A CAT CALLED MERLOT

Thursday 10th December 2020

Officer Dribble, the big black and white, toothless cat from next door and I have reached an uneasy truce over the past couple of years. The agreement is, that if we want to cross each other’s garden we submit a cat-lick-ation form and await approval. Acceptance is indicated by the wave of a paw. In response we cross quickly and don’t linger too freely enjoy the abundance of scents in our respective domains. On Monday, however, he breached protocol, stared through my window, pointing at Marjorie, dribbling profusely and winking lasciviously before sitting, belligerently, in the middle of my lawn! Under extreme provocation I sprinted into the kitchen, planning to fly out through the cat flap to give him a piece of my mind. Marjorie would, I’m sure, have been very impressed at my display of machismo but the batteries had gone flat and I just ended up with a headache as I hit the shut flap with a heck of a bang! Meanwhile, old O.D. just sat sniggering from the safety of my patio.  

Maria Bianchi is learning to drive. On Friday, Marjorie and I were on our way to town to drool at the smells outside Stan’s Wet Fish Shop, when we heard a bit of a commotion from the direction of the zebra crossing. It turned out to be Maria and her instructor in a red Fiat 500, sporting “L” plates. It appeared a young man had been halfway across the crossing, when Maria screeched to an emergency stop, hand on horn and head out of the window, tapping her head to signify madness and yelling at him to get out of the road as wearing black and white on a zebra crossing was ‘pazzo’ and what was he thinking? Her instructor, checking his neck for whiplash, finally pulled on the hand-break and tried, unsuccessfully to reason with her from behind his mask until, finally losing his cool, he attempted to prise her fingers from the horn. I suppose the pedestrian was lucky as he avoided the water-pistol treatment that I get, if I get caught on her flower bed.

The talk this week on the news is all about vaccination. There seems to be a lot of fuss going on about  how to get the elderly COVID-vaccinated in their care homes. Why can’t they apply the same tactics as they do with cats –  just ambush them whilst they are having a nice, relaxed breakfast, crate them up so they can’t escape and drop them at the doctors? Before they knew it, they’d be back in their chairs, enjoying a Fondant Fancy with a cup of tea while watching Pointless.

On Monday, Gideon let Marjorie and I have a look round Jonah, his Eco-Pod. It’s very cozy but I felt a bit odd sitting in the stomach of a fish. Normally it’s the other way round…