A winter holiday

Having had a lovely Christmas, and having delivered Frank’s Humans back to his place, we, Frank, our Human’s mother Frannie and The Builder all came down to a place near Salisbury called West Dean. It’s a cute little village out in the middle of nowhere.

We’ve come to visit some of our human friends and relations down this way.

First we collected Grandmother Gwen (it was lovely to see her again) and took her to visit Rebecca and Evie and their grown ups. We had a lovely time there. There was lots of lovely lunch. Sleepy played with Rebecca’s iPhone (for some reason Frannie won’t let us play with hers - something about random calls to Australia and huge phone bills). We played chasie with Evie, and helped her set up her new laptop. We had a little wine and lots of fun, and many cuddles. And

we met a new gorilla friend who had that very day moved in to live with Rebecca. It was a

good day. And we had a lovely, quiet evening back in the flat above a barn where we are staying. There isn’t much on the television, though. And only three channels. But there are twiglets and chocolate and biscuits. And wine. We are very happy hippos and lion.

Then we went to visit our friends Barb and Greg in Barb’s lovely little cottage. There was more food and more wine. There were Christmas crackers and a cute kitty. We ate lots and drank a bit and played snakes and ladders and sat next to the roaring fire. Another good day. There is a lot to be said for

taking holidays in the winter. Fires, food and wine, and no requirement that you take any exercise. Although, I suppose if you did that for long enough you might end up rather fat. Mightn’t you, Frannie?

(Frannie is talking about her and The Builder going on a diet when she goes back to work, so they fit in their summer clothes when we all go to Australia in April. Fortunately, we will be back with our human before going to Australia and no diets are being spoken of there. Anyway, hippos and lions don’t need to fit into summer clothes. And in any case - we are not fat!!)

That’s enough for now. Today we are going to the seaside. We haven’t been to the seaside since we were in America back in September. And Frank says he can’t remember the last time he was at the seaside. We’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.