Cat expressions

kitten in a box lid

In my experience, the feelings of cats are usually ‘expressed’ from their nether regions (see what I did there?) In years gone by, I and certain members of my family-stroke-social-circle (another pun) owned pets of the feline variety. Now, I wonder what we were all thinking. There are so many reasons to keep cats safely […]

My Mum – again

As I have mentioned in the past, my mother is 93 (born 1929). Currently, her energies are directed at moving herself into residential care. This project, she is undertaking with her usual energy, and to support her in it I and my siblings have been visiting regularly. Mum loves it when I am at her […]

Can you hear me Mother?

My mother is 93 and very deaf. She has been quite deaf for years. In fact, when she was my age, she was noticeably hard of hearing. I am deeply grateful that I don’t seem to have been saddled with such an affliction. A visit to Mum is fraught with misunderstanding. A visitor might come […]

Me-bike

Whizz has a new job. It involves a short daily commute – about 10 miles – to Duckchester. Accustomed to working from home and taking daily exercise on our cross trainer (another story), he soon found this sedentary job resulted in noticable expansion of his girth. This was not good. Neither was the soaring cost […]

Dog story

Our poor old Milo quit this life on Boxing Day 2021, but our step-dog, Grabber, padded into the breach to help us through our sadness. Grabber belongs to Beamish, the man who rents one of our rooms. This little Cocker Spaniel is the dearest thing. Unlike Milo, who spent most of his days lying beside […]

Horace Memories

Story Number One Horace and two girl friends decided upon a weekend away and booked a self-contained flat on AirBnB. In the flat, they had a choice of a double or twin bedded room. Her friends were kind enough to let Horace have the double, while they shared the twin – I wouldn’t dream of […]

Dog and Cat Tale

A black cat lying on a white duvet wearing a santa jacket intended for a teddy

It was a long time ago, in the days when Gizzy the cat was alive and our dog was still black around the muzzle. Gizzy did not like Milo (the above mentioned, below pictured dog). She never trusted him after our other dog, Nellie, a rescue with anger issues, caught her by the head and […]

Dress Dense

This article contains what I hope will be taken as affectionate references to book makers (I don’t think I could be called bookie-ist) and gay men (a quote). Also, I apologise to Whizz for exposing his sartorial secrets. I love my husband. I stuck with him even though he turned up on our first date […]

White Christmas

Mavis, before she left for university, had a cake business, which led to a significant amount of my kitchen cupboard space being occupied by ingredients and icing tools, cake tins and other fancy equipment. My worktop bore a food mixer in the proportion of those seen on Bake Off, and leaning against the wall in […]

Life is for Learning

You might think that there’s not much left to learn by the time you reach your 60s. Think again. My last couple of years have probably been the most life-changing of all. I suppose that becoming a Nichirin Buddhist has affected that in many ways but this is not intended to be about the benefits […]