POLITICS is often a catty business but at the beginning of August Stroud MP Neil Carmichael had a more pleasant encounter with a much-loved family feline.

The Conservative politician was over the moon to be reunited with his pet cat Minouche, a seven-year-old blue Burmese after it had spent a six-night ordeal locked in a neighbour’s garage.

Staying with the animal theme, thousands of visitors enjoyed a weekend of equestrian competitions at Gatcombe Park early on in the month.

There was showjumping and dressage classes plus various other attractions, including Shetland pony racing, falconry and dog agility at the annual Festival of British Eventing.

And If ewe made your way over to Bisley a week later, you probably would have been in for a woolly surprise.

Families flocked to the village in August for its famous annual sheep trail, which featured a host of woolly wonders.

In Stonehouse, youngsters were celebrating after the town council received £50,000 worth of lottery funding to help fund a long-awaited skate park project.

Later on in the month students across the Five Valleys celebrated their A-Level results after a long and nerve-wracking wait.

In Stroud, a new campaign group was launched to stop more supermarkets being built in the Stroud area.

Stroud Against Supermarket Saturation (SASS) was set-up by a group of residents concerned about proposals for two new supermarkets in the area at Daniels Industrial Estate in Lightpill and in Ryeford.

Throughout Randwick, Whiteshill and Ruscombe, villagers were marking the end of a successful campaign to reduce speed limits to 20mph.

Meanwhile, in Nailsworth, constituents and Conservative Party members enjoyed cocktails and cupcakes at a party held to mark the opening of Neil Carmichael’s new Nailsworth office.

The Tory MP moved his base of operations to the town from Stroud as part of a plan to rotate his office around the different parts of his constituency.