A CAT CALLED MERLOT

Thursday 9 September 2021

While waiting (patiently) for my breakfast on Tuesday, I watched Queenie preparing for the day. The whole human ritual of showering, moisturising, blow-drying, applying make-up and getting dressed is quite exhausting, even to watch and makes me feel very glad, despite the odd fur ball, that I have only one outfit. Small wonder that people are preferring to work from home where they can remain, unwashed and in their onesies all day long.

Tic-Tac Teddy and Queenie’s mother, Lydia have decided to get married. At Tic-Tac’s suggestion, the wedding is to have a horse racing theme with guests asked to dress up as Grand National riders. Unfortunately, the invitations went out with the misprint – “jokey” theme. Queenie’s brother Stephen said after the steak tong incident, he and his family would not be attending and in any case, the whole thing was a “joke” and would their mother be wearing the number ten on her back which roughly represented the number of failed marriages she’d clocked up? Queenie told Lydia she would not go to a wedding resembling a massive Battenburg cake or court jester, so Lydia said in that case, she might like to stick to a conventional A-line dress with a nice ‘fascinator’. Queenie retorted that she hates fascinators as she thinks they make peoples’ heads look large or that they’re just too tight to buy a whole hat! As pets aren’t invited and I will have the house to myself, I am planning a romantic evening in with Marjorie. 

On Friday, a member of staff called ‘Alexa’ arrived at the flat. She’s not actually ‘living in’ as she communicates through a speaker in the corner of the room. I had a look round but I couldn’t find her so, to be honest, I’ve no idea where she’s sleeping. Regardless of her domestic arrangements, Alexa has a lot to say for herself and she knows all sorts of things, if asked. Queenie addresses her rather abruptly, yet she always answers politely. I’m slightly concerned she never has a day off or goes out. In the spirit of being helpful, she sometimes offers to do things without being asked and Queenie just gives a very lofty, “Alexa stop.” Yesterday while working from home, Queenie shouted from her bedroom, “Alexa what time is it in Sydney?” To  which Alexa answered “As a noun, squirrel can have a few meanings…” I can only assume she’d dropped off to sleep or was pegging out the washing and hadn’t heard the question.