At Home With the Cats; (written 19th February)

So, here we are, nine days in the house and now the final part of the settling in process; letting the cats outside. So far just two of the cats have seen the back door open, and Sulu was straight outside, and he went off exploring for about half an hour, and then just as I began to panic there he was scratching at the cat flap which for some reason does not open inwards. So, he’s in. And then take little miss brave, or so I thought, Molly to the door and open it, thinking she would be keen to get out and explore, but she froze and then ran back upstairs. Seems like some work needed there.

At the moment I am seen as a living cat blanket during the day, and as soon as I sit down two of the three try to find space on me and settle down; whether or not they are blocking the tv or not. It is good to be home with them, though.

Just about all boxes are unpacked; just the seven inch singles now, and I am hoping for a juke box at some point to put some of the better ones in. That might be hoping for too much of course. There’s always the rack they were in back in the flat. There are two boxes of assorted computer cables and leads; quite what goes with what is a question. Do I just try one in the external hard drive and hope for the best?

Maybe.


We have made contact with one of our neighbours, and have been invited round for drinkies on Saturday night. Kay even brought a bottle of wine round when we moved in, or when we were surrounded by boxes in here. It would be nice to have friends living next door for sure.
In the interests of research I have made trips to each of the three pubs in the village; the Smugglers we used to go into before as their food is always great. Some nice beer and friendly staff and the beer was nice and cold. The Kings Head I went to yesterday and had two pints of Ruddles Country and a ploughman’s whilst sitting beside a large open fire; that was another of those good days. Even better than that was that I started to get paid from yesterday too; so I am no longer a drunken bum. Not that I drink too much, just the odd pint purely for research of course.

Our road is quiet, and so sleep is wonderfully easy, instead of the revving engines of the boy racers’ cars as they sat at the lights outside the flat in Dover. That does not count the ear-bleedingly loud techno music that used to keep us awake in the summer. That bloody dawn chorus can be loud though; I’ll get Molly on the case!

From our back window we can see the line of the edge of the white cliffs; and some quick calculations show that in a few hundred years we will have a house with sea views before our place too will topple into the English Channel from a great height.



Oh well.

We can now ‘entertain’ visitors here; which means we can have friends over to stay now we have a spare bedroom. The rubicks wardrobe taunts me with it’s array of odd shaped pieces. It’s all very well the removal men taking it apart when we moved it from Suffolk, but I did not pay attention or they write down what went where, and now there seems to be way too many bits and pieces that have no use or where they go. Oh well, I’ll call it a conversation piece and see how that flies.

I have managed to learn the black art that is lighting the wood burner; we now have flickering shadows to entertain us as we listen to Radcliffe and Maconie on the radio; although the sounds of the kindling splitting does worry the cats some. It does save money firing up the heating for the whole house anyway.

Sadly, now just as I am getting used to being in the house, real life beckons and I must head back to sea. I have a course to go on from Monday; quite why sea survival is being taught in Norwich which by my calculations is some 25 miles from the sea. Maybe they’re hoping global warming will speed up and it’ll be on the Norfolk Rivera in no time. Going back to Norfolk allows me to visit some old friends, and maybe even take in a game at Carrow Road on Tuesday night if City are at home. If I want some misery in my life, of course.