RANDOM JOTTINGS

I have been running around all week and hither and thither and grabbing a chance to read when I can.  I feel I need to take up commuting again as it seems more restful.  Only kidding….

First part of the week I was taking care of my neighbour's cats as they were away for a few days. This was the first time I had done this so, though no problem with the cats as I love them all, there are four in case you are wondering, it would be sod's law that something would happen on my watch.  The two elder cats are Fraggle and Moomin. Fraggle was so disgusted with being left in the care of an incompetent he stalked off into the woods at the back of the flats and that was that. Moomin, a lovely little ginger cat, is such a delight. Then there is Monty, a black, svelte cat who appeared out of nowhere about six months ago, scrawny and thin and miserable and decided to stay. He is now a sleek, healthy cat with a shiny black coat and is so affectionate with us after his nervous start.  He is solid muscle and when I picked him up to cuddle him I felt like I was holding a baby panther.

Main problem was Purdey a simply gorgeous little tortoiseshell teenage cat who is being kept in until all her shots have been given and she has been neutered which will take place this week. She had twigged that leaping up onto the kitchen work surface was the way to get out the window and she tried to escape three times, with me managing to grab her just in time.  She is very mischievous and I had visions of calling out the fire brigade to get her down from a tree.  In the end they hopped in and out of my window and I fed them in my flat after feeding Purdey on her own and she sat looking mournfully out of the window.  I felt really guilty.

Then later on in the week a call from Helen to ask if I could come up and take care of Florence who had not been well and had to stay at home and not go to nursery so I motored up on Thursday evening with the rain simply carting down. Had one scary moment on the A12 when a car overtook me, sloshed through a slick of water and threw it all over my windscreen so that for a second or two I was totally blinded. Knew I had a car on my tail so could not brake and just drove on until it cleared – felt a long time I can tell you.

So up early on Friday and taking care of Florence all day and by the evening came I was shattered and she was back to normal, anti-biotics had worked and she was bouncing off the walls and I was a wreck in the armchair. But, oh she is just so gorgeous now, walking so well and confidently, beginning to use proper words and identify objects in her books and generally is wonderful and reduces her grandmother to drooling adoration every time I see her.

Not a great deal of reading then this week though I am working my way through the Jack Reacher books by Lee Childs and am now addicted to them.  I gather it is a done deal that Tom Cruise is going to play him in a movie and really, it makes you want to spit.  I feel this is just another vanity project for Mr C who wishes to show his action man credentials and really he is getting a bit long in the tooth for it now. As I mentioned before, I am a newcomer to the Reacher Party and I find it irritating that a five foot vertically challenged film star is playing somebody who is at least a foot taller in the books, and the die hard Reacher fans are LIVID.

Then I have been watching the final test match and if England win it, and it looks as if they will, then a complete whitewash of 4-0 will be chalked up to this now incredibly, consistent, brilliant team.   This time, rather belatedly, some of the Indian players have given them a bit more of a fight with Raoul Dravid scoring a superb century today and a real tough battle commenced between the two sides, thus giving us  a glimpse of just how close it could have been if only the rest of his team mates had applied themselves.

Once this is over then I feel the summer is well on its way out and I shall miss Test Match Special with its ramblings, its vast consumption of cakes sent in by listeners, Phil Tufnell's humour, the baiting of Geoff Boycott who falls for it every time, and it is all so English somehow and I love it all.

I am painting my bedroom this week, cleared my diary in order to get on with this and it must be done, I have been putting it off for weeks, but I will be dropping in as often as I can, I promise.