Nat has been away

and has forgotten how stupid the dog can be .....

today she took to walking about with the blanket wrapped round her shoulders like some erstwhile Noel Coward while the rest of us worked .....( the dog not Nat )

CatCaller from Hell

Today was a lovely relaxing peaceful day but everything went wrong at the CatCall .

I fell over myself I don't know how many times .
And no excuse , this is a house I know really well , its pristine clean and tidy , so all my own fault , except maybe the bin liners were substandard as one of them definitely sheered right in half as I pulled it out of the pedal bin .

The bigger bin bag spilt twice over splashing used kitty litter and poop and liquid something or other all over the floor in the kitchen while the cat looked on in horror , aghast at my profanities .
Things got worse when we ran spark out of litter ( why families they not leave litter ? ) , and I went to poke in the garage ( ever enterprising , never let it be said I didnt look ) then fell over the patio step and tore off the heel of my boot . More profanities . Kitties open mouthed and staring by this time .... when I say the heel I mean the rubber tip bit , easily enough replaced and banged back into place but all the while I'm trying to listen on Radio Four to " Fortunes of War" with Joanna Lumley as the narrator ,and I'm disturbing even mysef . I want to tell myself to shut up and I'm sure the cats feel the same , they were probably meditating quietly before my arrival like the CatCaller from Hell .

Its a sunny day with the temperatures swinging from minus two degrees at seven am , to around three degrees later in the day , but as the sun is out I open the patio doors and let the cats out onto the lawn . There is no cat door so the family suggest leaving them out from one visit to the next but I'm not keen when it may be freezing overnight so I decide to wait till they come back in . Its precisely three and a half minutes I'm waiting .... That long ! They would much rather rush back in and up to their first floor room in the sun . Wise animals .

My own cats have noted the freshly changed sheets and duvet covers and deposited the contents of their stomachs on D s side of the bed , near the head bit . Why ? the bed must measure seven or eight feet across . The room itself is large . What's to stop them do what any self respecting beast would do and barf away from their nest if you please and thank you .
As if D hasnt enough to contend with .
I asked him why he was so quiet this morning . He said he wasn't . Later today when embarking on another box of stuff to clear before storing in the attic , he discovered that today was the anniversary of his father's death 27 years ago . The actual date had slipped his mind , or at least he had not consciously been aware of it . Amazing how the mind stores these things at some level . He told me again the story of how his dad died whilst playing the church organ at a funeral , and how after the initial shock and horror of his demise at such a young age , the family used to smile wryly at how amused his father would probably have been at the way he went , wondering how it was for the family of the deceased at whose funeral he was playing and how it was for them when he suddenly lost his tune . Oh dear . Alice listened carefully throughout the telling of the story and then uttered a deep sigh . I could swear that little greyhound understands English . Or Emotion anyway .

Birthday Boy

Happy Birthday Dad , with his little dog tucked in behind him ....

...and the cat livid at us disturbing her peace .

Mind you there were nine of us .....and a tall skinny dog ...

Alice thinks bears are so last week .

Corbridge main street 16th Feb .

Spring is here ?

Late afternoon walk by the river at Corbridge . Everyone seems to have large corpulent black labradors . As we approach an older ( ie older than us ) man and woman deep in conversation who we see have met on the river path and whose ( almost identical ) dogs are exchanging tail sniffings , I joke that they will be swapping flatulence stories ( in genteel English accents , of course )

" Bertie is horribly flatulent of course these days . I simply stick him out in the utility room and say :Bertie old chap , do your worst and don't come back to the drawing room till you're done , I won't abide the stink "

" Oh yes my dear , and Freddie is more or less the same , I've taken to giving him probiotic yoghurt when Henry has his at breakfast , blah blah blah "

Then' as we draw alongside ,lo and behold if the pair of them aren't indeed deep in conversation about their dogs , their ages and respective ailments ....

" They're just getting onto Wind Issues now " I whisper as we pass by .....D tries hard not to look at me or the very old dogs .

Poo , what's that?

Surf Man Still

Click if you want to enlarge . He looks so cool . He must have been freezing .

Facing the wall . In the rock cave . CatCalls: Yesterday Alice bit me then .....