Tuesday 13th August 2013

I guess I should begin with the one matter that has been taxing us these past few days, if not weeks. It is what we shall call the ‘Bowie situation.’ Bowie has settled down very well, and likes it in our house, loves being able to come and go as he pleases, sleep in all these different places. Wat he doesn’t seem to like is other cats. Mulder really does not care about much, he is such a cool cat, so despite the hisses and snarling, Mulder just gets on with what he wants to do. Bowie has accepted this. Scully is getting more used to the situation, but in truth this is mainly by avoidance, which means she only comes in for feeding, but will join us in the garden when we’re out there. Molly, however, is very different. Bowie just flies for Molly whenever they meet, on Sunday he chased Molly out of the garden, and now he patrols the garden when Molly comes back so to chase her off. As you can imagine, we are finding this hard, so last night I went to the pet shop to see what I could buy. In the end it is a cat prison.



In fact it is a dog cage, but with room for a basket, litter tray and food and water. So, last night Bowie was incinerated and very unhappy he was about it too. But, there really is little else we can do about it. So, he spent his first night behind bars, after trying all he could to dig his way out. He failed. We fed and watered him this morning, but put him back. We just hope someone comes forward to adopt him as soon as possible: all resue centres are full and other than dumping him somewhere, we are stuck with him.

Sunday.

Up at six for coffee and fresh croissants, and then out to the Folkestone Downs to look for Adonis Blues. We saw none, and in truth maybe it was a little early in the month to look for them. I shall try again one evening. But any exercise is never a waste, and so we walked round the paddock looking at all the wild flowers covered with bugs. We passed the time of day with various dog walkers before giving up the butterfly hunting, and going along to the edge of the downs to sit and look at the comings and goings at the Channel Tunnel.



We headed home for more coffee, then pork pies for lunch. We spent some time outside in the hope that we would be joined by our resident cats, before at three I put the joint of beef in the over for dinner. It seemed to me growing up that Mum used to spend half of Sunday preparing Sunday lunch, peeling vegetables and all that stuff. I manage to do all that and cook it in under two hours, and to me tastes every bit as good, doubly so now I steam the vegetables rather than boil them to death. Boiling things to death is the proper British way to deal with nasty green vegetables. I knew someone who used to start cooking sprouts at breakfast time, just to make sure they were inedible.



I did try to watch the Charity Shield during the afternoon, but a lame friendly between Manchester United and Wigan was never going to be all that thrilling. So after ten or so minutes I switch it back off. And head into the kitchen for more cooking related malarkey. All ready at half five, washed down with a bottle of red Cava, and then time to lay on the floor listening to Desert Island Discs.



Monday afternoon it was a return to the quacks for me, and more drugs prescribed as the infections still has not gone. Having done that it was time to pick Jools up. Work was notable only for the fact that the server on which my mail is stored was down for maintenance and so I sat all day waiting for mails and none came. IT were of little help other than to say it was being worked on. This took them two hours to find out.

And at about half seven last night, England took the final Australian wicket to claim another series win against the old enemy. In truth, England have not played as well as expected, but did more than enough to win three out of four matches. Sadly, for me, it is all on Sky TV, so I have not seen a ball of the series, which is a shame as I like a good game of cricket. Oz collapsed once again after for a while looking like they could chase down the 299 needed to win, but the Chester-le-Street pitch kept its promise of unpredictable bounce to skittle the middle order out after tea. Hoorah.

After another summer of glory for British sports, it is now time for the football season to really kick off, and tomorrow night England renew hostilities with Scotland in a friendly, so deemed necessary due to the World Cup qualifiers coming up next month. And a nation collectively sighs ‘meh.’ All the cheating, womanising, biting, diving, sky high wages, sky high ticket prices for games means that I think footy is on borrowed time, but if the media are to be believed we are all waiting with baited breath…….