For the most part, when we tend to go somewhere together we take Jack and Jill with us. It's what we always did with Button and Riley. They were excellent travellers, near or far. These two little guys approaching their seventh month of existence and in equal parts excited and suspicious about new experiences, get car-sick. It doesn't matter whether we're just making a quick trip in the near vicinity or embarking on a longer drive, one of them will become queasy. It is inconvenient, but it's something we expect they'll outgrow.

Yesterday we decided to have a look at the Lowe's garden centre. We've quite a few to select from as far as 'garden centres' go, but we noticed that they got their centre set up early, while others were just more or less beginning, so we thought we'd go along and see what early season offerings were to be had. I had also wanted to pick up a few more large Dahlia corms for the garden.

Our car is a stick-shift, not as smooth in its operation as the truck, which is an automatic drive. We thought they'd be more comfortable in the truck, and in the truck there's ample room for them to set beside us in the front, unlike the car where we keep them in the back seat. I could never do that with Riley, he would just cry constantly until I relented and put him on my lap, and that's where he usually sat whenever and wherever we went anywhere.

We had just parked the truck and gotten them into their carry-bags, when someone in another truck shouted out to us "nice puppies!", and we laughed. They parked and soon caught up with us, two older men who wanted to see Jack and Jill, and admire them and talk about their own little dogs. It seemed we could scarcely tear ourselves away, they were so inclined to talk dogs, but we did eventually.

Then, for the time we were at the garden shop wandering about, admiring some of the newly introduced specimens, we were stopped repeatedly by older women who wanted to touch our two little rascals and pet them and talk about their own well-loved pets. To our surprise, Jillie shrank back from strangers expressing interest on her. Jillie, the bold little pup who rarely takes "no" for an instruction, clung to my husband and hid her little head in his chest, withdrawing formally from any competition with Jackie, who enjoyed the limelight.