Cats Galore

Word has got round. Little Ginger Cat has been blabbing. You can just hear her.
"Psst, if you want a free saucer of milk, hi-tail it round to Jennyta's. All you need to do is stand at the back door and look forlorn and abandoned. It's a piece of cake, folks. Go on, give it a try!"
So this week, we've had Jack (smart, well-fed marmalade cat) from next door popping in a couple of times. But Jack is a bit on the nervous side, so he doesn't hang around, just gives the kitchen a quick once over and scoots out again.
And then this morning, we had a big black and white feline bruiser pressing his nose to the door. In the distance were Little Ginger Cat and Jack. Maybe he was on a dare.
"Go on! Prove you're hard. Get in there!"
But he didn't. Guess he didn't look forlorn and abandoned enough.

Tired syndrome

No time or energy to blog this last week. I think it's something to do with the hour going back at the end of British Summer Time. Not that I ever take advantage of it to have an extra hour's snooze. No, Sod's Law guarantees that that is the morning that I will be wide awake at the crack of dawn.
Not so this weekend, however. Elder Daughter came to visit and stayed Saturday night. We had a lovely gourmet meal prepared by yours truly (OK, for those who know me, we had a fairly edible meal) and a couple of bottles of very pleasant French wine, of which I had no more than two, that's TWO, glasses. So it was rather annoying, to say the least, that I spent the whole of Sunday dragging myself around with a bad head, feeling like death warmed up. It happens these days. I take a few sips of wine, my liver watches the cascade with horror, throws up its hands and dives for cover.
They do say that it's more difficult to tolerate alcohol as you get older but, come on... TWO MEASLY GLASSES!!!
Anyway, that couldn't apply to me...I'm still 18.

Little Ginger Cat again

Arriving home this evening in pouring rain, I was greeted by Little Ginger Cat. If she had had fists, she'd have been battering the door down. I managed to get it open for her to caterpault herself in and hurl herself into the kitchen where she prowled around looking at me hopefully with that 'I'm starving' look on her face that cats do so well. As I had nothing in the way of food to give her, I fished out an old saucer and gave her some milk (don't tell Keith), which she demolished in seconds. A further helping followed and then...
the ungrateful little madam stood at the back door waiting to shoot out as soon as I opened it.
There's gratitude for you!

Art in Year 2

I'm pretty impressed with these paintings my class did recently of the Great Fire of London. Not bad for the first of the school year.

Parents' evening

Parents' evening today. I did think I'd got away with it. Nothing had been mentioned until just before half term but there you are, you can't win 'em all.
In this school the system is that all the teachers see parents in the hall, rather than in their own classrooms, which is what I've always been used to. This is because there was an incident last year with a threatening parent - a sad sign of the times. So at lunch-time today, someone (I wonder who?) came up with the brilliant idea of having a row of tables with us behind them and 'interviewing' parents, one at a time, a la Dragon's Den or doing an Anne Robinson You are the weakest link, good-bye!
Well, it would have been different...

Christmas is coming

This is where I would like to put a large Christmas tree this year...

Autumn walks

It's been ten months since my lovely dog Lucy died and since then, I have avoided all the routes we used to walk together, but today, I took the plunge and off I went for a stroll around our valley. Here are some of the photos I took on this beautiful autumn morning.