Captured alive - no injuries

No injuries so far, at any rate.

Those of you who have found my constant anxiety about Hamish contagious may be relieved to know that he is shut up in the shower room as I type.

This doesn't mean that he is safely in a travel crate - that will be tomorrow's hurdle - or that he is happy, oh no. There have been howls.

But as he was on my bed - the closest he gets to me as a rule - and purring next to his beloved Lottie at 5 a.m., I took advantage, slipped out from under the duvet, and quickly shut my bedroom door. An alarmed Hamish tried the door and then the firmly-closed dormer window, at which point I picked a sleepy Tosca out of her own bed (yes, I do have to sleep with cats and one dog in my room) and exited sharply.

After waiting long enough for it to be safe to wake the Lovely Son (who I think has earned the right to sleep till 6 a.m.) we made a barricade on the landing, the LS holding a huge cardboard box in place to prevent a stout ginger bullet from careering down the stairs, and I opened the bedroom door. Out sauntered Lottie, chirruping, followed at speed by the stout ginger bullet who found himself unable to flee anywhere but into the shower room.

So what? you may ask? What's so special about getting a cat from one room into another? Simple!

As indeed it proved, in the end. But a huge load of months-old anxiety has shifted.

Stage 2 involves getting Scooter, stouter and slower, and apt to crouch down and howl in defeat if cornered, into the same room, where beds, litter tray and that very special food that comes in tiny tins and costs almost as much as caviar await. The boys can spend their last Sunday in this house as prisoners of a kindly tyrant.

Step 3 involves getting them both into the travel crate tomorrow morning. My computer will have been packed up by then, so you will have to wait to know how we got on, but I anticipate prison riots, attempted breakouts, intimidation of guards, and very loud shouting.

And now, more of this:

 (Scooter is lurking under the desk)

This is my life. I'm not complaining.

See you in Somerset.