Beady Eyes

Eddie is loving his freedom, whizzing around like crazy and although not putting any weight on his pinned leg, he can balance wonderfully and jump, including on to the TV cupboard. He does love wildlife documentaries but we have banned him watching football for fear of the TV toppling.

I started on the annual week of sadomasochistic tax return completion. Same as every year, a fine threatens if it's not in by 31st December - the tax return for 2015 that is. Here the tax and calendar year are the same unlike the unbelievable UK tax year of 6th April to 5th April?

I hate it, not because it is difficult but because one has to troll through every bit of paper or electronic transmission one got in the 365 days to see if it can be set off against tax. The chimney sweeps two invoices a year, contact lenses bought over the internet, the dog's 3rd party liability insurance policy, the chemists bleached till roll receipt: now was that packet of aspirin on a docs prescription, or on a docs notepad, or on a private prescription or ....bad news ...for the horse who had a headache.and for me who felt the same way.

They say the German tax laws are the most complicated in the world. What bugs me every year is when the accountant whacks in all the numbers, a worried pair of eyes look over the monitor and she utters, "You haven't spent a lot this year, you won't be getting such a large tax refund". Then come various warnings that the tax rates on the state pension get higher automatically every year and if I continue not to spend more of what I haven't anyway got, I will soon come to the point of having a tax debt each year. I'm sure the state not deducting tax at source from the pension it pays me is a trick to get my blood pressure to exceed the limits and ensure I don't get to take full benefit of decades of pension payments.

Unlike some I don't have nine eight lives left.