A CAT CALLED MERLOT

Thursday 3rd September 2020

Last Friday, Lola went missing. Allegedly, she was last seen with a shifty looking tortoiseshell in the local park. Samantha was inconsolable and she put up laminated photographs of her on all the lamp-posts in nearby roads. All the cats in the neighbourhood put their differences aside and went looking for her whilst the humans checked their sheds and cellars in case she has got trapped somewhere. I wandered the streets for four nights on the trot calling and looking for her. Then, on Monday, there was a call from a local vet, saying she’d turned up and they’d located Samantha through her microchip. Lola looked very cagey when she arrived home and wouldn’t talk about where she’d been. The diamanté collar was gone too, which I was sure could only be a good omen. I told her I think we needed a break and she agreed (a little too readily, I felt). I went straight home and out of revenge, renewed my subscription to the YOWL! dating App. 

Queenie is doing still doing Zoom Yoga classes, as the Community Hall has yet to open due to the number of COVID hoops they would have to jump through to comply with regulations. She told Michelle, that whilst it isn’t the same as all being together in the one room, you can at least mute the sound as, when in a Downward Facing Dog, anything could happen! The most dignified position is obviously The Cat. I note she didn’t mention she can also nip off and get a coffee and digestive biscuit in the middle of the session and pretend to be on a bathroom break or taking an urgent call.

Matt and Chantel from Number 20 are pregnant. He told his mates at The Legless Goat pub, he had no idea how it happened and that he really wasn’t sure he was ready to become a dad, after all there were lots more nights out with the boys to be had, before he got himself completely tied down. Chantel, he said, “Used to be fun but now all she seems to do is vomit!” On Saturday, they travelled to a superstore to buy a flat-pack cot in which to cage the baby and I could hear them rowing over how to construct it. Finally, Matt left the house, swiftly followed by what appeared to be the end of the cot, which narrowly missed his head. 

Wendy, Number 29 and Carol, Number 27, went to Guido’s Restaurant in town, on Tuesday evening. It was the first time they’d been out to eat since the COVID lockdown. Wendy told Carol if she hadn’t got out of the house for an evening, she would probably have done something stupid to Brian, who had taken a day off work to demonstrate outside 10 Downing Street, about their daughter Jodie’s “criminal” A Level Results. He’d made a placard with “Justice for Jodie” on it and ended up on the evening news after setting fire to it in front of the Education Secretary’s car, whilst yelling, “That’s what you’ve done to my daughter’s future!” Wendy, who is more down to earth and realistic about her offspring, told Carol the only thing Jodie really works hard at, is lying!