Gucci, the seventeen-and-a-half-year-old Pomeranian terrier, was enjoying a day out along the Queens Prom today (Tuesday).

He was watching the mayor of Kingston Cllr Margaret Thompson, cut a ribbon to mark the third year of the Queens Promenade Friends’ group and their creation of the colourful pocket park around a formerly disused caretaker’s hut, and their ongoing transformation of the neighbouring River View Garden, a 50-metre bank with new hedging, planting and mulch and woodchip trails for children.

However Gucci’s attention was drawn away from the glasses of bubbly, M&S sarnies and caterpillar chocolate cake that were being handed round by the pocket park volunteers in favour of watching the mallards bobbing up and down on the Thames opposite Ravens Ait.

More about the day Cllr Thompson – and Gucci – came to visit in the next edition of The Good Life, out next month.