Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

The Black Phantom Sock Thief of Old Barry Town

Fun on Easthaven beach
Fun on Easthaven beach

Strange things have been happening in the MacCallum household. Items of clothing have been going missing.

The mysterious goings-on seemed to coincide with Yancy’s arrivalbut disappearances have recently increased to a worrying degree. Socks placed on the airer are generally colour matched, sometimes cross-indexed, before being draped lovingly together. We turn our backs for a few minutes and they are gone.

Some reappear upstairs, on the stairs and throughout the house. Occasionally they even appear on Yancy’s bedwho on earth would leave them there, I hear you ask?

Even pants have been known to go walkabout, only to reappear elsewhere in the house.

The whole business is a bit of a mystery.

Is it a poltergeist? We may need an exorcism, I fear…

In other news, training supervisor Wendy came to visit and joined us on a walk with Yancy. It felt a bit like a driving test but I think Terry and I passed…even allowing for the two chickens Wendy had clearly arranged to “happen across” us during the walk.

Yancy is coming on really well. Her walking on the lead is improving all the time. She must walk slightly ahead as she will be leading once she’s in a harness. She has her daft days when she’s easily distracted by people, other dogs and birds she doesn’t like crows but, considering she’s not even six months old yet, she’s doing great.

Since our last blog we’ve been on the train to Dundee a couple of times. First time she didn’t like the gap and I had to carry her on, but the next time she jumped aboard with gusto. Trains are great because there’s always rubbish to eat on the floor. She’s a sort of canine Hoover.

There have also been plenty bus trips and she’s now very comfortable aboard the 73 to and from Dundee, though boredom can lead to occasional bouts of mischief, to the general amusement of fellow passengers.

She’s also had a couple of away-days. One with her Aunty Barbara and another with Aunty Lana. They are part of the support network in the area and looked after Yancy when we had things on. She was, we were told, as good as gold, thankfully!

I did feel a pang for Lana’s own dog a slightly older golden lab called Suzy. She gave me a look when I left Yancy which said: “Oh Gawd. Not another puppy…”

I’ve also had Yancy with me to a Ninewells appointment nothing embarrassing, before you ask. I played very much second fiddle in the examination room, but, once again, Yancy passed the test with flying colours.

We had another get-together at Broughty Castle hall with the other local Guide Dog pups. Always great fun. Yancy did well largely due to her exhaustion after the pre-training tussles with her colleagues but she’s clearly making progress on the training front.

We’re away up to the Guide Dogs Centre at Forfar next week for Yancy’s six-month check-up with the vet and Wendy is going to give us a quick tour of the place, more of which in my next blog.

Anyway, better be off. Yancers and I are off to the shops!

Look after your socks.

For more information on Guide Dogs for the Blind and on puppy walking, visit guidedogs.org.uk