The kitchen is tidy, the dogs are in bed, my paper is complete for the conference, I have done the washing, the office is neat. All the emails are up to date, I have backed up on two different hard drives. All I have to do is pack, which always takes me minutes to do, clean my car (it should be dry where Indigo threw up by now!!!) and remember to take some milk and tea bags and I am off!

At this stage I always regret having said I would go anywhere, I love this house and the Centre more than enough to not really want to leave it. And with two puppies as well, that is even harder to leave, but I have not been to an RRF conference for a while, and its important for the Centre for us to keep our profile up in the scientific world as well. Plus the work we are doing with the vultures needs to be told, it is a good partnership of various groups and the teams are working well together.

Simon is going to an incubation workshop in Spain, which we hope to run here next year, its a great workshop with really interesting stuff to learn. So he will be talking to the people running it, who are friends of mine anyway, and they are keen to come here next year. So watch the website for the opportunity. I have to go to Spain on the day he gets back for the Eagle Conservation Alliance conference, so that is two conferences in 10 days.

Friends are staying in the house to care for the dogs and keep the house happy as well. Oh and Nettle got a clean bill of health today - hooray.

The two young male Harris Hawks are really enjoying flying together now, they are doing very well, and yesterday Cool Ground, the young Snowy Owl must have been brilliant as Adam came up from the flying field with a huge grin on his face, which meant Holly and I knew he was dying to tell us how well the owl went! So we let him!

Autumn Watch starts this week, but I am not sure when our films are on, I suspect I will miss at least one as I am not back until very late on the night of the 9th.

The bloody phones are still not working, but hopefully will be sorted out tomorrow, our system is out of the Ark and I was hoping that I would not have to replace it this year, however it looks like it will have to happen - add that to the new boiler, and that is two large expenses that I did not plan on - oh well, just have to work harder!

Here's hoping that the Range Rover will make it to Pitlochry and back in one piece, I am staying in my sister's cottage in the middle of not very much, it is beautiful up there, but I would hate the car to die at that point, I don't think the AA would be very amused.