Kittens

I've been busy lately, and so, apparently, has one of the cats. Phoebe, who looks barely larger than a kitten herself, had three little ones of her own, apparently effortlessly and happily. The middle one did not seem to be able to get a look in at feeding times, and we had to hand rear it. It went well for about a week, then sadly, it contracted a lung infection and died. I think that was all the more sad because of course, if you have to get up every couple of hours to feed the little thing, you become quite attached to it, despite efforts to the contrary.

The other two kittens are ginger, cute and fat. They were less cute the other day because they were riddled with fleas, but we used one of the only effective treatments available for beasties of that age, and they are now comfortable, flea-free and almost three weeks old. Phoebe, is jumping the gun slightly with their development, having brought a mouse in for them on the first full day of their existence, and having hoiked them out to the front door yesterday, where she had deposited a pigeon for their consumption. She'll be enrolling them in university next.

Another element keeping me busy of late has been my parents' move to Germany. Last weekend, my husband and I spent many, many hot. dripping hours helping to cram a removals lorry full of their stuff. It turned out that Big Yellow Storage had rented them a room several cubic metres larger than they had actually said, meaning that we still have some of mum and dad's stuff here, ready to ferry off in their caravan when they come over in August to go to collect it, go to a re-enactment, and help us with a little more renovating. Although the lorry left for Bavaria last Sunday, it still hasn't arrived! It broke down about 100 miles to the north of mum and dad's new place a couple of days ago, and this morning, the removals men were off to hire a 7.5 tonne lorry from a nearby depot. This means that they will have to do two trips from their stricken lorry to mum and dad's place. Luckily, my parents are very laid back about the whole thing and laughing at the catalogue of disasters (there's a lot more, particularly regarding the inefficiencies of NatWest). Still, it's far too hot to carry on with all this energetic typing, so I'm off...