan and that final teary wave from the car to the object of affection, before those eyes turned to us, burning a hole in the headrests with their open hatred at ruining their lives for ever.

Surprisingly, the dogs were a little better, and the sulking was over by the time we got onto the M5.

You can always rely on a Bonio...