Cat Flappin’

A while back, sick of the nightly trauma of chasing reluctant cats out from inaccessible hiding places behind and under furniture to put them out of the house for the night, Simon decided to fit a cat flap. Despite the initial period of nightly slumbers disturbed by the excited barking of the hounds (who took some time to grow accustomed to the fact that a) cats were now allowed to stay indoors at night, b) cats were allowed to stay in the very same room as them, WITHOUT HUMAN SUPERVISION and c) cats could come and go as they pleased 24/7, generally with a very irritating catch-me-if-you-think-you’re-fast-enough expression on their smug little faces), the venture was a success.

However, there was always one reservation lurking at the back of my cat-loving mind that hung over the oh-so-convenient cat-flap scenario like an ever-present sword of Damacles. At any moment, one of our lovely, but gruesomely successful hunting felines might decide to bring some half-chewed trophy into the house before we could do anything to stop them.

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Ryanair Roulette

Any readers who are frequent partakers of the dubious benefits of budget airlines may be familiar with the curious activity known hereabouts as Ryanair Roulette. For those of you well-placed enough not to find your travelling selves regularly at the mercy of such beguiling demons of the skies, let me explain.

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840 hours

Five weeks have passed since Simon’s last (and notably brief) post. Which means that Baby William (aka Wild Bill) is now five weeks old, and his parents feel considerably more than five weeks older. After a honeymoon period of a day or two, when we all thought he was going to be a perfect baby, he found his feet – or rather his lungs and his complaining voice – and threw himself whole-heartedly into the competition with his Big Sister (aka Little Miss Demanding) for the lion’s share of everyone’s attention. Which of course explains why there have been no blog posts since the day of his birth.

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(Non-llama) Drama

Just to keep the more avid readers up to date, following on from Val’s last post . . .

Val has gone to the hospital with her daughter, contractions having started very early this morning.  The latest text message from Val says “Pushing now. All hectic lol but fine

More later . . . .

And baby William is born! Baby, mother, and granny all doing well.

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Estimated Times of Arrival

Later today I will be flying to England to begin a month’s visit, planned to coincide with the birth of my second grandchild. The thinking processes involved in deciding which flights to book reminded me of the unpredictability of Life, and about how ‘planning’ for the future amounts to very little more than making a best guess.

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Out with a Gurgle

2011 may have been an exceptionally dry year, but its final twenty-four hours did their best to put things right. The morning of the last day of the year found gushing rivers where tracks were supposed to be, and ponds where fields were supposed to be. And it found Simon, out dull and early with a very big stick, poking blindly at the blocked mouths of land-drain pipes, invisible beneath swirling pools of deluge.

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