Time Wise

She realises that She's not mentioning Stanley as often as a lordly cat deserves, but Stanley is doing very well. He sleeps in the Spare Room with Sylvio and Grace and none of them have participated in the mass breakouts through the broken window this past week.

Worried that I don't give them enough attention in the evenings, I went in with the brush to offer them some quality time. Sure, traipsing through the house and garden doing bits of work between computering, I meet and I greet and so on.

Until I was in the room I hadn't quite realised how clean the three cats are. They carefully use the tray, even tearing newspaper for extra coverage. They don't spray to mark their nightly possession of the place and none of them required the brushing which is applied to all the other cats as they shed their winter coats.

Last night only the basics were carried out  because as it turned out, it was one of those eventful evenings.

Firstly I found some tacks and nailed cardboard covering to the window both inside and out.

Lucibelle and The Greys were astonished.

Princess had demanded release and for the second night she disappeared. The previous night she'd not only escaped by herself but she made it across the road. With diminished hearing and sight, she probably felt the vibrations of the traffic times and the quiet times.

Yesterday was warm and I'd carried her across the road after their breakfast and my first cuppa. With the fussing around the window and other processes it was late when I went to bring her back here. She wasn't on the verandah or inside with Jos. Black Tom, invisible in the darkness, had mounted guard on Jos's verandah. I patted him and we had a conversation. Scrap was  with him and flitted into Jos's place as Jos and I spoke. Scrap visits Jos, but doesn't stay.

I went with the torch tccch tcching, the evening signal to call the cats. No sign, though Scrap came back with me and with an air of conferring enormous honour, accompanied me into my room to eat her dinner. She hissed and swore when I tried to pat her.

Why do we put up with such insults when cats begin to own us?

Back to the spare room to feed Stan, Grace and Sylvio.

A knocking at the door. Jos says Princess has turned up out of her hiding place and so I fetch her, wrapped carefully in her old blanket from Jos's place.

No complaints. 

Two late nights, she's tired, old thing. It's clear that when the medicine is working, she remembers being a young cat and even if she was never particularly brave, she likes to recall her ancestral heritage.

On balmy spring nights it can be understood why the little ones like to run free.

But a gap in household safety is like a gap to the spirit of all of us. When the window was agape, none of us were getting on very well. I thought of calling the Agent, but the window is my responsibility in this case. The handyman should be here this weekend. Last week the leaking roof and the dodgy electricals were fixed by the Agent and all feels good and getting better maybe.

(OK, in the old ten room house I rented way back when, with a window blown in by a gale, I could have called the owner in, but hard to believe, I was paying $10 per week rental for that place so generally, I sorted out repairs myself. It was good. Even car repairs were carried out by a neighbour in exchange for tutoring a daughter! Life was kinder there in those times. I'd leave the doors unlocked when I went to the city for study just in case any friends dropped by in need of a cup of tea.)

The back garden is delectable right now, a mass of pink Evening Primrose and the mauve Heliotrope is still blooming. The Elder is a mass of white flower and yesterday, to my amazement, I discovered that the Comfrey has begun to put out its Ashes of Roses coloured blooms.

It wasn't so long ago that Princess arrived unwell and unsteady on her feet, refused her tablets utterly and I had to dig out the just sprouting Comfrey from an almost bare winter garden for her medicine.

Another large house with good neighbours close by and an adult Anna to help with problems is a very good thing. Last week there were nightmares and restlessness everywhere. More recently the dreams are good and there's more hope in the world somehow.

My Poem is Published! Now for the Novel which is already written and boring to transcribe from hard copy, but there it is and here we are!

Stan pome

She says,

This afternoon I followed Stanley with a camera. I wanted to capture how he’s successfully frilled his red collar.

It’s difficult to photograph Stanley.

At the first sign of attention, he responds:

‘You’ve got a shiny box at your face, let me say hello to it! Purr Purr, smoodge smoodge! I’m Stanley, you’ve probably heard of me! I’m very cute. I like to meet things, even boxes!’

The sun was too bright, the wind was getting strong I was tired of crawling around the cold and arid winter garden stalking an extrovert cat and so I came inside, leaving my hat on.

I was hungry but I checked the computer for emails before I went to the back of the flat to catch up with some housework. Pleasant to just let my brain idle for awhile. I thought of the blog, ran through thoughts of what I could write next in general, checked my worries. (They were still crowding for attention just under the surface!)

A couple of times I noticed a tiny bit of a twig on my narrow brimmed hat. I wasn’t going out, no need to be spruce and tidy in garden and housework mode. I left my hat on because my head was cold and I ignored the twig.

Then I did some cleaning, after which I reheated the rest of chicken with mustard sauce dish from last night for my lunch. It was still yum.

Then I returned to the computer. I did a Digg, but sitting still, I suddenly noticed that the twiggy thing was moving just immediately in front of my right eye.

There was a sudden visceral terror.

I took my hat off VERY carefully, nearly jumping out of skin when a leaf fell off.

That scared me witless and I’m glad I hadn’t carelessly brushed the ‘twig’ away.

It was a white tailed spider. One of the little blighters bit me on the arm last year and there’s still an angry red mark. To have a bite on the face, the eye, was too horrible to contemplate.

The hat was taken to the verandah! Pronto. I don’t kill that sort of wildlife, I don’t want hostility like that.

Stan's Pome

Bikkies late agen today after we wake

Bikkies not in heap. Bikkies spread. Big plate.

I like breakfast I smoodge I kiss leg

I eat faster if a heap.

Outside, I walk. I watch. I snooze.

Wind ruffles fur.

No smell can come in wind.

Sun bright.

Door closed. Watch door.

Fat? What is fat?

People no stop for talk today.

People hurry where wind.

Then She with shiny box comes to me.

Box hides face. I walk to it. She walk back.

She creep. I watch.

Grace come, see shiny box. Curious.

We wander, She follow.

Talk, we purr.


Inside She go alone. Scream, cry out loud

We fluff up. Scare.

She runs out.

Thing from her head on verandah now. Fur down.

We look and see, no food in thing from head….


She says