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

Welcome to CatMinders

Welcome to CatMinders


Friday, 3 August 2007

"because I can ..." .. Or thought I could ....

Drove to town for one or two things and to sort out finances for next week as we are away for a few days , and timed it so I could listen to the Archers ( as the presenter said the other day , our daily helping of nourishing cereal / serial ) . After the Archers a wierd play called " Odd " which I started listening to , then on arrival really wanted to know how it ended ... and thought , I could just sit in the car and listen till its over . I'm on holiday , there 's nothing to stop me .
I even texted my sister to say " Im listening to a play in the car , just because I can ..." ( how smug is that ).

Once over , and I was still no further on in my understanding . Odd it certainly was .

Shopping . Building Society . Cafe Royal ( the usual latte and ricotta and berry muffin ). Some great shower gel in John Lewis and two birthday cards and something for L's birthday ( also John Lewis, but don't tell her ) .


N rings several times and I can't hear her . I ring her back and notice my phone is almost dead .

Back to the car , ready to pick her up from her friend's .

Start car . Car splutters . Car won't start . Battery flat . Argh ... phone almost flat as well .



Phone D ( somewhat snappily) ask him to ring AA which he does , and collect N which he does .

Lie back in car watching scene unfolding across from the multi story car park .
Large man ( very) diagonally across from where I am on level two ( he is in an office on the street opposite ) is at a desk but appears to be lying across desk . I strain to see , wondering if it is a man or a white sofa . It is still for so long I decide its a sofa rather then a shirt and an arm I see. Think how I long to be lying on a sofa , half asleep, and sofa moves . I decide it is a man but at such an odd angle I start to wonder if he has collapsed, across his desk . He is too far away for me to investigate .
AA man arrives , and he pulls up in the space down from me and, Bang ! hits the wall ! Oops !
He smiles cheerily and waves a greeting , acknowledging his little contretemps with the wall which I find laudable . In his shoes I might have stayed quiet and hoped no one would mention it ....anyway his honesty gives me confidence and I admit my own failings , telling him about listening to the end of the play before the shopping trip . He soon has the car going again and the battery charging and I notice that now I cant access the radio at all , as once the battery has been flat a code is needed to input to re start it ... and of course having bought the car not from new I dont have the code . Oh well . No point fretting at this stage .
I drive home in eerie silence thinking my thoughts.

bike ride



Bike ride to St Mary's island taking in the old Spanish City on the way , and a coffee shop ( the Boardwalk ) on the way back . Friendly older man on the Island explaining the birds I was photographing were Eider ducks . Less friendly at the Boardwalk where having seen me wait some time at the window to order coffee she then made me join a new queue inside as the window was just for take out . Perhaps next time I'll come back as a mind reader .....

Now lets see what they've been spending their money on ....

Bridges like this remind me of being eight or nine , playing on the bridge nearGoften , crawling through the pipes under the road . English countryside , happy memories . When N talks about things she remembers when she was younger she often mentions playing on the cattle grid with her cousins outside a pub at the start of the Langdales in the Lake District . We would stop off on our bikes to rest and have a drink and something to eat .
I dreamed last night that Mandy came to visit me . I was living in Stamfordham again and a big classic car pulled up on the drive ( a splendid vintage Rover ). She was the passenger . I had toddlers and was picking toys off the floor and she walked in laughing at me , and the mess and how it used to be . She looked happy and full of life but even in the dream I knew time had gone and she had died .http://www.oldcommunitykit.ik.com/pub/customersites/communitykit/ust-031105110755.nsf/0/eb4420a4ac4cfcc880256e30003ed5f1/$FILE/pdf%20Humshaugh%20and%20Fourstones%20Cycle%20Routes.pdf

Thursday, 2 August 2007

purchases ..


Pearl and Kitty




Pearl looking mean ....
....and Kitty looking manic
Early this morning .
Pearl spends all day in this chair , but I usually expect her to vacate for half an hour at 7am . Today she was refusing .
Kitty arrives on D's desk at 7 05 on the dot . I hear him tut and remonstrate with her all morning : She is "pressing the f keys" . She is "nipping his elbow" (and later his arm .) She won't take her head off the keyboard . " Kitty this is too much ....."
She studiously ignores him and stays put until time for her afternoon snooze , when she relocates to the king sized bed .

Kirkharle





Black clouds on the horizon that never quite came to anything . A lovely morning having coffee and looking round the various craft and produce shops and culminating in the purchase of pheasant pate , bottled water in a dark blue round based bottle ( one to keep, that one ) , a Border Tart , and a bottle of upmarket cloudy apple juice .

Dad arrived and with perfect synchronicity after my blog earlier told me his thoughts about power of attorney , the wills , the solicitor, and assorted matters . All things I don't want to think about and don't think are relevant for a long time to come as we are a long lived family ( apart from my paternal grandfather due to occcupational related disease ) .

As my maternal grandfather was born in KirkharleKirkharle Courtyard, Kirkharle, Northumberland, Creative Arts Centre plus Coff in Northumberland and lived there till he was around eight years old , when the family moved to Bellingham , this sparked off a conversation about how little people knew of their family backgrounds and history even in quite recent years . My mother for example , though she had met her paternal grandparents , had no idea where exactly they had lived and even though she was brought up on a farm very near Bellingham she had no idea where her father had lived as a child or indeed where her grandparents lived . I find this almost impossible to imagine as my grandparent's house was my second home where I spent many weekends and holidays in growing up . Her mother , whose death I wrote about earlier , had been similarly reticent about her family and would shrug if asked about them . I'm not sure what to make of this .

As a child Grandma never spoke to us about her early life but I was equally uncurious as children often are about adults unless there is something to spark off an interest , eg photographs or memories related . It shocked me at the age of seventeen when I was admitted to an adult hospital ward for an appendectomy . The middle aged woman in the bed diagonally opposite me spoke on a daily basis about her daughter , whose name was Alison and who had gone off to work one morning at the age of nineteen ( her first job ) and never returned . Killed by a car as she crossed the road . A moment of inattention , though I was never clear whether this was on her part or on the drivers. I suspect hers , as the woman seemed still angry with her as she spoke at length about her feelings , her thoughts about what had happened , in a way I was just not used to . In retrospect I wonder if my age or something about me reminded me of her daughter , though this never occurred to me at the time .

I think all the time she spoke her words must have been directed towards the other older women , but I think sometimes I plucked up the courage and asked some questions about Alison . I recall that she "looked like alabaster lying on the mortuary table". That her mother was grateful that she had gone to see her after death though initially she had refused stating that she wanted to remember her as she had last seen her when she had turned to wave goodbye " as she had done every morning for years " . Sometimes the other women would try to censor her , drawing her attention to the fact that I was a child , but she was unstoppable . Looking back now I wonder what I made of all this detail at the time , captive audience for seven long days , but I think I was grateful for her talking and very curious about her way of saying exactly how she was feeling . It was all new to me and as bamboozling as the nurses sprinkling talcum powder in my bed " to make me comfortable " ( though somehow it seemed to ) and asking whether I had " passed wind today " ( excruciating question and one I couldn't wait to pass on to my sister and brother when I finally escaped ).

Memories .... all sparked off by the sign with Kirkharle on it .

Migraine Days

Migraine Days

Flower and Bee on a Sunday

Flower and Bee on a Sunday

art on a sunday

art on a sunday