I have just found myself singing Happy Birthday to our cat Ronnie who is a year old today. This was at Bryn's insistence, you understand, and not something I would have freely engaged in otherwise.
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| Ronnie as a cute kitten |
So, what has our little feline friend managed to accomplish in his first year of life? Here are a few of the highlights for you.
- He is pretty good at playing the piano and is often heard tinkling on the ivories late at night. Whilst this can be disconcerting it is not as alarming as his sister Coco who has learnt to turn the TV on and is apparently partial to a bit of late night viewing.
- He has managed to clock up 8 visits to the vet's including two anaesthetics, an operation, an endoscopy, several shots of steroids and two courses of antibiotics. Sounds like a normal night out in North Walsham to me.
- He has eaten approximately 30 kg of dried food and 600 pouches of meat but still prefers to chomp on rotting sparrow entrails and flies or to steal leftovers from the hedgehog.
- He is very helpful when it comes to wrapping presents, as I found out at Christmas. Even though it is August we are also still finding stray baubles which he knocked off the tree and rolled under sofas or behind furniture. They are currently sitting on the mantelpiece and will probably stay there until we decorate again in December.
- His best trick to date was jumping in a bowl of pea and ham soup and then proceeding to re-decorate the lounge with it.
- He is a handsome, affectionate, funny little chap and I hope he will be with us for many years to come just with fewer visits to the vet's.
I don't like to talk about this much in public for fear of waking up one morning to find a horse's head in my bed, but my husband is a member of a big North Walsham gang. I blame his friend Dennis for getting him into it. He came home one day a few years ago and told me he was going to a Rotary meeting. I thought this seemed harmless enough at the time but how wrong I was. It has taken over his life and is much more than the innocent fund-raising jamboree which it presents itself as. That is the acceptable face of Rotary. I am going to take you into an underworld of politics, back-biting and pavlovas that you never knew existed.
To begin with I managed to keep out of it but then the phone calls started. These mainly came during the afternoon at about 3.30 when the advert break during Countdown was on. Sometimes I was home from work by this time and would see the 01692 area code on my caller display and know it was one of them. "Oh hello my dear, Cedric here. Is Geof in? No? Oh, you're his secretary are you? Ha ha. Could you just take down this message for him please." On other occasions I would be out, but pick up a message. It is worth mentioning at this point that many Rotarians are ex services and old habits die hard. "Geof! Reg here.Thursday 3.01 pm. Just phoning with some figures for you to look at so maybe you could get back to me. Message ends Thursday 3.02"
Next came Geof's involvement in various events, with pieces of paper blu-tacked to the kitchen cupboards. My personal favourite was in the early months of his membership when he was called upon to help put up a stall for the Rotary stand at the Christmas Fair in town. When he joined he was 50 and managed overnight to halve the average age of members. Therefore, being a 'youngster' he would get called upon for any jobs which involved physical activity. As I glanced up at my kitchen cupboard I could not believe what I saw. There in bold font were instructions for the Christmas Fair under the heading 'ERECTION TEAM'. Perhaps this was going to end up being one of North Walsham's more memorable events?
Anyway, the years passed, the Rotary Chairmen died and were replaced. Then in December last year things took a nasty turn. The new Waitrose had opened here and it was time for the Christmas collection. Naturally our Rotary wanted to collect outside Waitrose but the Bure Valley branch had already bagged that spot, and so the Turf War began. By now I was the North Walsham Treasurer's Bitch and was worried that I might start getting death threats from the Inner Wheel (that's the one they let the little ladies join apparently). How would I meet my end? By eating ricin-laced lemon curd? Maybe I would be found with crochet needles in my eyes or get bundled into the boot of a Honda and driven off Cromer Pier?
However, there's not much that a change of name and identity and a bit of help from the witness protection programme can't resolve. They still haven't caught up with us and I even managed to make a public appearance at the Lord Mayor's Banquet earlier this year. I nearly gave the game away what with being about the only person there who could walk un-aided but I think I got away with it ...
Bryn has come home from school with details of a 'design a Christmas stamp' competition. Starting this in July seems a touch over-zealous, but he is keen, so I decided to give him my support and the full benefit of my wisdom. Whilst my artistic skills equal those of a partially sighted gorilla, I like to think that my strengths lie in the ideas department.
He said he wanted to do a picture of lots of presents in front of a Christmas tree. Nice, I thought, but it's been done before. (Blue Peter circa 1981?). I said why didn't he do a series of stamps telling a story? Make it realistic and a true reflection of a family during the festive season? This is what I came up with.
Stamp 1 - Christmas Eve. Mummy is slumped in a chair having drunk half a bottle of gin. Granny is arriving later and Mummy can't stand Granny. She says she has never been good enough for her precious son.
Stamp 2 - Christmas Morning. A picture of the still frozen turkey which someone forgot to take out of the freezer yesterday. Mummy is taking some tablets and saying 'We might as well have f******* pizza for lunch'
Stamp 3 - Mummy and Daddy are having a row as they vainly attempt to defrost the turkey with a hair-dryer. Daddy is shouting over the noise of the hair-dryer 'You've never liked my mother anyway have you?
Stamp 4 - January 4th. Mummy is signing some papers with 'Decree Nisi' written across the top and cutting all the sleeves off Daddy's suits.
I'm sure this wouldn't win any competitions but it would give the judges a bit of a laugh!
p.s. I am lucky enough for this NOT to be based on my life experience. I have the loveliest mum-in-law x
