Right, gather 'round, folks, because this week my thoughts have been somewhat… scattered, shall we say? It all started with a phone call from my inherited daughter No. 2, Catherine. Bless her cotton socks, she rang for a good old chinwag. Daughter No. 1, Rachel, on the other hand, seems to have gone completely AWOL, probably buried under a mountain of paperwork as a Conveyancing Executive. You can bet your bottom dollar she's dealing with the fallout from Reeves' stamp duty shenanigans – honestly, has anyone seen house prices go up since that lot got in? Makes you think, doesn't it?

Anyway, Catherine's got grand plans. London, no less! Buying a house in that there smoke? Good luck to her, I thought, mentally patting my wallet. But she's a determined lass, our Catherine, a qualified Nurse working hard up in Highgate School. And then she dropped the bombshell: she wants a dog!

Well, that set the old cogs whirring, didn't it? Suddenly, I was hurtling back through the decades, past questionable fashion choices and wallpaper that should have been illegal, all the way to 1983. We were your typical "2.2 family" back then: my ex wife, Jenny, yours truly, our son Paul, our little Emma… and then there was him. Caesar.

Oh, Caesar. That Labrador. The creature possessed the selective hearing of a teenager being asked to tidy their room and the appetite of a small, perpetually hungry nation. We had some proper laugh-out-loud moments with that dog, the kind that leave you clutching your sides and gasping for air. But let's be honest, there were also the head-in-hands moments, the sighs that could rival a gale-force wind.

And speaking of gale-force winds, nothing quite compares to the memory of the Great Bread Heist of next door. Picture the scene: a tranquil afternoon, the sun gently warming the garden, the birds having their usual noisy gossip session. Suddenly, a shriek that could shatter glass! Out pops Mrs. Henderson, our usually unflappable neighbour, bent double with laughter, tears streaming down her face.

"You won't BELIEVE me!" she wheezed, clutching her side. "A DOG! A ruddy DOG just sauntered into my kitchen and clean swiped the whole blooming loaf right off the table!"

Jenny and I exchanged those "did that just happen?" glances, then slowly pivoted towards our back door. And there he was. Our Caesar. Laid out on the rug like butter wouldn't melt, looking the very picture of canine sainthood, paws neatly crossed over his head. You could practically see the cartoon halo shimmering above his furry brow. The sheer audacity of it was breathtakingly funny. Even Mrs. Henderson, through her fits of giggles, just shook her head at the pure, unadulterated cheek of our four-legged felon.

But time, that relentless old baggage handler, keeps on trucking. The years zipped by, leg warmers thankfully became a distant nightmare, and our bouncy pup started to get a bit… well, less bouncy. They say one dog year is seven human years, which meant our Caesar, who bounded into our lives in '83, would have been a staggering 98 when he finally trotted off to chase endless squirrels in the great beyond in 1997.

And here's where the chuckles take a bit of a nosedive into sadness. That daft old sod, our bread-snatching, eternally optimistic Caesar, shuffled off this mortal coil on August 31st, 1997. A quiet stroke, they said. The really odd thing? It was the very same day as Princess Diana. Always felt a bit surreal, that. This goofy, lovable mutt who’d filled our house with so much chaos and joy, departing on such a significant, and ultimately heart breaking, day.

Our Paul and Emma, bless their cotton socks, arrived in '80 and '82 respectively. Growing up in the South West, we were lucky enough to be within spitting distance of Helston, a town that knows how to throw a proper party – or rather, a proper dance. Flora Day! Usually bang on the 8th of May, although it likes to keep us on our toes by shifting to the Saturday before if the 8th falls on a Sunday or Monday. I vaguely recall and a read of a slight kerfuffle in 2023 when it was shunted to Friday the 5th because of the King's Coronation, but, I believe returning to its rightful Wednesday the 8th in 2024. And here we are, in "Star Wars Day" (May the Fourth); its back on 8th of May 2025, so for those still down there in that "quaint old Cornish town" it's just a hop, skip, and a jump away from this year's festivities on Thursday the 8th again!

But some of my absolute favourite memories from that era are seeing Paul and Emma all scrubbed up and ready to take part in the children's dance. Their little faces, shining with such pure, unadulterated pride as they lined up, it was enough to melt even the iciest of hearts. The girls, our Emma included, often looked like little angels in their pristine white dresses, sometimes with a splash of green and white in their floral headbands or sashes – the colours of the town, you see. And our Paul, bless him, would be all smart in his white shirt and dark trousers, always with that little sprig of lily of the valley pinned to his lapel, bobbing about like a tiny, fragrant soldier.

They'd hold hands in pairs, forming these long, snaking lines of miniature dancers, weaving their way through the streets, in and out of shops and houses, all in time to the wonderfully infectious rhythm of the Flora Dance music. It wasn't about complicated steps for them, more about the sheer joy of the procession, the feeling of belonging to something bigger, and that wonderful, innocent pride of being part of such a deep-rooted tradition. You’d see them concentrating fiercely, trying their best to keep in step, their eyes wide with a mixture of excitement and maybe just a tiny hint of stage fright. Those are the moments that etch themselves onto your heart, seeing your kids connect with the history and spirit of a place.

Helston itself always buzzed with a special kind of energy on Flora Day. It’s a town that’s never been short of a decent pub or two, and on that day, they’d be positively overflowing with locals and visitors all soaking up the atmosphere. And while the dances through the streets are the main event, the boating lake offered a welcome oasis of calm. We’d sometimes sneak down there for a bit of respite from the crowds, maybe treat the kids to an ice cream. I don’t recall any specific organised shenanigans on the lake itself, but it was always a lovely spot to just… be, and enjoy the overall celebratory vibe.

So there you have it. A little wander down memory lane, a good chuckle at a bread-obsessed Labrador, a pang of sadness for his departure on a rather significant day, and those heart warming memories of Paul and Emma taking their tentative but oh-so-proud steps in the Helston Flora Day children’s dance. It's funny, isn't it, how all these seemingly disparate memories – the silly and the poignant, the everyday and the deeply traditional – all get tangled up together in the tapestry of our lives. And sometimes, a conversation with your inherited daughter about getting a dog is all it takes to unravel a whole reel of them. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I need a cup of tea and maybe a biscuit… hopefully, no furry thieves lurking about and maybe inherited daughter No.1 will remember, I exist down the road a piece for a "chinwag"!

POEM (Think tune of the Flora Dance perhaps!)

When we danced, with a hop and a twirl so bright,
When we swayed to the brass of the band, in the broad daylight!
Top hats gleaming, cummerbunds tied with grace,
Ladies in dresses, a smile on each face,
Watching the dances from our Helston abode,
"Hal an Tow" sung, on that eighth of May road.

Then silence descends, then a sudden sharp cry,
Our neighbour's out laughing, with tears in her eye!
"That loaf I was baking, the time it did take,"
She gasped, "some sly dog, a swift grab did make!"
We searched high and low, with a puzzled "what's up?"
Then we chuckled together – for the bread-burgling pup!