Still. Only a week. No too bad...
At one-thirty on the morning of departure, Thug dropped
by for a bite to eat, and I spent half an hour ensuring that all he
ate was cat food. He had Piper cornered in the kitchen – no way to
reach the relative safety of the lounge (there is a cat-flap in the
lounge door), and a torrential south-westerly storm the other side of
the cat-flap out of the house.
Before I could settle into mediating between Thug and
Piper, Oatmeal came out of the lounge to see what was happening.
Thug does not do cat-flaps (yet), so this was not the brightest move.
Having come face-to-face with the Purring Death, Oatmeal ran for the
bedroom, which distracted Thug long enough for me to pick up Piper
and put him in the lounge. See, things are picking up already...
Oatmeal took ‘refuge’ on the bed, right where my
feet are supposed to go. Ginge was already in ‘her’ spot between
the pillows (is that snoring in my ear my partner or the ginger
gooseberry?). Thug did his best meerkat routine, rearing up to
assess the lie of the duvet. Ginge growled; Oatmeal growled. Not an
end-of the-world growl, just the initial invite and RSVP-if-you-dare.
Thug went round the other side and jumped up on to my partner who
woke to the Cat Growl duet.
Thug decided that two against one was too easy, so he
jumped down and explored under the bed, presumably looking for
a third cat to join Ginge and Oatmeal to give them a chance.
Whatever he was looking for, the junk under the bed was thoroughly
investigated. Finally, after half hour or so, Thug decided to go
back out – at least the storm was worthy of his attention.
I’m sure I’ve heard somewhere that sleep is
over-rated. I wouldn’t know.
It felt like it was all over, but really, that was the
tipping point where a downward drifting week became a full-blown
seven-day fall.
Breakfast was deceptively peaceful, and then I drove
into town to pick up a fruit and veg order for my partner before I
and the van went away for the week. I was early – no delivery yet,
so I returned home and met that classic morning question – are
you still wearing your grubby clothes?
This generally means the side of the barn has fallen
off, or one of the rams is knee-deep in mud and needs rescuing. That
sort of thing... but today it was a wounded sea gull. We tramped out
across the field, caught the injured bird (amazingly easy) and took
it to the vet – they know a man who tends to sick sea birds.
Sadly, the gull had a badly broken wing and there was nothing to be
done.
On the way home, we dropped in to pick up the fruit and
veg... still not in. That south-westerly over night caused a bit of
flooding, interrupting deliveries. In the end, I drove away no more
than two hours late, leaving my partner to try to arrange alternative
transport.
I can make up two hours. No problem. Just take a look
at the job. Cold light of day and all that. OK... that looks a bit
more than we thought... and this bit here might need an extra hour...
or two...
So here I am, writing this at half ten at night, knowing
it will have to wait for the weekend to actually go on my blog,
grumbling about the day that went down hill. Or as Monty Python
might put it, the one that didn’t so much fall as plummet.
