I know you wont have the time to read this but ....

Angelina Jolie and the superfast generation Carol Midgley - Times Online

Sitting outside M and S yesterday in the outlet car park waiting for Nat and Kathryn and reflecting that this was the first time I had had five minutes to call my own in what seemed like weeks . probably a gross exaggeration but .... I watched people ..... the world , me included , is in a hurry ..... cars revving past , cross at having to wait for space to park , to get by , men in the car park impatiently waiting for women and kids coming out of the shops , I myself looking at my watch and trying to calculate how much of the twenty minutes agreed had elapsed since I had left the girls .... then wondering if the dog at home would have trashed ... what exactly ? The house ? Not likely ... a shoe ? at worst ..... and stopped myself worrying , wound down the window to enjoy the sunshine and the wait .

So with that in mind , it seemed something of a coincidence that I read this article tonight .
Its worth a read .

Besides my extra duties with M still in hospital and her three cats insisting on going out and refusing to come back in when they should ( why would they ? the house is hot , they dont know where she has gone , they last saw her disappear in an ambulance and I cant help them understand when she will be back . So they go looking for her , is my theory .... ) Im also looking after two matching cats in grey and black with white paws , both elderly , long haired and living in an idyllic spot , house centred around a beautiful courtyard .
The boy cat , who is slightly more into cuddles than his Foodie sister , leads me round the ( extensive ) house showing me places where he has dropped a dribble or a speck of fluff and mooches around nonchalanantly till I clear up . Houseproud he is ..... whereas sister just ushers me straight into the Food dept and heads for the tuna tins and then follows me for a conversation after her dinner .....

But after feeding and clearing are all done we adjourn to the courtyard bench and sit and chat for a while in the sunshine and that is the blissful part of this job cum hobby of mine . I wouldn't change it for anything . Nothing beats those few minutes of rest and recuperation and hanging out with a couple of cats .

This clip is highly unlikely to be of any interest to anyone but me but I wanted to preserve it for posterity .

The view from the garden seat into my Dad's shed , where he has classical music ( playing in the backgound , possibly just audible .

Alice strolling by , not yet having been chased by the cat , but soon after rolling in the cat food and having been wiped down with the Molton Brown hand- wash .

To the left of the shed the Russian vine that conceals the wasp nest .

One of these fine sunny days I will have the presence to have the camera ready as the cat circuits after the dog .

That will be worth pressing the start button for ... greyhound put through her paces by tortoiseshell terror .

Wasp's Nest

Alice whacked after a day out ....

Some weeks are so frantically busy there are no spare minutes for blogging , reading blogs , or even sitting looking at wasps' nests .

Then , out of the blue , there is a spare couple of hours , and the teenage daughter has a brainwave and proposes a visit to the grandparents which involves an early afternoon out of the rat race . How could we resist ?

Alice is now exhausted on her bed ..... the cat having chased her again round the garden , but not before she rolled in some cat food she discovered behind the compost food " put out for the birds " so had to be washed all over with a face cloth soaked in posh Molton Brown hand wash . A faint whiff of bergamot clings with an undertone of ten day old Felix....

Anti Snoring Device

I noticed in the early hours of this morning that Pearl , ( pictured at the top of the blog ) and featured in several other places , though completely deaf , is like me rather antagonistic to snoring . I propped myself up on one elblow to start the usual poking and prodding , which used to bring forth immediate " me ! snoring ! No ! Sorry ..... " with hand caught in the trifle guilt attached . Now its all slightly different with more brute force required , more poking , more prodding , and sometimes the turning over with a definite flounce attached . And within seconds the snoring seems to start up again . (And now to cap it all my blog wont start new paragraphs )....So I prop myself up and stare at the vibrating force next to me . And then I notice Pearl , also propped up , also staring at him , somewhat disgruntled , having deserted her usual post in the far corner of the bed . She stalks forwards stiffly picking her way daintily forwards and positions herself close to the elbow and as her mouth opens slightly I wonder just for a second whether she can be trained to nip as she does in the daylight hours when he behaves against her rules , as the perfect anti snoring device . Just a thought .

Alice checks out her new bed ....

When you gotta go .....

Alice likes a bit of peace and quiet to perform her ablutions .

She is particularly bad in the countryside . She finds all those noises scary , just when she is lowering her backside to the ground and a crow shouts at her or some such and whap! Her tail is down and constipation threatens .

Last friday we were making the most of the last day of the camper van , out walking near Low Newton and the heavy mob thundered up , the fence between us a bit too femur for my liking and Alice was completely unable to do her worst .

She suffered the journey home with a tortured expression until safely back home and onto her own turf .

I have friends who are exactly the same ... take them away from the sanctuary of their own powder room and they are hopeless .

Not for them a life on the road . Mind you having explored many and varied a campsite lavatory in my day , I can tell you , even campsite bogs these days are mostly posh . And thats official .

Fire in the Head . And cats maiow .

Sorry mega fire in the head again .
Normal service will be resumed , sometime soon I hope .
Meantime I'm trying to order Migraine Defense from the internet but the website is for some peculiar reason giving me one of those Error messages . At the minute that's about all I am . A great big Error Message . With Flames coming out of it . And cats miaowing ......
Tomorrow will be better . It has to be .