With A Selfish Ulterior Motive? …

Hi All

This morning I am being dragged, kicking and shouting, away from my laptop and out into the big wide world to visit Richard’s mother. The dreaded night-shift starts again this week and rather do what any sensible person would do – rest through the afternoon in preparation for working all night – Richard sees it as a day off.

He would normally visit her at the weekend but yesterday produced a local Land Rover show that he wanted to go to. He was back within a couple of hours moaning that it was crap. He said it was OK if you wanted tyres of mammoth proportions and other silly gimmicky stuff but there was nothing there of interest to him. Richard would never dream of tarting up Betsy like that. Betsy is an original. A traditional piece of ancient engineering. Sounds a bit like me so I think I’ll move on.

I think my motive for tagging along today is a wee bit selfish. I want to take my paperback copy of Mulligan to show her. That is selfish isn’t it? But hold on. I will pay for it. We will take Richard’s mum out for a coffee or whatever at a local garden centre and I shall have to clamber, struggle and squeeze into the back of our titchy VW UP. She (Betty) could never manage to get into the back of the car, having had both hip joints replaced, and if she did she would never get out.

And riding in the back of the car makes me feel sick. That and the fact that Betty showers herself in Estee Lauder’s Knowing and it is like sitting trapped in a bottle of perfume. Richard moans like hell about it – well in all fairness it does bring on the poor things asthma and he’s sucking on his inhaler like a creature demented. The price we have to pay for our mothers, hey?

This trip out will really pee off Chea. She doesn’t take too kindly to being left alone in the house. She has started running up the wallpaper now and grinning at us from her very high position. I thought that after falling out of the conifer a week ago she might have contained her antics to ground level, but no.

She has progressed, however, from a harness with attached string, to a harness without attached string, and now to a lovely little purple collar with a tinkly bell. She has no problem with the collar – but hates, with a vengeance, the tinkly bell. A necessary evil I’m afraid.

I don’t hold with the theory of attaching bells to the collars of cats as a warning of their presence to the bird population. Anyone who owns a cat knows, as I do, that cats will hide and silently watch birds for hours if necessary and no bell will be tinkling while they are still. When the time is right and the cat attacks, any bell tinkling a warning comes too late. By the time it takes for the bell to issue forth a tinkle the poor little bird is in the cat’s jaws.

No, the reason I make her wear the bell is so that I know where the little demon is. So far she hasn’t attempted to access gardens beyond our fences but she will, of that I am sure. And then I’ll be knocking on doors asking if I can have my cat back. And she will bugger about and refuse to let me catch her. All these joys to look forwards to! But first I must prepare for my trip out with Richard and his Ma. Wish me luck. They truly are two of a kind. Perhaps the back of the car is a good place after all. They can chat away and I can read my book.

Take care my lovelies x

P.S. I’ve popped an interview with the characters of Mulligan’s Reach on here for anyone interested. Go to the page that says, Interview with the characters of Mulligan’s Reach. Simples!