A CAT CALLED MERLOT

Thursday 14th January 2021

On Thursday, Queenie was Zoom dancing with her friends. She told them her cousin had said one of her ancestors was so overweight, the family had to have the window taken out when she died, to remove her body. Queenie maintained, with that genetic heritage, small wonder she was finding it hard to shed the extra pounds. The way things were going it was a toss up between dieting and having bi-fold doors installed. 

Foxes are mating in my garden without permission! I’ve come to the conclusion they’re not very dignified animals, given the racket they’re making. On Saturday, Marjorie and I were out for a romantic stroll, looking for small rodents, under the light of the moon and the foxes must have woken new-born Marcus Rashford, at Number 20, because he then started wailing, in competition. It was extremely poor timing, given I was just about to sing a little love song to Marjorie, and feeling very miffed, we went home. 

Humans are doing that distanced queuing thing again, in masks. Animals don’t queue. If you want something, you simply stare the other out until they walk off in submission or just push in very rudely, like dogs or rhinos who, funnily enough, never need to queue.

Number 4 The Avenue, was finally sold, having remained empty and on the market for nearly a year. There’s a lot of excitement as the house has been purchased by quite a famous author, following a private, acrimonious split with her husband, which was serialised in several magazines. After weeks of tradesmen going in and out, it’s finally finished and she’s moving down from London, this week. Marjorie and I are wondering if she will have cats and if she does, we guessed they’d bound to be Persian or Siamese and called names like Arabella or Cuthbert. Obviously, we’re not going to like them. Even worse though, she might have one of those tiny dogs with bad legs that get carried around all the time, shouting profanities from the depths of an expensive handbag. 

Fortunately, Judith is feeling much better following her spell in hospital, which means Marjorie can leave home more often and we can spend more time together. Judith’s next door neighbours, who devote a lot of time trying to avoid getting into (lengthy) discussions about a broken panel in the fence or the scandalous behaviour of the bin men, told Marcus Briggs that staying indoors is a positive side to lockdown.

Meanwhile, to make life a little brighter, The Avenue has started a quiz night that meets on Zoom on Saturday and Wednesday evenings. Just before the last lockdown, Marcus from number 18 set Alfred from Number 16 up with Queenie’s old PC and managed to show him how to use Skype and Zoom. This has proven a great success as Alfred can now join in and he doesn’t feel so isolated. In fact, he’s so good at answering the questions, everyone wants him on their team. Marjorie and I are of course helpful on these evenings as we walk across Judith and Queenie’s lap top keyboards. As cats, of course we know the answers to everything!