A CAT CALLED MERLOT

Thursday 18th February 2021

For Valentine’s day, Queenie made Marjorie’s card for me. We spent a good hour with glue and coloured pencils, putting it together. I helped by sitting on the glued bits to make sure they stuck fast. Queenie said all those years of watching the children’s programme Blue Peter (without ever winning a badge) were coming to fruition. She then added that under the circumstances, she was quite grateful Jim’ll Fix it never got in touch either, in response to her endless letters asking to meet George Michael.

Lydia, Queenie’s mother called to say she’d had her COVID injection but was shocked to see how many people her age were tottering around with walking aids and with high blood pressure outside the vaccination centres. She put it down to “cannabis”, maintaining if they’d all started taking it in their twenties (rather than popping a derivative that’s had the joy removed from it, in their seventies), like her, they could have been “chilled out” for the last fifty years. She also reckoned inviting elderly and vulnerable people to all come together, to queue for their jab in freezing weather was probably a Government ploy to save on social care. Queenie, ignoring yet another one of her mother’s conspiracy theories casually asked if she was still intending to marry Suki. Lydia replied she’d gone off the idea. On balance, her Sapphist phase, she acknowledged, was probably over and in any case, she’d swapped numbers with the gentleman volunteer who had given her the jab at the vaccination centre. As he uses a wheel chair, she thought there might be a few issues with getting him into the camper van but she’s looking into whether she might be eligible for a financial assistance to have it modified. She confided she ‘quite fancied one of those hydraulic platforms’ and if things didn’t work out with the Vaccinator, she’d be able to use it as a sort of raised patio area, during the summer. Queenie said it was probably a little premature to start applying for grants, since the two of them hadn’t as yet, even been out for a coffee. Lydia told her she was simply doing what Queenie kept nagging her about – future proofing. 

Queenie told me this week that despite me disturbing her sleep, by constantly ringing the bell on my collar for her attention throughout the night, I make her smile every day, which is really very nice. I’m now confused though, as I thought that’s what the bell is for?