A mouse in the Feeder

Despite the note telling me all about the bird feeder near the garden shed which houses a mouse , I still manage to set my heart racing . On the third day I notice the feeder is empty whilst conducting a finger tip search of the garden for one of the cats which has gone missing in action and whilst filling in time hoping for the return of the senior wanderer , I bring out the sunflower hearts and forget the note detailing the said mouse.

Picking the only empty feeder off the tree I notice how dusty it looks and glance inside at the cobwebby sides. Lifting the top off I wonder if Puss Cat will be long as I didn't see her at all yesterday and don't feel like going another day without spotting her . Its brilliant sunshine and I reckon she is out here lounging somewhere but there is a faint niggle of anxiety tickling at my innards. As I lift the feeder down and raise the plastic jug to fill I glance in and There ! At the bottom , looking up , all eyes and crooked cobweb legs is a tiny yet hugely thin all at once mouse staring back at me . Mm I think . Mouse! Put it down before it is up your non existent sleeves! I gingerley place the feeder on the ground and as I do the mouse whooshes up like a firework and up the tree under which we are standing .

My heart is racing . I am proud that I have not dropped it . Proud that it did not wind up somewhere about my person , dressed as I am in vest top with spaghetti straps and cut off trousers. Bare legs bare arms and chest with altogether too much room for manouvre!

And the note from S did inform me that she had seen the inhabitant mouse sitting eating inside the feeder, though she did not mention that this took place whilst she was trying to fill it .

And as I head back to the house there curled up like a snake is the lady of the house , fast asleep , uninterested in mice except in her dreams.

Her sister clambers out onto the fish pond pointing out that the tree stump has dried out over night and that my responsibility it is to bring a kettle full of water to replenish for her drinking pool . What can I do but acquiesce and then sit while watching the life of the garden as the morning purrs and buzzes on ?

The Excitement .. Lindow Man

Lindow Man is at the Great North Museum , currently "on loan" from the British Museum Lindow Man: Body of Evidence - What's on - Great North Museum • Tyne & Wear Mu. from Saturday this week . I want to pop in immediately such is my excitement but remember that I will be picking Nat up from her latest camping trip out in the wilds (ie.at the farm). I start a holiday Things to Do List ( I am turning into my sister) with Lindow Man at the top and a gap before Clear out Car and Clear out Sitting Rooms and try to ignore the fact that if they were higher on the list I would not indeed be arranging Excursions to Lindow Man or anywhere . It is after all not as if I have a year off , just three weeks .
Car clearing out is less crucial perhaps then sitting rooms . The carpets are due to arrive the second week in August which is the first week of my holiday . And in my experience carpets cannot usually be laid without old ones being lifted and removed which usually involves the removal also of furniture and other assorted debris from room. Hm.
As regards car , new car has been ordered , after much prevarication and staring into space and dreaming about Fiat 500s and concluding that though zooming across the piazza in a truncated helicopter sans chopper is the thing in Italy , in Tyneside , especially for the fifty something woman with tall greyhound, this is actually a step too far . So , a nice little C1 is on its way , allegedly , though I have yet to see any paperwork , but new cars being like gold dust and very hard for anyone to obtain it could be weeks before my old car boot will need clearing . One thing for sure ... haha , the contents will not fit into the new one ! In fact , debatable whether any of us will fit into the new one. But at least we will be Green and we will pay £35 per year road tax and the insurance costs will be very low and that orange engine management light will not be on as I drive up the A19 ( some assumptive thinking going on here but that never hurt ) and Best of All , Nat will be able to plug in her Ipod to the dashboard and fight with me about who gets to listen to what music . And fight she will since for the first time in my life I will be looking at the CD player and thinking Wow , look at that ... and then , hang on .. I dont have any CD s to play on it . So maybe as usual she will win after all ?

Tragedy and Disaster

Last night as we drove home from yes yet another car dealership we drove along the sea front at Whitley Bay . The roar of the police and then air sea rescue helicopters caught our attention and the promenade was strung out with people gazing out to sea as the helicopters hovered over the waves . As we drove slowly along we could sea the lifeboat arriving and a series of jet-skis appearing from all directions . The helicopters looked like they were searching for something rather than rescuing .
Within an hour my sister and I were walking the dog round the headland and as we approached the sea front at Tynemouth the helicopter was still out , searching . Two young men in green jackets told us a swimmer was missing but the helicopter search was about to be called off " One has been rescused but we dont think the other one is coming back now " . BBC NEWS England Tyne Search for swimmer missing at sea
This morning the news is that the body of the second swimmer has been washed ashore .


The second story of the day is of a rescue at Holy Island . A car has attempted the crossing after it is no longer safe to do so . BBC NEWS England Tyne Tidal tourists mystify islanders. How scary to be stranded like this ?

Breakfast

... thanks to Auntie Laura's rescue hens , and now she has two new Rhode Island chicks brought home from school in a shoe box after some negotiation between herself and Mr Porteous who one assumes manages the school farm . I haven't yet seen the new babies but have heard delightful descriptions of them backing away in horror from a butterfly and cheeping happily in the old guinea pig quarters where they will stay until they reach sufficient majority to withstand the pressures of life with the Big Girls , and can be moved in with Joan and Co .

Meanwhile life continue here . The washing machine started smoking last night , as Pearl sat contentedly in front of it breathing in the smoke and ignoring the vibrations . Her deafness must be an asset at times .

I continue to email my friend on an hourly basis as we compare the merits of the various little green cars , with nothing much happening on that front . I feel sad saying goodbye to my old car is the problem . It has seen me through five years with many changes . The end of an era . I need to move on , but .... while that orange light is not flashing I am hanging on .

Silly Green Car ..Getting Closer ?

After a splendid morning sitting with a large friendly cat on my lap whilst I read the Saturday Times Magazine and she purred and we watched the rain and tried to BirdSpot ( too wet ) , followed by coffee and cheese scones en famille at Kirkharle courtyard gallery Kirkharle Courtyard, Kirkharle, Northumberland, Creative Arts Centre plus Coff I hurtled home in my recently -repaired -by -the AA ( another faulty coil pack ) -car with plans to do a bit of this and that in prep for the Day Job ( strictly against my principles but sometimes needs must ) and when its pouring with rain and the dog wont play out , well whats the harm?

And , suddenly , there on the panel that orange light is on again and I pull in to the Silverlink shopping outlet and the whole world is there trying to park . I smell burning and fear I am overheating and try to park but there are no spaces and no where indeed to pull over safely so finally I stop where I can , in the aisle between spaces where I can , put on my flashers , open the bonnet ( to see if I am on Fire ) and get back into the car to call the AA .

The traffic is wall to wall and even without me tempers are frayed but really I have few choices . It should be fairly apparent that I have not merely stopped to brush my hair or read a magazine or call my auntie in Brighton . But despite the fact that I am either on the phone , under the bonnet or scrutinising my car manual , I am not popular and there are men rolling down their windows and shouting insults and offering advice ( though it is not the sort of advice suitable for a cat minding blog , really ) . The women confine themselves to shaking their heads in disdain at me .

When I suggest calmly that we might all be in a lot more trouble if my engine blows up , they look ready to explode themselves . Indeed it is the fact that I have no choice that keeps me calmand at times fairly amused . I am causing no danger , and I really cannot go anywhere , as the AA man himself confirms upon arrival , parking up his massive truck and causing even further obstruction and asking me " Really , can't some people drive round things ? What is the problem here ? "

I am safely home now , as is the car , but the orange light is still blazing . The fault is still showing , though undiagnosed , the AA man not having the requisite Diagnostic Equipment ( Tomorrow they will return if I call them back ... ) and I am thinking , that much vaunted Silly Green Car that I dont really want but Nat thinks I should have is coming ever closer and my eight year old not so trusty big car has maybe had its day .

How will we fold Alice's long spindly legs into the back of a tiny mini type car though ? I wonder how the garage will feel about a greyhound test drive ?

The Plinth

Despite an early application to apear on the Plinth in Trafalgar Square I have not yet been awarded a place .
One & Other
It has only just occurred to me today that I can log into the live stream from One and Other . This is even more entertaining than Hencam though so far I have only had time to watch for around three minutes , today being a particularly busy day at the CatCalls HQ . In fact having seen the height of the Plinth I am wondering if I would have dared submit myself to the terrors of being winched up there presumably by cherrypicker , and once there , there is the question of " the performance " and what constitutes Art . However , I will concern myself with that aspect if I am allocated an hour in September or October .

Today we have been deluged with rain .
Alice has refused yet again to attend to her ablutions and is currently hunched over herself groaning slightly due to tummy pains and bloating from " witholding " like a toddler glaring at his or her potty . Only in Alice's case it is the weather she is refusing . D has run back and forwards along the grass with a golf umbrella blowing inside and tugging Alice along by her collar whilst I guffaw supportively from indoors with the camera at the ready . After two or three minutes she breaks free as he lets go the collar thinking she is about to do business , but the only business she means hurtling back for the door and dry cleaning herself on the white sofa before settling down for the day , rain watching from the comfort of the cushions . " Alice " I hear him scream " You need a wee " Alice is pressed against the front door , begging to differ and when a dog says no , there is really nothing you can do .
Ah well , such is life .

All of which leads me to conclude that it really is not safe to order the beautiful shade of carpet we want in palest barley .....

I head for town thus on the metro , the hefty colour spectrum whatsit under my arm and wrapped in a binliner thing due to the still driving rain . I choose the metro due to the weather reports that flooding threatens to close the main road between here and town .

Today I am determined to set out my stall as regards the carpet business . No more talk of pet indiscretions , I shall spell out the problems and see where we get . I hope to close the deal and order some carpet , spurred on by a chat with a helpful friend this morning who suggests carpet tiling may be the answer , " lets face it" she says with her usual candour , "if the dog decides to wipe its backside on the one in front of the tv you can always run it under the tap and replace it with the one that was under the sofa " . Hmm I think , got it in one .
I smile inanely most of the metro ride thinking carpet tile thoughts , and am sucked into the veritable wind tunnel that is Pink Lane . My feet are clad in FitFlops and the water running in streams down the lane is up to my ankles .
But , as I outline my anxieties , the carpet ladies are wonderful and come up with the perfect solution and I leave forty five minutes later and head for Cafe Royal to celebrate with a latte and a ricotta muffin , at which point discovering I have left my mobile phone at home .
This becomes significant an hour later when the metro announces that it is terminating due to floods and we are all expelled onto the streets . I am stranded and cannot get home by any other means . A member of staff at the Travel Centre agrees to ring D for me and he manages to avoid the floods and find a route to collect me . I am a drowned rat , clutching my carpet samples , and Alice is still hunching over her by now doubtless impacted bowel .
Oh happy Days ....

Is it just me or .... 101 uses for a woman ?

Is it just me or are the 101 uses for a woman 101 uses for a woman - Times Online not quite as funny as last week's 101 uses for a man 101 uses for a man - Times Online. Though I did quite like number 94 .

But I wondered ( obviously ) if its just a gender thing and if the men are chortling for England ( or wherever) as they read "woman " today as I did as I recognised some aspects of most of the men I knew in there somewhere ( pointing and shouting , what bliss ) .

Whatever next ?
101 uses for a cat ....or a not so skinny greyhound when its pouring with rain ? One thing for sure , she certainly can cross those legs for hours rather than open the floodgates in a downpour , and would rather stand in said downpour and refuse for ten minutes simply to make her point . This I know for sure and my umbrella has disintegrated to prove my point .

Oh , and another thing ... ebay is brilliant . I sold my sewing machine . There's really nothing to it .