Monday 10th August 2020

Welcome back to the working week.

We will win.

It is hot. Still hot. Hotter still.

I do no phys, nor will I do any until the weather breaks on Wednesday night.

I slept with ear plugs in, so once it was light, and I stirred, I take them out and I hear the sound of tiny paws running and leaping.

Once more, with kittens.

They are different to the brave little things of the previous evening, hiding as we get up and walk about, but the rattle of food soon takes their interest, and they are only too happy to eat on the stairs.

On the way back to the back room, Cleo does a poo in the hallway.

Again.

Not sure what we can do to stop that, other than to make sure they are going outside to whoopsie as soon as possible.

Jools goes for a walk, and I go outside to collect fresh raspberries and loganberries for breakfast. This is the stuff that people dream of, right? Soon the cats are snoozing and peace returns to the house.

We keep the kittens separate from the resident cats by closing the door between the living room and kitchen, which does make the living room, cum office, much cooler. But the cats know there is something up, we hope something close to normality will be restored soon enough.

Work is work, and is still slow. But Jools is on hand to make brews through the day.

Major disaster at lunchtime when the plan for having bacon butties to eat was scuppered by not actually having bacon.

We have toast instead.

It is too hot to go out. Even in the garden, so the only shots taken were of a newly opened sunflower at dawn, and some blurred shots as I prised my breakfast away from the clutching paws of Cleo who thought it fine kitty food.

I call Jen. Her Mum is due to be released, but the hospital deciding that nothing can be done as Betty is refusing food and liquids. In Jen's words "coming home to die". A tough thing for her to say.

And even harder as she has not seen her Mother for two weeks now, ups and downs and the ward only sometimes picking up the phone, and rarely getting a straight answer.

I pack up at four, we finish the limoncello coated chocolate almonds with a coffee under the shelter at the bottom of the garden. Yes, you read that right, and they are the king of sweets/candy. Very dangerous, and they leap from their bag into the unwary's mouth as you walk by in the kitchen. If we eat them all, then they're all gone, I say.

Dinner is breaded chicken and stir fry, and NO BEER or WINE.

The evening is full of running cats and music. As it should be.