Did the earth move for you ?

Joan asked me , did the earth move for me , referring to last night's earthquake , the biggest in twenty five years , experienced here apparently at around 1 am . The short answer is no . In fact I had no idea about the thing until I found a text on my phone as I sat at my pc at the office and my sister told me that her son who is at Uni in Liverpool had been woken together with his friends by the earthquake . I texted back . Yeah right , in his dreams , thinking it was the usual alcohol induced fantasy .......But then as I read the text out to Tracy she confirmed that she had actually been woken by her bed shaking , and it started to dawn on me that nothing of that nature would register here . We sleep on a water bed and what with four cats changing places , diving on and off , squabbling and jostling for the best / warmest spot , D sneezing repeatedly ( allergy to the cats ? ) , and my good self adding to the mix with my constant sleep talking and commenting , and general insomniac tossing and turning once 4 am is past , we are rocked like a fishing boat heading for the Farne Islands in high winds whatever is going on beyond the bedroom . When one cat changes position far left , this creates waves throughout the bed... we all move ......when one person climbs out we all sink .....

Just as I read Joan'c comment adding that a friend's parrot ( in Peterborough , I think ) had gone mad , my sister e mailed to say she had heard on the radio that a Peterborough parrot had fallen off its perch . Could it be the same parrot I ask myself . I will await Joan's further comment the next time she visits the blog .....

I have experienced an earthquake twice before , once whilst staying in Germany after finsihing A levels and on another occasion whilst working in Uganda . Both were unmemorable events , with a few things sliding off shelves , and a bit of a rocking feeling going on .
But George and his friends in Liverpool thought a lorry had crashed into the side of their student flat , or a bomb had gone off .
I'm now regretting that I slept through it or if I didn't , I put it down to one of our usual nocturnal rumblings rather than anything out of the ordinary .

Me Nervous ?

Nah ! Look at my teeth ......

Swans and Geese at Bolam Lake Northumberland

Windy walk this afternoon .

The wind makes Alice nervous and she glances repeatedly from side to side like Private Somebody or Other ( Marbles Moment ) from Dad's Army played by Ian Lavender .

Equally tall and skinny and usually with a piece of greenery sticking out of his hat , just so like Alice out on a walk on new territory . She glances round , checks on D and me , licks her lips as if her mouth is dry and if approached by anything bigger than a squirrel presses herself between us until the Danger is safely passed .

On "her" beach of course its a different story . She 's full of herself , assuming there are no boxer dogs about , and charges at anything and everything , full of gusto and sometimes rushing at little teddy bear type dogs as if there was no tomorrow , rolling them over and pushing them around . Most of them love her and like to chase her , snapping at her ankles until she gets too rough .

But bring out that wind and put her in a different field and she's a different animal .

What is that man's name ...?

The day CatCaller learns to inject insulin

I don't usually refuse anything much and consequently find myself doing all sorts in the name of cat minding . Most tasks are fairly obvious , and its some of those I would never have thought of that I enjoy the most . One of my longest standing families have a wonderful garden known to us as the fairytale garden and numerous bird feeders all of which have to be replenished on a daily basis . This is idyllic in Summer but even in Winter as I slip about across the flagstones as the wind chases me and the watchful cats , its still a source of some joy just to be doing something I wouldn't normally be doing at home .
This morning was learning how to inject a diabetic cat with insulin . I had felt fine with this until just a few seconds before the insulin , the syringe , the needle and the list of instructions loomed large before my eyes at nine thirty . Then suddenly it hit me . Not only had I to follow the directions to get the right amount of drug into the syringe with no air in there and then catch the cat ,by then lurking in the bedroom , I then had to somehow jab the cat with the needle in the right place . And , the poor cat had to have eaten something prior to this assault . And poor lamb she had never met me before . After a quick chat we adjourned to the kitchen and I learn how to roll the insulin gently rather than shake it . A quick break in the proceedings . I need to remove a few layers . I do the rolling and then pick up the syringe , eyeing up the needle . Another false start . This is going to call for my glasses lest I draw up an air bubble or the wrong amount of stuff. J , who is showing me the ropes , is very patient and calm . I'm not sure how I would be in her shoes .
Suffice to say the insulin is soon drawn up , air bubbles expelled , and the syringe is all ready . Now , where is Puss ? We find her in the bedroom . She is exactly the cat I wanted when we got our Kitty . A black and white cat with little white paws and white whiskers . Cute and gentle and not too wriggly given that she is being chased by an incompetent attempting to conceal a needle in her hand , tension starting to mount although the overall feeling still being that once I was close enough the deed would be done in seconds . As indeed it is . Lifting the skin , angling the needle and that was it . J had made everything easy by giving very clear instructions and seems pleased with how things had gone . Puss seems happy it is done and bears no grudges setting up a loud purring and later bringing me her toy ball with a yowl as if she is delivering a fresh mouse .
CatCaller learns a new skill ... not bad for an hour on a Saturday morning in February....

The Queen and her Left hand Man ( Who's Your Friend Ma'am ?)

Click to enlarge .

Can't help wondering if this is a genuine photograph or a bit of clever airbrushing ? Any thoughts ?

What causes recurring dreams ?
Mine is of a huge old house , well known to me in the dreamtime though not somewhere my waking self recognises though I can recall it perfectly when I wake and could reproduce it in a design or drawing if I had those skills . Mostly its a sense of a house , a feeling of a place , a sense of texture and rich details . Its a place I seem to return time and again , often when I have or have had headaches . It doesn't make me better , but there 's something about it .
The rooms are on many levels and I spend time wandering up and down the levels , sometimes on staircases with wide stairs , sometimes using glass escalators which move with great speed . At the top of the house on one occasion I found a roof terrace , with a coffee bar open to the sky with Mexican colours and palm trees . Yet we were bang in the middle of Linskill Terrace , North Shields . How about that for detail and surrealism . You would have to know North Shields to make sense ( or not ) of that . The roof terrace was hosting some kind of open air party under the stars and everyone was there , happy and relaxed . There was a shiny coffee machine right in the middle of proceedings , making all the right espresso noises . No escalator or grand staircase that night , just a simple stair way down the back of the building and off to a field where someone ( but not me ) was keeping some red hens and some white chickens .
That was one particular version of the house .
It comes in many guises .
Early this morning the version was more traditional . The one where I am staying in someone else s home and I am wandering round looking for my room and aware that there are a variety of rooms I could sleep in and each with a bathroom nearby . There are no bathrooms en suite . The house is too old and unreconstructed for that . The bathrooms have doors but many of them also have heavy brocaded curtains pulled back with tie backs adding to the sense of drama and grandeur .And always as I wander this sense that I have been here before , and indeed , as I pass along a particular hall , that I have slept in these rooms many times , and that I am not chosing a room in which to spend a night , but that these are all my rooms and I can sleep in any one of them , and that there are friends who will sleep in the rest of the rooms .
Where do these dreams come from ?

I love how she sighs

Especially when her sigh lasts a full minute .

I am multi tasking in the sitting room , post coffee in cafe 22 with Debbie , which means I am reading the Times , trying to do the Codeword , and keeping my eye on GoogleReader at the same time , watching what the blogs are saying , as befits a very windy and very lazy Friday afternoon , with the occasional foray onto Facebook to reply to messages from one of my nieces .

Suddenly a whole host of people much younger than me have noticed that I am there and messages are appearing faster than I know how to deal with them. Its much more complex than say aol messaging or dare I say Blogging .

I'm also psyching myself up to this afternoon's newish CatCall with three delightful cats and a complicated arramengment of fish cooking and roast chicken carving . Or should that be arrangement ?

I sit there , doing what I do , the cats all dozing upstairs on the water bed , apart from Kitty who still favours the middle of the landing for her own brand of cockroaching , Alice the rescue greyhound at full stretch on the sofa having pulled two cushions over her face and a tartan fleece over her person , and a mobile goes off , rock style , next door .

D falls over himself to answer it as usual , some inbuilt terror of missing a call which I fail to grasp with my own one in five rule on answering phones ( one in five chance it will be for me so four out of five times I leave it .... usually works fine ) .

He starts an intense conversation of a business nature with a local solicitor and I try to concentrate on my own affairs whilst blocking out his conversation . Difficult . Loud voice . Much repetition . Etc . My codeword is sticky and the Times is boring . Etc . He is at the start of the conversation again and re repeating . I do that too .

Alice sits up slightly , her peace disturbed and one of her cushions lands on the floor . She raises herself and stares at the floor . Then at me . She looks at the door . At the voice . Presumably breaching the peace . She stays silent but glances at me and I smile at her . The voice continues , then states , in summing up , ..if that all makes sense . Silence . " Oh No " says the voice . Hello . We understand the voice is cross , irritated , has lost his signal and been cut off possibly at some point a while back , possibly even before the first repetitions .

I hold my breath and do my utmost not to snigger unhelpfully . It is a banana skin moment .

Alice has no such qualms . She sits up , lies down again , readjusts her fleece and her remaining cushion and sighs for a full minute .

I kidd you not .