Cats.

The forecast turned out to be correct and it's been a day of rain which brought the most amazing sea colours. (Well I think so.) Not heavy rain but pretty constant. 

Cat Tales - Yesterday I dropped into J's house to see her two elderly British Shorthair cats (often described as teddy bear cats) as we sometimes chat about our cats when we're out walking. They were very cute with their chunky faces and their rather more than chunky bodies. 

When I got home I got a shock when I saw Speedy. He was sprawled out in my study looking very unhappy and my first thought was that he had been hit by a car. Then my nose told me that it was more likely to be a digestion problem and sure enough there was the evidence too. When Peter told me he had been out for most of the afternoon and then turned up his nose at his dinner we guessed he had eaten something that was now giving him severe stomach ache. We decided to keep an eye on him rather than take him to the vet straight away. Speedy then went outside and walked off down the garden. He returned an hour later looking a lot less rotund, slept for a while on the sofa after which he asked for food, which he did not get. He was fine this morning but I gave him a bit less for his breakfast and by evening he was telling me that he was absolutely starving. Back to normal then.

Why is it that I often underestimate just how long it's going to take to do something? Maybe I'm the eternal optimist. As I had the whole of today free I thought I'd; wipe down the bathroom door and loft hatch, tape all the edges and put up plastic dust sheets to protect everything I wasn't painting and then paint a primer coat of white on all the new plaster. Then towards the end of the day paint another coat of white on the ceiling. In between I could make a start on sorting all the clothes storage boxes in our bedroom. Ha! It was nearly 5.00 by the time I had finished scrubbing down the door, frame and hatch and putting up the dust sheets. At that point I stopped and will begin painting tomorrow. The only other job I did was to soak one of the metal baking dishes with a dishwasher tablet and then scrub off all the baked on grease. Peter seems to think that 'stainless' means that stains will magically fall off rather than coming off with some elbow grease. However he did go into town today and brought back not only a lovely white Christmas cactus but a bar of Lidl's 70% dark chocolate with salted caramel.

Now for a relaxing evening watching Strictly.