transitional object

Millie is no longer Lottie's cossetted little kitten-sister, and often gets snapped or hissed at when she comes bouncing up to her in her bumptious over-enthusiastic way. Lottie spends much of her life having a Little Lie Down, and resents a fat pushy youngster trampling all over her for a cuddle

So Millie has taken to coming to me, or to visitors (L, above), for a cuddle, which is very sweet, and rewarding for us - shame she took so long to discover the joys of snuggling in with a devoted human. And she drools a little too, just to make her point. But there's no mistaking how disappointed and bewildered she is when Lottie rejects her, and my heart goes out to her, even though I can see how she asks for it sometimes.

But she is strangely and intensely attached to her downstairs scratching post. The upstairs one gets used too, simply for scratching and stretching, but it's the downstairs one that has to be laid on its side, scratched, fought with, played with, and often snuggled up against for a little sleep. I think it's the most bizarre object for a little cat to get so attached to, but it's a permanent fixture in the sitting room, and invariably the first thing she goes to when she comes in.

Watching her, I was reminded sharply of very little children and their comfort blankets or other objects that they couldn't be parted from. Now, without anthropomorphising too much and making you want to throw up, I wondered if a young cat could also have a need for such a transitional object? Winnicott doesn't mention cats....

At any rate, I look forward to the next stage in her emotional development. It's an interesting life with our Millie; the scratching post and I will do all we can to keep her happy and secure.

the trouble with visitors

isn't them, not in any way. It's the constant planning, preparing and eating of regular meals, taken at a properly-set table, and the treats in between.

And that's not really the problem either. It's the constant creeping of calories, the overload of delicious little morsels and embellishments, the starters, the puddings, the cream-in-everything, the finishing of leftovers as an extra, because we wouldn't want waste, would we? It's the relentless migration of those calories to hips and tummy. The little inspired thought that pops up in the evening and drives us to the mocha ice cream in the freezer, because we wouldn't drink coffee so close to bedtime, but coffee in home made ice cream? - no problem.

Tricia goes off to Yorkshire today, for the weekend. I may have to live on water and noble thoughts of self-restraint till her return, just to give my poor beleaguered innards a break.

Perhaps we should finish that ice cream before she leaves. After all, calories shared are calories halved, and noble thoughts of self-restraint might last longer in a kitchen without cream in any form.

But then there's the shopping for her return to think about....

shopping, drinking, fighting, overcoming the Welsh

What we do on our holidays. Well, not really, apart from the shopping bit. We are doing a great deal of planning, too - to make a stained glass fanlight for over my front door (talked of for years and never got round to) and our trip to Mull at the end of the month. So far the latter has entailed buying a suitable wind-and-waterproof jacket (hurrah for TK Maxx, where real bargains can be found in the outdoor wear line if you aren't looking for - or even able to recognise - this year's model). My old jackets have been relegated to dog-walking outfits, and you know you can only be seen in those if you have a dog to produce as an excuse. The dog doesn't travel because of her carsickness problem, but will move in with her other family two doors down to be spoiled rotten.

Most of the ladies' outdoor jackets were in rather un-serious shades of lavender or pale blue. Can one be a convincing walker-type in lavender? I'm not a convincing walker, but I'd like to look like one. I may even carry an OS map to add to the image. In the end, I was very conservative and bypassed the fashion shades as well as the hideous construction-worker orange one, going instead for stone with a red trim. I may not be spotted if lost in the Scotch mist that has marked so many of our holidays in the West of Scotland, but at least I won't attract surprised attention by looking like a traffic cone when dog-walking once I'm back home.

I've been awake since 3.40 a.m. thanks to my next door neighbours, one sober, the other definitely not, who were having a disagreement, sort of sotto voce, in the back yard - there was reference to "a whole bottle of 15% red since 2 o'clock", and the words "you have 2 hours to sober up" uttered in a penetrating hiss. Their back door, which has to be shut fairly assertively, was eventually shut - very assertively - and all went quiet.

I was particularly interested in the emphasis on the 15%. As a non-drinker, I never give such things a thought, but clearly it matters if you're having an all-night one-person drinking session and don't want to stop. I wondered too about the 2 hours - doesn't seem long enough to sober up, really.

Of course I couldn't get back to sleep after that, and finally gave up on the wall-to-wall radio coverage of the Afghan elections, and went downstairs to watch a history programme about Edward I and his ruthless subjugation of the Welsh before taking on the Scots. Quite a feat for a man with such a sissy hairdo.

wet cat

I was caught in all that rain. I was soggy! I got a lot of sympathy, which I deserved. And some breakfast.

Humans don't know how to dry a cat - she used a towel! not her tongue. Clueless....

So I had to do it myself.

A pink tongue is better than a pink towel any day.

That's better. Just a bit damp.


Here comes Mother's Little Helper. She's clueless too, thinks I should dry her, even though she isn't wet. Oh, ok, as you're here, just a little ear-wash....


And she takes advantage too. Sneaks in for a snuggle, when she can. She should be drying me!


She must have heard that. She's a feeble cat-dryer though; gives up too soon, and wants attention.


You're invading my personal space, underling.


No, I think she wants my chair.....


One little shove....that's better. Damp cat must sleep now. Do Not Disturb.

no chickens, no counting, no hatching

but a small coincidence that got me thinking a little too vividly in the middle of the night. T and I were rounding the corner of my street yesterday, on cat-feeding duty elsewhere, and reminiscing about our stay in Melbourne last year. A family was out in the back lane with bats and balls, and I stopped to say hello - obviously the new bunch of very loud little kids who have been my alarm call some mornings.

We had a pleasant neighbourly chat, and learned that the family had moved back to the UK a fortnight ago from Melbourne. They were living in a rented place, their eldest child about to attend the local school, and they were desperate (their word) to buy a house in this area. A planned move into the adjoining street had just fallen through.

Well, of course, I mentioned that I had a house I was planning to sell, and they expressed a desire to come and see it......

That little attic, the last remaining Room of Shame, and in theory the fourth bedroom, is getting a quick tidy up this afternoon, and some serious freecycling is going to take place too. T has been taken away by family for a few hours, but intends to come home and help. Just what a holiday at the other side of the world is for.

Superstitiously, I'm not really given to setting my hopes too high, and practically, I'm aware that this house has only one bathroom, so I'm focusing on the 'having a look' part of that conversation before any fantasising about an over-hasty sale and a homelessness crisis, cats and plastic bags in shopping trolley, bandana-wearing dog on a string, and people pursing their lips and saying "See? I told you it would be disastrous."

If nothing else comes of it, at least I'll have had that kick in the pants that gets a room sorted out, and will know some nice new neighbours and their lively children. The dog won't need to wear a spotted kerchief, and the cats can continue to patrol and terrorise the neighbourhood. For now.

the eagle has landed...

...and gone shopping. After a challenging drive up from Wiltshire with her sister, during which they got horribly lost twice and the car almost died once, Tricia arrived last night, several hours late. Today we have treated her tiredness and remaining jet lag with a visit to a podiatrist/friend, a spot of retail therapy for holiday clothes, and lots of healthy eating of fruit, veg and salad, watched closely by our little gourmand friend.

I spotted a pretty little tea set in the Oxfam shop, and yielded without a struggle. So much for de-cluttering the dresser. But those cups and plates cry out for an afternoon tea soon with some lemony cake! T bought a holiday mobile phone, her antique brick-type model having been left in Canberra. This one cost all of £9.95 and means that I can keep tabs on her should she wander off in shops.

And that's it. We are both in need of an early night, T because of all the travelling and visiting she's done in the past 5 days before reaching me, and me because of all the cleaning, tidying, shopping and jam making I have done before she got here. Holidays are exhausting.

The courgette bread has been widely tasted in the neighbourhood, and pronounced a hit. Millie also enjoyed the bit that she managed to rip through the cling film to steal. I need to raise my game; a lockable bread bin might be necessary. This cat will eat anything.

on the offensive 2

Another courgette bites the dust, so to speak. This is Meredith's Zucchini Bread from Rachel Allen's book 'Bake!' Didn't smell nice while in the oven - a peculiar stale popcorn smell - but my fears were not realised, because it proved to be delicious, especially toasted and buttered. (Why can't I lose weight, I wonder?)

Now I must tackle the third batch of rhubarb and ginger jam, if I can find enough jam jars to cope with it all. Rhubarb jam has taken over from courgettes as the tyrannical presence in my home - that second crop was too surprisingly good to waste.

But - hurrah!! - tonight my dear old school friend Tricia from Australia arrives to stay for a few weeks, using my (unnaturally clean and tidy) house as base camp to visit friends and relations. I haven't seen her since I went over to stay with her last year, but whether it's a separation of 20 years or six months, we always fall in together in that comfortable, easy way that treasured childhood friends can.

We have a Scottish holiday planned for next month, and talk blithely of doing some walking on Mull, although by the time we get through all that jam, we may have become too roly-poly to walk anywhere, and might just end up doing what we so often do instead: sit for hours over food or cups of tea, and talk, and laugh, and enjoy each other's familiar company.

please sir, I want some more

There were prawns in this dish. All gone now.

I'll polish the dish. She might notice the prawns have all been hoovered up.

Maybe there will be second helpings.

Maybe.

Maaaaaaybe......

I fear the worst. This is tragic. She's so hard-hearted!


I'll stay here. Just in case.


Life is hard. I am patient. Prawns may come yet.

this fork is for what?

Oh what a horrid dream I had. Those of you who can bear to listen to other people's dreams can analyse this one all you like. If it's very rude and betrays all sorts of vile things about my repressed inner life, please don't tell me.

The Queen was talking to me, in the sort of way that Sixth Formers would speak to the Lower Third, trying to be nice, but struggling not to betray their utter contempt for such an un-evolved form of life. Her Majesty was inviting me to a formal dinner. I was immediately thrown into panic - I don't want to go! I haven't got anything to wear! Noooooooooooo! I couldn't possibly go!

Note: These responses are exactly what I would feel should such a nightmarish scenario occur in real life, and I would have to fake my own death rather than put myself through such an ordeal. I would also hate to be invited to one of those Garden Parties for the nation, where I understand one has to wear a hat as well as the clothes one doesn't have. (The Queen has to see all those dreadful hats, and heaven knows, she has enough of her own to put up with; it must be so difficult to ask everybody "Have you come far?" while trying not to snort or snicker at the feathered dinner plates they are balancing nervously on their special hairdos as they strive to curtsey without falling over.)

Worse was to come. She made it plain, in that mysterious unspoken way that can happen in dreams, and perhaps also in conversations with august personages, that she thought I would have difficulties with all the cutlery. I tried hard to convey politely that, actually Ma'am, I was perfectly conversant with the complex array of silverware necessary for many-coursed dinners (not that this is true at all) - but inside, I was terrified that perhaps I had forgotten, and might try to use the fish knife for soup or muddle up the dessert spoons with the fruit knife. Or the salad knife with the oyster fork.... It's a silver-plated minefield out there, dining with Her Majesty. Oh, why had my neglectful parents not sent me to finishing school to learn for ever the finer nuances of feeding one's face in refined company?

It was a relief to wake up, although I felt worried and peevish for some little while afterwards, at least until I had finished breakfast (one spoon and bowl, one knife and plate, a mug, no hat).

If you think I worry unnecessarily, read on. This is what Emily Post advises:

Table Setting Guide: Formal Place Setting

The one rule for a formal table is for everything to be geometrically spaced: the centerpiece at the exact center; the place settings at equal distances; and the utensils balanced. Beyond these placements, you can vary flower arrangements and decorations as you like.

The placement of utensils is guided by the menu, the idea being that you use utensils in an “outside in” order. For the illustrated place setting here, the order of the menu is:

Appetizer: Shellfish
First Course: Soup or fruit
Fish Course
Entrée
Salad

1. Service Plate: This large plate, also called a charger, serves as an underplate for the plate holding the first course, which will be brought to the table. When the first course is cleared, the service plate remains until the plate holding the entrée is served, at which point the two plates are exchanged. The charger may serve as the underplate for several courses which precede the entrée.

2. Butter plate: The small butter plate is placed above the forks at the left of the place setting.

3. Dinner fork: The largest of the forks, also called the place fork, it is placed on the left of the plate. Other smaller forks for other courses are arranged to the left or right of the dinner fork, according to when they will be used.

4. Fish fork: If there is a fish course, this small fork is placed farthest to the left of the dinner fork because it is the first fork used.

5. Salad fork: If salad is served after the entrée, the small salad fork is placed to the right of the dinner fork, next to the plate. If the salad is to be served first, and fish second, then the forks would be arranged (left to right): salad fork, fish fork, dinner fork.

6. Dinner knife: The large dinner knife is placed to the right of the dinner plate.

7. Fish knife: The specially shaped fish knife goes to the right of the dinner knife.

8. Salad knife: (Note: there is no salad knife in the illustration.) If used, according to the above menu, it would be placed to the left of the dinner knife, next to the dinner plate. If the salad is to be served first, and fish second, then the knives would be arranged (left to right):dinner knife, fish knife, salad knife.

9. Soup spoon or fruit spoon: If soup or fruit is served as a first course, then the accompanying spoon goes to the right of the knives.

10. Oyster fork: If shellfish are to be served, the oyster fork is set to the right of the spoons. Note: It is the only fork ever placed on the right of the plate.

11. Butter knife: This small spreader is paced diagonally on top of the butter plate, handle on the right and blade down.

12. Glasses: These can number up to five and are placed so that the smaller ones are in front. The water goblet (la) is placed directly above the knives. Just to the right goes a champagne flute (lb); In front of these are placed a red (lc) and/or white (ld) wine glass and a sherry glass (le)

13. Napkin: The napkin is placed on top of the charger (if one is used) or in the space for the plate.

In general:

Knife blades are always placed with the cutting edge toward the plate.

No more than three of any implement is ever placed on the table, except when an oyster fork is used in addition to three other forks. If more than three courses are served before dessert, then the utensil for the fourth course is brought in with the food; likewise the salad fork and knife may be brought in when the salad course is served.

Dessert spoons and forks are brought in on the dessert plate just before dessert is served.

I told Roger and Tim about my dream anxiety; Roger (or was it Tim?) reminded me that at home, the Queen has breakfast served from Tupperware containers. Ah yes, but I'll bet she knows the difference between the cornflake and the marmalade spoons, and never uses the butter knife to spread Marmite....

On the offensive 1

Courgette and Tomato Gratin (thanks, Marie at The English Kitchen). That managed to reduce the round courgette numbers by 4.

War has been declared.

random thoughts on Sunday

Why had no one, before Isabelle's recommendation, ever marched me over to a bookshelf, pointed out Mary Webb's 'Precious Bane' and ordered me to read it? Terrible to think that I might have missed something so rare and beautiful!

It's unbearably hot and stuffy today, and the house is like an oven. Opening windows and doors invites tabby fly-catching madness and broken plant pots.

Why did an icing-less cupcake turn up this morning on the floor next to the dresser? Where has it been?

Will Tricia ring today to tell me she has landed safely at Heathrow after the nightmare journey from Sydney? Will I be ready in time for her arrival later in the week?

Will the round courgettes ever stop multiplying? Why won't the beans do the same? I could handle a glut of beans.

breakfast on Sunday

Rhubarb & ginger wine conserve (conserve = jam that hasn't set very well); shame about the rubber band, but the rhubarb is home-grown, so maybe that makes up for the sloppy presentation?

Ceylon tea from ancient caddy.

Hot buttered toast (butter dish not shown because of You Know Who...).

In case you thought this was a restrained and ungreedy breakfast, I have to admit to having eaten some toast already. Delicious!

SO full......

Got this far after all those dropscones and cupcakes, but.... can't.... make.... it.... along.... the.... landing....

the cat burglar and her accomplice

I'm going to have to get smarter about not leaving all things edible lying about, even for a moment. A plate of four cupcakes was sitting waiting for Billy and Lee's tea break today, and foolishly, I wandered off. When I returned, one cupcake was being rearranged with serious cat-tongue marks on its icing, a second cake was missing entirely, and the remaining two were rescued in the nick of time. The fat, greedy, shameless Millie didn't even bother to stop licking when I caught her.

I haven't found the missing cake yet, and yes, I have looked in the litter tray. No one has thrown up, or worse, but there's still time. The dog doesn't look particularly guilty or furtive, but all that tells me is that this double act has turned professional. I might have to consider kitchen CCTV.

tea with the roofers

Billy and Lee are here for the second day. Billy looks about 90, a small agile man, able, it seems, to create miracles after discovering the serious errors made by the joiners who replaced the window bits of the dormer, but who seem to have guessed wildly when it came to the roof bits. Billy has puzzled, and thought, and discussed tactics with Lee, who is his nephew, trying to avoid taking out the heavy, custom-made double glazed panes that he feared would probably break in the process, and today he has put much of it right. The rest will be finished tomorrow. I and my limited budget are hugely relieved.

Lee has crinkly eyes that disappear when he smiles, which is often, and a seriously hard-image haircut. Both adore tea and cake, and take it very seriously indeed. We had an in-depth conversation today about the merits of Ceylon tea, in bags or in leaf, and how deeply flavoursome yet refreshing it was (with two sugars each, mind you). Later I was presented with a complex Masterchef-style critique of the ginger-caramel cupcakes, served warm from the oven - there were lemony notes, and a hint of walnut, they thought. Yesterdays dropscones* were wildly applauded too. Such is the nature of our agreement - they call me "Pet" and work on my vanity so that I continue to bake for them, and I tell them to "be careful up there", and work on their sweet tooths while they continue to rescue my roof. We genuinely like each other, and tomorrow we might have lemon and walnut somethings and perhaps a different tea to celebrate the ingenious solution to the bodged dormer problem.

I look forward to my new welded-lead front guttering. Billy made a beautiful job of a neighbour's porch with an ornate lead roof that will be the first thing to be looted come the revolution, and says he has added it to his portfolio. Roofers with a portfolio and an ability to talk like Gregg Wallace! I feel privileged to serve warm cake to such a team.

*there were three little dropscones left over yesterday, wrapped up and forgotten. Millie stole them in the night, chewed delicately all round the edges, and scattered them round the house. After I had cleared up the remains of two, and went back to find the third, I saw that it had just disappeared. The dog was heard scuttling up the stairs. Later I found that she had buried it in the cats' litter tray. Yes, is is revolting....

Kalinichte!

Have just been to see 'Coco Avant Chanel' and now have to drag my tear-stained face and sob-racked body off to bed. You can see a rather dull trailer by clicking on the link.... sniff....snivel....

Kalimera!

An email from my sister today; she spends every summer on Syros, in the Cyclades. She complains that it is cloudy, and that she may demand her money back. Poor dear. When she comes home, with her already-retired husband, she has to decide when to give her notice at the school where she has taught for almost 40 years. A dedicated and ever-enthusiastic teacher in one of Glasgow's most deprived housing estates ('schemes') she has had enough, and her health is suffering.

I can't imagine her not teaching, but I've already bagged an out of season trip with her to this so-interesting little island, to work on making their new apartment a bit more homely. The term 'work' is relative, you understand, with all the usual Greek holiday influences and a pace of life that makes mine seem positively hectic. Can't wait.

Sitting, lying, flying on the front line

Here's the dog, showing her Queen Anne front legs and her tummy, on Margery's knee. She can sit or lie in the most extraordinary positions, with no sign of discomfort.

Unlike us stiff, tense, ill-postured humans. Yesterday I went for the first Alexander Technique session that I've had in decades, hoping to deal with my almost-chronic neck, shoulder and jaw pain. An hour was spent being subtly positioned, adjusted, balanced, and tweaked until I found myself either sitting or lying, more amazingly comfortable than I could ever manage unaided. But there is much work ahead to unlearn my poor postural habits. Meantime, I shall grow accustomed to think about about my hips as hinges, not just as over-generous padding. Well-padded hinges.... so well-padded, in fact, that they could justify chintz loose covers, and perhaps an antimacassar.

My teacher is Anne, who also acts as the home visitor for PARRT, the animal rescue charity that provided me with Lottie and Millie (and looking at their website just now, I'm dismayed to see that poor Casper and Oscar are still un-rehomed). So the urge to talk cats and kittens with Anne during our lesson had to be resisted.

Meantime, back at the house of discord and cat supremacy wargaming, all goes on much as before. Occasional spats erupt, then everyone goes back to sleep for a few hours, until a major offensive occurs. Maybe on Christmas Day they will play football together, if they can identify a No Man's Land. It certainly isn't my bed.

Someone asked about the dog in all this unseemly cat fighting. Well, the dog is rather timid by nature, unless the postman appears, and has always known her place. She stays well out of the conflict zone, and scuttles away if voices are raised too loudly. Cat swearing can be very vulgar. But she isn't always quiet and humble. She knows that there are advantages, mostly of the dish-cleaning variety, to being agile and alert in a cat household, and that the softie human always doles out dog treats as well as cat titbits.

And there's always this: freedom to run around in the park, well away from the war zone. The cats never do this; they are far too image-conscious to muddy their paws or get grass in their fur. The dog cares little for dignity and clean paws, nor, I suspect, for power struggles and queenly crowns.

summer jolliness

Lesley's fruit salad, a jam jar full of little flowers from the back yard, and enough colour to lift the spirits on a gloomy humid day.

a dream of love & peace

My harmonious home has turned into a battlefield, with one side already the victor, but unable to stop fighting, and the other vanquished and bewildered. Lottie is indisputably queen of the house. Vanquished Millie has to endure growls and snaps and the occasional punch-up.

That'll teach me to think last year that young Lottie needed a companion, a kitten to play with, so that she didn't have to pester old Kevin. Millie was the chosen cat toy, and seemed to be best beloved for a while, but the shine has definitely worn off.

Remember this when Millie arrived as a kitten? Lottie's Death Stare?

That quickly turned into this?

And looked like mutual love?



How delighted I was when they became friends, and how I worried that Lottie was devoting all her youth to being a surrogate mum to Millie.

Not to worry, that didn't last. The Death Stare is back, along with a (visible only to cats) queenly crown on Lottie's head. It's all part of what cats must do, I suppose, only natural.... but Nature can be brutal.