Every once in a while we drop some widely travelled friends at Exeter Airport in the early hours of the morning. The day always has the same shape, we drop them and then head to Topsham to walk the streets and the Goat Walk, above, before Topsham has properly woken up.

Then once the walk is completed, after 8 am we can indulge in breakfast in an old pub that is now a cafe.

Before heading into Exeter to shop in John Lewis and many other enlightened stores that allow well behaved dogs in. Today’s simple quest was a non stick roasting pan. Oh the glamour! The dogs were on a spending roll though, t-shirts, stem less champagne flutes and room fragrance joined the non-stick roasting pan in the shopping basket. Either their spending or the 15,000 human steps they accompanied us on have exhausted them. This afternoon they are dog tired.