Out walking with friends today on the last, so we are threatened, nice day of the year. An apparently eager and personable young Labrador bounced up to a passing young couple and tried to persuade them to play ball with him. They couldn't quite get what he saying at first, foreigners perhaps, so he mimed for them: dropped his ball, picked it up, threw it and rushed after it, picked it up and brought it to them. Geddit?

Aha! The bloke threw the ball. Young Labrador leapt skywards, caught it on the arc and ran with it. Game over.

Minutes later another couple came by, with a Spanielly sort of thing. They had one of those bendy sticks with a scoop on the end people use to make throwing balls for dogs easier. They were disconcerted. Somehow their ball had disappeared. The Spanielly thing’s day out was quite spoiled.