Welcome to the WeekEnd

The petition to revoke article 50 reached 3,000,000 at lunchtime. It’s now at 3,706,979 and I think it’s slowing down. There was a very uptight member of Leave Means Leave on channel4 news tonight who claimed it was open to fraud and that he personally had signed it three times within five minutes. Whether that is true or not, the excitement generated by this petition is wonderful, and it obviously has some ardent Brexiteers such as the oleaginous Farrago rattled.
Not that the Prime Minister has any intention of considering any changes to her deal. Is it lack of imagination? arrogance? stupidity? obstinacy?
Anyway, when I finish work at lunchtime tomorrow I shall be marching tomorrow for a People’s Vote, though whether I shall succeed in meeting any of my friends is doubtful. The sheer number of people last time meant I gave up and walked with strangers.

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Eight years on, pet remembrance day.

Next week 20th March it will be eight years since Freddy, aka Cat, aka Freddy the Gorgeous Boy, aka Monkey, died. My lovely boy. Again on the Sunday following the anniversary I shall be remembering him, and all the other animals who have enriched my life, by lighting a candle and raising a glass (or two). There’ll definitely be a toast to MasterB, Freddy’s very worthy successor. MasterB is Freddy’s legacy, and I love him as much as I loved Freddy. I am fortunate. Two cats, two treasures.

New Toy

MasterB has a new toy. He likes it very much. It’s a gift from Octavia who read about it in a magazine at the vet surgery where she had taken the Grey Ninja for her annual check up. Normally Octavia would not read the magazines on offer, but she had forgotten her ‘phone. It’s a good thing I was sitting down when she told me: Octavia without her ‘phone? Unbelievable. I thought at the very least surgery would have been involved to achieve such a scenario.
It was a good outcome for the Grey Ninja and MasterB though as, in the said magazine, Octavia read about honeysuckle wood, an alternative to catnip, and something most cats love. As I said before, MasterB’s opinion was positive. It was also immediately evident.

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February brings the sun

This is February, typically the coldest month of winter, a month associated with low temperatures and even snow. Yet today I was out and about in my shirt sleeves, opening windows wide when indoors. I can’t deny I enjoyed it. I had the morning earmarked for dusting and vacuuming. The sunshine had a downside though, mercilessly showing the amount of cat fur chez IsobelandCat.
Just how much fur can one cat shed over the course of a winter? A lot it seems. Each time I thought my duster would come up clean from the carpet there was another clot of fur. I resorted to the rubber glove technique to speed things up. I haven’t broached the drawers under the bed where MasterB often likes to sleep during the day. I know the cat fur there will be mega.

This seat needs some fur

Doughnuts, Dolls and The Dead

I don’t usually have doughnuts for breakfast, but the on the other hand I have never, ever seen a doughnut that looks anything like this.

Doughnut Breakfast

The topping contained more sugar than I usually eat in a week. But it was nice.
I didn’t buy it, it was brought by a young relative who came to supper last night. I filled us up with ribollita until neither of us could face pudding, though true to form I picked at the bunch of grapes in the fruit bowl. I eat grapes as though I’m in a competition.
It was a good evening. MasterB took to the YR immediately, striding forward with his tail hoisted like a flag. I’ve already got her marked down as a potential cat sitter.
Apart from the unexpected doughnut it has been the week of the unexpected visit to one of the magnificent seven cemeteries, in my case Kensal Green. It was a fine cold morning when I set off rather later than I’d intended as MasterB had brought up a hairball on the bed which necessitated some unplanned and urgent washing before I could leave home. I met Badger the Staffie on my way to the tube. He held up his paw. I expressed sympathy and his owner laughed, saying Badger had been milking the sore paw for days.
My visit to the cemetery came about by accident rather than design. Lindy Lou took me to Kensal Green.
Here she is, newly unwrapped from the towel in which she travelled the tube for (I’m fairly certain) the first time in her existence.

Lindy Lou

Regarding a Newly Sociable Cat

Thinking about it, MasterB has had a fairly sociable autumn, and in the middle of December I recall remarking to Michèle that his social life eclipsed mine. He spent November living with Birgit, and both Reinhild and Celia visited. In the middle of December, Bridget, who stayed here in 2016 while I was in Australia, called round for a calendar. I knew she was coming and we had agreed to meet downstairs. I left the door to my flat open. While we chatted we heard miaow miaow miaow from upstairs, and then came himself, barrelling down, tail hoisted like a flag, to greet Bridget. I have absolutely no doubt that he heard her voice and was determined that if she wasn’t coming up to see him, he was coming down to see her. She returned a few nights later with Janet, his other auntie while I was in Oz. We had drinks, nibbles and chips. MasterB had a lovely time.
Now I am the first to admit that MasterB is not the sharpest knife in the drawer; invitations to join MENSA have been notably absent, and though willing, he struggles with games demanding much (any) intellectual ability. However, he does know he he likes and loves, and he remembers those people with whom he has bonded very well. I’d love to see his reaction if the student couple who rescued him turned up. So with B&J he was sooo happy. He rolled on the carpet, he sat in the middle of the floor, he remembered the games that Bridget played with him and played them all over again. Animals, non-human animals that is, don’t lie: MasterB loves B&J. Official.

Quite the Party Animal

New Year’s Eve, and all is quiet chez Isobel and Cat. The party goers are either in a different neighbourhood, or haven’t got started yet. I’m not sorry to miss them. It’s been a few years now since I have seen the New Year in. Friends have given up inviting me to join them watching fireworks. I used to like small supper parties that ended shortly after we drained the obligatory glasses of champagne as Big Ben tolled the end of the old year. But even that palled. Maybe one of these years I shall be seized with a longing to be in the midst of a crowd of revellers singing Auld Langs Syne, but not tonight. It’s questionable whether I shall still be awake at midnight, let alone revelling. No, I’m perfectly happy sitting here with the boy, writing a post, and with the promise of the new Kate Atkinson novel to read later.

I was out working today and tonight made a mean bowl of fresh tomato soup, then settled down to catch up with episode one of Les Misérables as adapted by Andrew Davies, the man who put Darcy into a pond and turned Colin Firth into an unlikely sex symbol. Tonight I got a view of Dominic West’s buttocks. Others will have enjoyed that view last night, but I was watching on catch up. I’d read a review in the Guardian online over breakfast. You can read it too if you like, just click here for the link.

The opening shot featured no buttocks at all, but instead Adeel Akthar cheerfully robbing the dead bodies on the battlefield the day after Waterloo.I felt a vicarious thrill of fame, Akthar’s parents-in-law are in our book group. One of the bodies wasn’t dead, he introduced himself as Colonel Pontmercy before once more losing consciousness, and although I have never read Les Mis, seen the film or the musical, I’m willing to bet a fairly hefty sum that the two will meet up again.

Christmas is Coming

Crumbs. We’re already a third of the way through December. Funny to think that tomorrow it’ll be two weeks since I left New Zealand for home. In some ways it seems like a lifetime ago; in others I still feel in my head that I am there. A sort of bicultural existence. I think it’s called processing. Most days I find myself thinking about Lyn and Malcolm, about Nadia. Nadia and I exchanged a few WhatsApps about a book I gave her; Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss. Nadia and I became friends when we attended the same mosaics class, but there is more than mosaics to our friendship. Nadia writes. One of these days I am going to be crowing about her novel, which will be published after she has edited it for the millionth time. OK I exaggerate, but the draft I read years ago was pretty polished in my opinion, and I am getting impatient too see it in Waterstome’s. We share an interest in literature. Good books inform our lives, improve our lives. There was a moment on the train into Wellington when I was telling her about the book group I belong to. Nadia has resisted book groups. Like me, she has felt they are not necessarily A Good Thing. I explained how our book group works, and told her it is particularly good when M, a respected novelist, attends.She is extremely knowledgeable, never patronising, and keeps us on task. Nadia’s eyes widened. It turned out that M is one of her favourite writers. If only she still lived in London she could join us. On the other hand, I shouldn’t have seen Wellington with her and through, to some extent, her eyes.

I am still percolating my New Zealand holiday. Odd things come to mind to be examined and considered from a distance in time and place. Nadia introduced me to a police drama series that one of her friends writes for. It’s called Brokenshaw. It’s dry, well written, funny, but not comical. I loved it. It turns out it’s on here too, on the Drama Channel, a channel I have never watched. So I settled down to enjoy an episode, only to find it was one I had seen in Wellington. It doesn’t seem I can watch others on catch up. Darn. Lyn and Malcolm like a programme called The Chase. It turns out that it’s a British programme, broadcast here on daytime tv. Since coming home I have seen several trailers for it. Funny I had never heard of it before visiting NZ.

Wine Tour

No pictures tonight. Aeris has claimed my knee, and my bag, with my camera inside it along with other useful things like my phone is out of reach. The tv remote is in reach, as is my iPad. I have an old rerun of QI on, whuch features Barry Cryer which is great, but unfortunately Jeremy Clarkson is also on, which isn’t. Into all lives some rain must fall.
I can also reach my glass. Water, in case you are wondering.
Today I went on a Wine Tour. New Zealand is famous for wine and this is the main wine growing region of New Zealand, so not to imbibe would be almost st rude.
My guide, Greg, collected me from my accommodation which saved me a walk down into the town. We were a small group, just five of us, all from the U.K.. there was a couple from Isla which I guessed has a small population. I asked the, 3000 they said. So there’s a chance you know my ex neighbour Adam S, I said. Yes, he is a good friend of our son Alan, they got up to some mischief together when they were boys. There you go.

Bloody Brexit and a Beautiful Blue

Honestly, you travel halfway round the globe and you can still meet a Brexiteer. It least it wasn’t Arron Banks, yet another sorry apology for a human being who bankrolled the Leave campaign. Obviously I am not able to watch Channel 4 news here in NZ, but I did see, via Twitter, this man, who does not seem to have the barest acquaintance with truth, being vilely rude to Fatima Manji. Just google Banks Channel 4 news and you can see it too. He accuses Channel 4 news of having an agenda. Yes it does, an agenda to get to the bottom of stories. Banks’ agenda, shamefully assisted by the BBC, is to obfuscate. What has happened to the BBC? I used to be so proud of it. But it has let Banks get away with an interview on the Andrew Marr show so full of inconsistencies it is worse than a leaky sieve.

Fatima Manji remained polite and pleasant throughout Bank’s boorishness for which she must surely deserve an OBE. Most of us would have clocked him. However, anyone watching that encounter who still thought Banks credible or even likeable must have serious issues. And that is frightening, because there seem to be sizeable numbers of people who condone his bullying, even smile upon it. He’s a bad boy of Brexit, a bit of a lad, all right at heart. But he’s not, he’s a nasty nationalist who wouldn’t understand patriotism if it leapt up and bit him. Is this truly the face of my company try’s future?