Communicating with animals

I'm spending tomorrow at an Animal Communication workshop (see pettalk-online.com). We have to bring along a photo of the pet we wish to communicate with. That's when I realised I hadn't changed the colour cartridges in my printer for over a year. Mr Grumpy kindly consented to do it for me, as I'm so useless with printers and have already bent something trying to wrench the cartridges out in the past.





He sat there putting it through endless cleaning and nozzle-de-clogging cycles and at the end of it, I printed out a photo of a black and pink Flad. So much for cleaning your printer. I put the pics on my memory stick and he printed them out perfectly on his printer, but now I owe him some shiny photo paper. Above are the photos I'll be using, taken while he was cruising my ankles for cat bics this morning. Who needs communication? That hopeful look in his eyes says it all. "Feed me, Mummy!"

Flad v mouse

The mouse came off the worst. In fact, it is dead, defunct, late, and is no more. We came down this morning to find its gory remains spread over the kitchen floor and one very fat cat dozing smugly on the sofa. Poor little mouse!

Australian fires: report from Melbourne

I emailed a friend in Melbourne to see if he and his family were all right. This is his reply...

We are OK but we can smell the fires. When we take the dogs for a walk we can see the smoke - the smoke cloud is 60km across and sometimes fills the entire sky. Many still do not know if their friends made it or not. Many will not have.

The first pictures are coming out after the devastation. I have seen the ruins of Dresden - this is worse! You could only compare it to Hiroshima up there. In the days before the fire we were getting temperatures of 46 Celsius All the land was bone dry and the gum trees were full of resin. Once a fire started it spread a rate that people could not outrun it in cars.

The death toll is over 200 and there are still 100 people not account for - the fires were so intense that there are no remains of many people.

We have seen the best of humanity in the way that neighbours helped neighbours to the point of death. The work by the police, fire service and ambulance officers has been utterly outstanding. The way the communities have pulled together gives some hope for the human race. We have seen the worst of humanity: one man has been charged with lighting fires. Vigilantes are organising through Facebook. Sometimes you think there is no hope for the human race.

Clever Flad!

One thing about Flad is, he hasn't got a real meow. Instead, he goes 'eek'. The only time he produces any volume is when he's caught something. Then, the yowl of doom echoes around the house, an eerie, "Yeeeow!", roughly translated as, "Aren't I a clever cat?"

One thing he never does is meow outside doors. Instead, he sits and waits. So when I was in the bathroom this morning and heard repeated 'eeks' coming from the other side of the door, I knew something must be up. I was in there quite a long time (don't ask) and when I emerged, he rushed off towards the kitchen in a flurry of impatience, glancing over his shoulder to make sure I was following.

He led me straight to his food cupboard in the corner. 'Oh,' thought I. 'He's trying to convince me he hasn't already been fed by Mr Grumpy'. I decided to give him a few extra biscuits, opened the cupboard and found out the reason for his agitation. A mouse had got into the cupboard from the back somewhere and had bitten a hole in the packet of cat biscuits. Chewed paper was everywhere.

Flad, unlike the neighbours' cat, has never learned to open doors. You can just imagine the torment he must have suffered in the night, hearing the pesky rodent scuffling around and being unable to get at it. We've cleaned out the cupboard, we've looked in the cupboard next to it, but no sign of Mousy. I hope that next time it turns up it will be in Flad's mouth. Perhaps I shouldn't have given him that extra sachet of cat food as a reward...

Valentine's Day

Mr Grumpy gave me a funny card, but wrote me an extra poem which I found on the table at breakfast time. He has bought a new car - another Escort, secondhand of course, but with power steering, which he needs after his stroke. It was owned by a friend and hadn't been used for some time, so he went there this morning and on his return, said "Here's your Valentine present", delved in his pocked and produced a plastic bag containing two of my favourite minty lamb chops. Typical of him - he knows we've defrosted a Tesco's lobster for tonight, so I'm going to be eating chops on Sunday and Monday as he doesn't like them and they won't freeze.

Next thing, he got busy baking, and produced a tray of lemon turd tarts (oops, I meant curd of course!), and one separate jam one which was shaped like a heart. Aaah!

I gave him a Joe Brown's camper van sweatshirt. It's great.

Another freezing day at Grumpy Grange. I have a fan heater in my bedroom with a thermostat on. I switched it on while I was getting dressed yesterday morning and it said it was 9 degrees C. This is not warm. It was a two duvet night. Last night was a two duvet and fur throw night, plus a cardigan over my nightie.

I should be used to it. The house I grew up in in Liverpool had no central heating, no double glazing and I used to wake and that Jack Frost had decorated the inside of the windowpane as well as the outside. When the frost melted, puddles of frozen water would form on the sill and trickle down the wall. I quickly learned not to leave books on the window ledge. I would take my school uniform and undies into bed with me to warm them up before putting them on. The lino on the floor was freezing to bare feet. I had a convector heater but was only allowed to have it on for twenty minutes before bedtime. Just like Grumpy Grange, in fact.

Maybe the reason I can't put up with it now is that I'm 50 years older and more creaky and have got used to nice, warm surroundings in between. I can't wait to have my own place and be mistress of my own boiler and bath.

Health Catch-up

Sore finger: ouch. Must stop playing so many computer games.
Piles: double ouch. Must stop eating porridge, aka Scottish concrete.
Back: minor ouch. Must buy new computer chair.
Feet: medium ouch. Have been wearing wellies a lot, which contain no arch supports. Nerve in left foot is throbbing like mad and I couldn't bear the bedclothes on it last night.
Hair: recovering its condition after four swims turned it to straw.
Skin: extra dry and itchy because of fan heater, necessary as Mr Grumpy won't have the radiators on.
Stomach: okay for the last few days. Miracle! Perhaps it's due to all that porridge.