One of our pups (was) missing

I was not sleeping, so got up to read a book in the living room. As you would expect while it was still dark, jml both ignored me.

At around 5am, I got ready to go back to bed. By this time, dawn was breaking, Loch Melfort was perfectly calm, and I stepped onto the balcony to take a photo of the mountains reflecting in the water.

About three hours later, Mrs jml got up to make a cup of tea. At some stage, she realised that Molly was not in the kitchen, and came looking for her in the bedroom. Not there either - panic!

All the doors and windows were closed - she had to be hiding somewhere. But we had to come to the conclusion that she was not in the house. I went outside, and there she was sitting calmly by the lochside.

How had she got out? The photograph above shows the balcony door. It has never been secure, and we always close it by winding a bungy-cord around the handles - it can just be seen in the top-left of the photo. I think that when I went back in after taking the 5am photo, I did not wind the cord tightly enough. Somehow, she forced the door open, it snapped shut behind her, and she was loose.

Alternatively, she awoke during the brief moment I was on the balcony and slipped out under my feet without me noticing!

Either way, she seems to have gone quietly to the lochside and waited patiently, for anything up to three hours, for us to come and play with her in the water!

What a Houdini is our Molly. This is only the latest in a long line of escapes - here was the first.