Moon Cat, Lion Cat and Sir Felix

Every cat I've ever had seems to respond to one favourite phrase that makes him or her purr and preen. With Petal, the cat I had during my short, ill-fated marriage several decades ago, the words that made her go into ecstasies were 'Little silver moon cat'. When I crooned that line, her eyes would close, her paws would extend and begin kneading and the purr was deafening.

Flad's ecstasy line is 'Sir Felix Flad'. Every time I call him that, the golden eyes shut and the purr grows to a crescendo as he nuzzles my hand.

And now I've discovered Charlie's favourite compliment. When I call him, 'My gorgeous golden lion cat,' he rolls to one side, then the other, then presents his ginger tummy for a stroke, an invitation I only accepted once as the multiple claw holes turned my arm into a sieve.

Here is Charlie in the garden in the cool of early evening yesterday, displaying his lion teeth!

Toe of Toe Hall

Poor old Mr Grumpy has a badly infected toe. While I was up in Cumbria, he rang to tell me he might have to have it amputated, which nearly had me leaping on the next train back. He is allergic to penicillin so the doc had put him on tetracycline, which is a bit too mild to do the job. He is also diabetic, which makes him more prone to infections.

He is dressing it twice a day, soaking it in salt water and putting tea tree cream on and it is still purple and terribly painful. He's had to buy shoes in a larger size than usual, so they won't put pressure on it.

I feel a bit responsible, actually. I have been treating a fungal toenail infection for ages. Four years, if you can believe it. In that time, I have tried everything going including a bottle of stuff from the doctor which I slathered on twice daily for a whole year and which made no difference whatsoever. Then one day, as I was scouring Boots' shelves for anything I might not have tried yet, I spotted Canesten Fungal Nail Treatment. I bought it, started using it and it was brilliant. For the first time, I could see an improvement.

Mr Grumpy has a funny looking toenail. Well, more than one; some are downright amusing! He decided his odd-looking big toenail probably had a fungal infection, so he bought himself some of the Canesten stuff. Three days later, he awoke to stabbing pains and it had all gone purple and swollen. (His toe, you fools!) Then it started to ooze and get smelly. I won't go into the latter as it will put you off your Sunday lunch. So off he went to the GP and came back with the tetracycline.

Fast forward six weeks. I was in Highgate, flat-sitting for my friend who is away meeting her newly-born grandchild in Spain when I had a text message to say his toe had gone green and he had an emergency appointment with his doctor. This was last Friday. I cancelled a flat-viewing and a trip to the cinema to see Chef and raced back thinking I might just be in time to bid farewell to his big toe. But I needn't have bothered. The doc has given him another two weeks' worth of tetracycline plus a different antibiotic to take in tandem. They are making him feel lousy and he is limping and grumping around Toe Hall like a bear with a sore... toe?

So I am back off to Highgate for the remainder of my stint, which ends with my friend's return on Thursday. At least it rained yesterday so her balcony plants will have been watered. And let's hope that this time the pills do their job.


My friend's balcony...

The view to central London...

Going cuckoo in Cumbria

Since I last wrote, I've had the most glorious five days in Cumbria. My sister lives by Ullswater in half an old vicarage with views of mountains out of every window.

I haven't been to the gym for months so I knew I was very unfit compared to my mountaineer sister. When we set out on a walk the first day, I was full of trepidation and expected to have to turn back after half an hour and go back to the house for a nice cup of tea and a lie down. To my amazement, as we scrambled up the steep track, I could feel my hip and knee joints flexing and loosening up and could almost hear them crying, "Oh, thank goodness, we're being made to work at last!"

One day, we went to Penrith to our favourite clothes shop, Victoria's, where I bought a gorgeous dress in a sale and it was a size 12! Whoopee! Though it was too big on my sister and she's a 12, so I think it had been mislabelled (boo!).

The weather was warm and sunny the whole time I was there. And - joy - I heard a cuckoo for the first time in years. I have booked to go back for a week in August, for her annual art exhibition in Glenridding village hall. Last time I was there, it had snowed and the path to the door was solid ice. Don't think there's much chance of that in August but just in case, I know where she keeps the crampons.

Perhaps

I was feeling melancholic today, looking at plastic bags flapping from tree branches and sniffing the disgusting, traffic-fume-laden air and lamenting the lack of butterflies. When I first came here seventeen years ago, there were so many different species of butterflies, I kept a list. There were stag beetles in abundance and loads of tadpoles in the pond. Now the stag beetles and tadpoles are long gone and as for butterflies, I've only seen three or four. It's so sad. And so I penned this.

Perhaps…

Perhaps, when we are gone,

With our poison sprays, our polluted haze,

The beautiful things will return.

The winged things, the finned things,

The secret, hidden things that crawl and spawn.

Perhaps, when we are gone,

With our warring ways, our destroying ways,

A beautiful peace will dawn

And a silver dove and a winged whale

Will sing a hymn of earth-scars healed and hope reborn.

Perhaps…

The art on my wall

Apart from the vast monthly sum my storage unit is costing me, another major drawback of having stuff in store is being deprived of one's enjoyment of it. All my books, my entire lifetime's library, is in there. My china, my glass, which I used to arrange on windowsills so that the light could shine through it and give me some colour therapy. And, of course, the paintings and prints I have bought over the years. Sadly, I lost a lot of these in Alan's workshop. Unbeknown to me, he had stashed a heap of paintings in the corner, behind a large mirror where they were hidden from view.

One day, I decided to move the mirror and that's when I made two discoveries. The first was that a heap of my pictures were there (he had helped me move and I thought they had all gone into store) and the second, ghastly discovery was that the corner of the workshop was sodden. Water had leaked in and everything was ruined. Signed prints were covered in black mould. Original watercolours had run and the paper they were painted on had disintegrated. It was truly horrible. I cried as I threw them away, not because of the monetary value, which was about £3000, but because each of them had been specially picked by me as something that really appealed and spoke to me... chimed with something in my nature. A memory perhaps, or a dream, or a combination of shape and colour that pleased me.

Luckily, my largest picture, purchased for £300 at artist Sandy Damon's exhibition in a restaurant in Waterloo Station back in 1987, was OK as I had refused to let it go into storage. Here it is. It's called The Fishermen's Dance and it wasn't until I got it home that I realised that the fish formed the symbol for Pisces. I am a Pisces! The vibrant colours make me happy and this has always found a home in the living room of everywhere I have bought or rented.

After the workshop disaster, I vowed that I would never waste money on art works again. After all, there are a few in the storage unit (though I hear it has been invaded by mice! Eeek!) so when I finally manage to move, there will be a few to hang on the wall. But while I was in Ruislip, I was taken with a picture on display in the Cow Byre Gallery, oil and acrylic, called Dreamland. It is opposite my bed, perched on the table. And yes, it features fish again and I have placed my little fish vase in front of it, as it is painted with the same colours.

I realise that colour is very important to me and that I need art to lose myself in. I am going to the Royal Academy of Art's Summer Exhibition on Friday. It will be like submerging myself in an art swimming pool. If you don't hear from me again, it will be because I am still floating.

Places and petals

I do apologise for not having posted for so long. Hopefully, I am getting my mojo back now, after so many weeks of being ill, followed by depression and worries. I might even be able to start writing again. Haven't even looked at my book for weeks.

Have you ever lived in a place you really disliked - a place that doesn't suit you at all? That has been one of my problems for the last seven years, since Mr Grumpy had his strokes and I moved from the vitality and camaraderie of my corner of north London to look after him. Day after boring day, I found myself wilting like an unwatered flower. There was just nothing to DO around here! None of the things I was used to, including the ability to dive down to central London in half an hour, to meet friends or see a show, and get home easily, perhaps even in a cab. And even if there had been something, there was nobody to do it with and I am too shy to go to group events on my own.

No theatre on the corner, no Sunday poetry readings, no old time music hall in the pub. No dashing out for a coffee or a snack with friends, or a glass of wine in the evening. No dinner parties. No friends - because nobody wanted to make the trek out to the sticks where, after an hour and a half on the tube or train, they then had to wait for a bus to take them the final two miles. (Nobody wanted to drive down the North Circular, either, and who can blame them!)

As months grew into years, I sank deeper and deeper into myself. Mr G has never liked going out, and his illness made him even fonder of the sofa. In my fifties, I was living like my parents did in their eighties, spending every single night in front of the TV, Mum with a glass of whisky and the cat, and Dad with a cup of tea and the newspaper (or, in Mr Grumpy's case, his android pad). It got so that going out by myself - making that trek - seemed too much effort, especially once Mr G gave up driving and a ten minute run to the station because 45 minutes on two buses. And that's before the real journey even began!

Things became a bit better when I made a friend in the area, a woman of my age and a spookily similar background, both from the north of England, both having worked as journalists, and both having been involved with music and literature. Then my new friend was diagnosed with cancer and has bravely fought it over the last year and is now, we hope, in the clear. She is not a 'popper-outer'. She likes a properly organised event. So on Friday night we are going to see an amateur production of an Alan Ayckbourn play, a first for me as I am not familiar with his work at all.

She has also been kind enough to run me to Ruislip for a series of anti-ageing facials I am having (don't laugh) and together, we have discovered that Ruislip is a fantastic place. We're both very excited about it. It's got everything that my own area lacks. Lots of arty events, a gallery, a wonderful weekend market and the most amazing historical buildings dating back to the 13th century. Yesterday, we stood by the duck pond, looking at hordes of fluffy ducklings and baby coots while a dragonfly whirred by. We have discovered that the local Cafe Rouge does the most divine fish cakes, and you can have coffee and cake for around £4. (Yesterday, we had lunch AND coffee and cake!)

http://www.hillingdon.gov.uk/manorfarm

I don't think I will ever grow to love this part of outer west London. I ache and yearn to get back to Highgate and East Finchley, to walk over Hampstead Heath, to return to streets that were home to me from 1968 to 2007. But I feel slightly better now I have discovered Manor Farm and have made a good new friend to explore with. I think I have been homesick and lonely for ages. (I went for a psychic reading at the spiritualist church and was told it was as if I had fallen into a deep pit and was trying to climb out. That's exactly how it felt.) Years ago, I used to tell people I would never feel lonely as I had too many interests. Oh, how naive that smug statement was! But I feel that my spirits are starting to rise now. I have found somewhere to go, somewhere to walk, somewhere that feels like 'me' and, having started to worry that I was going mad, I now feel more like my old self. Still a bit fragile, but lifting my petals to the sun.

An inspirational blog

Siobhan Curham used to run the Uxbridge Writers Group, which is where I met her. Since then, she has moved away, written a brilliant, bestselling book for teenagers called Dear Dylan (Egmont Press) and now has a new book out called Shipwrecked. She also runs writing workshops.

Her blog, Dare to Dream, is inspirational. I don't know anyone else who can turn a negative into a positive the way Siobhan, a trained life coach, can. You can find her on Facebook, or Google her blog. I think you need to subscribe to it but, especially when you're going through a bleak period like I have lately, her tips are a real pick-me-up. Her latest post is a Beginners' Guide to Meditation. I have always wanted, and often tried, to meditate but my babbling brain refuses to shut up. This time, I am going to follow Siobhan's breathing and relaxation exercises and really give it a go.