A Dawn Surprise

 Now most of you know that I am extremely short sighted, and on waking up at the 6am alarm in the morning, I am usually extremely bad tempered. This is usually remedied by caffeine and so it falls to me to stagger downstairs, negotiating the new stair gate that the kids open with ease, but which baffles the adults every time, and trip over a very excited puppy who is delighted to...

be able to wake up to another day of play, play, play.

Imagine my surprise then, when I looked out bleary eyed into the dusky lawn and noticed (I kid you not), a bona fide Penguin sitting bolt upright in the garden. Now I’m no penguin expert, and Mytchett is not renowned for its colony of penguins, I do know that it wasn’t your King Emperor type penguin, but rather a small one with brown wings and a black head. To my horror, Muttley also spied it, and in one swift movement captured the penguin and started shaking it from side to side with immense growls before smashing its head on the ground. The penguin didn’t seem at all bothered by the turn of events and then I realized that it was in fact a stuffed toy… I didn’t know whether to be cross at the fact that even the dog has managed to work out the stair gate and sneak upstairs to one of the kids bedrooms, or glad that I wasn’t actually watching the making of Happy Feet 3: the Murder….