A CAT CALLED MERLOT

Tap on video to hear Merlot’s song

Thursday 1st October 2020

Mike and Jackie’s son Dylan has gone back to university to begin his second year. When he arrived home after his first year, he was suffering from weight loss, scurvy and showing signs of rickets. Jackie said she thought she’d prepared him for independence and although he was doing a history degree, she hadn’t bargained for him living life like a seventeenth century sailor i.e. Staying for most of the time in a confined, dark space and living in squalor, on a diet of mouldy bread and porridge. 

Jodie from Number 27 has a new boyfriend, Seb. He’s also going back to school to re-take his ‘A Levels’, having had his “life ruined” by the Education Secretary. However, there isn’t a great deal of evidence that either of them are working enough to get the grades for university and Brian is getting increasingly frustrated to find Seb and worse, his trainers in the hallway, every evening when he returns from work. Aside from the total lack of academic application, Seb has a terrible foot odour problem, made worse by the fact he refuses to wear trainer socks. On Tuesday afternoon, Brian arrived home unexpectedly, in a bad mood, with the vein in his temple visibly throbbing, through irritation. Overcome by the noxious smell of Seb’s feet, he flung all the windows and doors open and deposited the offending footwear at the end of the driveway. To make things worse, their stupid dogs kept bringing them back into the house and leaving them on the kitchen floor. Fuming, Brian put them “out of reach” on the adjoining wall to next door and within two hours, Fernanda from number 29 had called the Council to report a serious problem with the drains.

Hector and Martha from Number 23  decided to adopt one of the parrots who needed re-homing due to owners ‘working from home’ being unable to cope with their incessant noise. Hector had one when he was a boy and he convinced Martha it would remind them of the beautiful Caribbean birds of their childhood. Very excited, Hector purchased a giant cage full of enrichment toys and Kiki arrived at her new home with aplomb. From the moment Hector saw her lovely green and red plumage, he fell in love and had to wipe a nostalgic tear from his eye. However, on the first night in her adopted home, quietly regarding her new surroundings and watching Hector and Martha enjoying their evening meal, she suddenly put her head on one side and screeched, “Will you JUST shut the f*** up! I’m on a Zoom meeting!”