Day to day musings of a cat minder/ sitter in North Tyneside and Newcastle upon Tyne . For details of services go to http://www.catminders.biz

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Friday 2 January 2009

Today is the new New Year ....

Kitty Means Business
Today is the new New Year Ok ?


Yesterday was a bit of a disaster day on most fronts so I hatched a cunning plan at midnight to start again today . I have a tiny fear that starting the new year on a bad note might , just might be a bad omen . Mind you speaking to , or emailing or texting a few friends I see that others seem to have fared no better . Maybe we all need to start again .


It started with a very unsettled night . The cats were fine . They sleep anywhere and don't seem to mind who is in the house or what family occasions are happening . Kitty , to be fair has been taking issue with D , coming down to the kitchen for sparring matches and head butting sessions ( her head and his legs ) , pushing him and nipping and generally making herself unpleasant but then she is a tortie so thats kind of expected .

But Alice ( rescue greyhound ) has been something else these last days . Picking up on Tenstion Undercurrents or what ? She has paced and roamed , refused to settle and refused to anything .
So at 3 am , 4 am , and goodness knows what else am she was up and off the bed , back on , trailing about the upper floor , into the bathroom , troughing cat food , needing to void cat food ( trip to back yard , too scared to go out to void in dark , back to bed , out to front where there is light .... none of this facilitated by me I should add . I had had a Vodka . Say no more . )
And then finally , Jennie had to shower at six and leave soon after for her shift as a midwife some miles away . Alice sits bolt upright in our room . The bed lurches ( water beds are delightfully warm in winter , but when the greyhound moves , we are all at sea. And after a vodka ..) She sniffs the air. She looks at D . She looks at me . All present and correct . So who is in the shower ? I find this intensely annoying for some reason . Alice , for God's sake I mutter in my head . We have a room full of teenagers next door at any one time . It could be one of them in the shower ? Give it a rest why don' t you ? Alice can hear nothing from my lips but she is hurt none the less , and draws her head towards her chest to fix me with that face , that infinitely sad , anxious face . In seconds the nose is pointed again at the ceiling , and she is trailing foxes or whatever is haunting her .
J leaves and I fall asleep again .
At eight the phone rings .
Unknown to me J has fallen on the stairs and sprained her ankle badly and is now in Accident and Emergency at the hospital where she works , unable to work and unable to drive home . This notwithstanding the fact that the previous evening she fell on ice on her own steps and her other ankle had swollen outrageously . Now she has a matching pair .
D leaves to help her home . Alice finally falls asleep , comatose by this time . D brings me coffee before he leaves and I read for a while . Bliss . For me .
D returns at lunch time and we drive into Northumberland to Belsay Hall , imagining walking through the gardens in the sunshine . Alas they are closed . Of course . New Year's Day .
We pull onto the approach road and stop the car to let Alice have a run on the deserted road ...... back into the car five minutes later .
Dead .
The car is dead .
An hour later we are following the AA van in pursuit of a new battery .
Today is the new New Year .
I am going Paper Making with Liz.
Wish me luck .

5 comments:

BetteJo said...

I wish I had some luck to give you but alas - having a bit of bad luck of my own.
Do you think Torties are disagreeable by nature? Because our tortie is the one who bites.

MsCatMinder said...

yes there is definitely a phrase here " naughty tortie " and it sums up most tortoise shell cats I have known . Kitty is a law unto herself . D made the mistake once of giving her a gentle push with his foot , attempting to establish supremacy . He has been paying ever since .

BetteJo said...

Then ours has a double whammy, being a tortie AND being an abandoned kitten that was never socialized in any way. She doesn't trust humans and doesn't get along with other cats either. Sigh-h.

BetteJo said...

Then ours has a double whammy, being a tortie AND being an abandoned kitten that was never socialized in any way. She doesn't trust humans and doesn't get along with other cats either. Sigh-h.

MsCatMinder said...

Kitty had none of these disadvantages but doesnt take too well to other cats either . Though when Toby and Jess were kittens they looked up to her sort of .... and they kind of rub along .
So long as she is boss , as with humans and is Properly Respected , everything mostly goes ok .

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