It won't be like this all the time, will it?

Busy, busy! Up at 5 a.m., because a certain fat black cat was keen on being stroked and have his tummy rubbed while I was safely in bed and he was on it. Yes, I was amazed too....

Wide awake after such a rapturous start to the day, I got up, had breakfast, found that I really was underslept, and went back to bed. More demands for stroking made by Scooter a little later - being trapped in a back yard for three nights seems to have altered his perception of the mad axe-wielding cat murderess he lives with - and then time to get up properly.

And then the phone..... the estate agency booking the energy survey; the energy survey people booking the time and telling me about the person who would be doing it and drawing up the floor plans. Then the floor plan lady herself; she will arrive hot on the heels of Mr Trendy Specs when he takes photographs tomorrow. I've pre-paid my first set of costs, and felt grateful that a HIP is no longer required to bleed us all white. See, I'm learning to moan about property costs already!

And the texts. Sandra coming out of hospital today (don't they sling you out fast these days! She only went in 2 days ago!) and Roger complaining about going to a lunchtime Pilates session instead of the pub and finding it cancelled (impressive to choose strengthening your pelvic floor when you could be with your mates and having lunch too!) And others. And emails.

And rushing out in driving rain and bitter winds - O British summertime! - to buy flowers for tomorrow's let's-pretend-the-house-always-looks-like-this session. And flowers for Sandra on her return home. I began to feel slightly harassed, and had to give myself a bit of a talking-to.

In the middle of all this, I managed to have a shower. And before I could get dressed, and with hair dripping, the doorbell rang, and there was Chris from round the corner - did I have the young, lean, grey tabby...... my heart sank. Millie in trouble again...... who had been found halfway up Chris's clematis en route to the blackbirds' nest, two frantic parents raising the alarm which saved their babies. Meantime Millie had come home and was sitting nonchalantly on the kitchen table, wearing her default expression: butter failing to melt in her mouth.

I told Chris that there was another young, lean grey tabby, fond of breaking into houses (mine) and scenting them with his particular fragrance and eating the cat food. But I admitted that it was more probably Millie, the now-keen hunter, who was the killer on the loose. The cat flap is now firmly locked, although given the weather, even Millie won't want to go out gallivanting. Perhaps.

And later on, I had a call from Amber at Big Black Hen, to discuss my dream house to come. The wheels are on the wagon, and they are beginning to turn.