Tuesday 11th May 2021

And, so it came to pass, Chez Jelltex was to get a new roof.

Or tiles, at least.

Hopefully.

But before then, let's talk about Scully.

Scully has gone from a meek cat to alpha female since Molly passed away. We got the femiway all round the house, and she calmed down for a while, but these last two days she really has taken up a new level of agression, and nothing we can do makes her change.

It reached the point now where she won't let Poppy in the house, in fact Poppy vanished for 36 hours, except for a brief sighting Tuesday afternoon before Scully chased her off. In fairness, the noise from the roofers didn't help, but we did not see her the rest of the day, and Scully was patrolling like a shark, and this morning (Wednesday) started to chase Cleo off for the first time.

So, Jools grabbed Scully and we locked her in the bathroom, so she was the cooler queen.

Jools was distraught, and was just leaving when Poppy came bouncing in, tired and hungry. She ate one meal, then crashed out on the bed upstairs, and slept through until the evening, getting up at lunch for another meal.

We have let Scully out, maybe the 12 hours in the bathroom will have broken her behaviour, but I doubt it. Which brings us to the bigger problem, if Scully doesn't change, what can we do? A possibility is to get Scully re-homed. Drastic stuff, but is something we have both thought of, maybe put her in a cattery for a week or so to give the others a break?

More of that tomorrow.

As for Tuesday, Jools left for work early, as she is taking Thursday and Monday off, so needs to be up to date, leaving me with the house, fighting cats and hopefully the builders coming later.

They do arrive before nine, and the labourer scuttles up a ladder and begins to rip the old tiles off, throwing them onto the drive, making a huge noise, which is when Poppy and Cleo run outside, as the main bedroom was under where they were working.

Its not so bad down in the living room, so I work away, and Scully slept on the sofa.

I supply the roofers with a contant supply of NATO standard coffee through the day, though the labourer is pretty much on his own until the afternoon when the boss comes and helps to carry tiles up the ladder to begin the retiling process.

Work is work, and best left unsaid, other than a major disappointment happened in the afternoon, and hopes of some grand campaign of quality improveent was kicked into touch, though there is hope as a new top boss has started, and he might understand the issues.

I finish at three, make some sourdough bread for our tea. Which is insalata, and you need bread for that, for sure.

I cut the vine-ripened tomatoes, slice the mozzerella cheese, drizzle Balsamic drizzle, put on some oilive oil, tear some basil, and once the bread was baked, slice and butter it.

There was no wine, of course.

We waited for Poppy to return, she didn't, so we were very down when we went to bed. Jools slept poorly, and Scully was on patrol outside.