A week and a day until Easter believe it or not. The shops have been screaming about it for so long I’ll be glad to see the end of it, and maybe a month of barbeque crap before they start pushing Christmas.
I’m out of the woods. It was all I could do to pull myself away. I woke up, scrutinised the now tainted bird feeder. Less busy, but some larger birds came. Some crows and the woodpecker. The noisy jackdaw. I’m nervous now as if it was a peregrine, the tit was just a snack. Might have been a sparrowhawk though, cognitive bias is a thing and I’ve had falcons on the brain. Hell of a thing to have witnessed. I still love predators.
Semi feral cats are great. Rajah only wanted food once a day and never bothered me for it. Carlos is a bit more needy but warm at night. Both of them go outside for all their poo and wee, and they have such a range that there’s no issues about shit all over the place. I just got to bask in the spring sun and do absolutely fuckedytuesday for a whole week. I cooked a bit, but also fell a little bit in love with Lime Wharf Café, with better coffee than I can make in the woods and a reasonably priced and always absolutely brilliant breakfast if you get there in time. Some of my mornings I was too slow and I got presented with the lunch menu which is alright, but for just a 7 minute drive it was my treat every other day. Pretending I’m in civilisation, then back to the cats. Also my phone works there, it doesn’t work in the woods. So I would eat my breakfast mumbling into my raybans, looking like some sort of maniac, catching up with Lou or a friend.
Reasonably speaking I did go a bit feral in the woods. But Lou observed I had been getting a bit crowded out in London, as evidenced by the day I went to try and wind down at Chelsea Physic Garden, but it was full of tour groups so I went home and Maria was shouting about laundry so I went and sat in my car outside for about an hour and a half just because it was the most solitary place I could find and I was getting flooded. I do get flooded eventually, much as “I love the people,” as Lou puts it. I needed a break.
I’m with her now and another cat, this one fluffier and much higher maintenance. Tomorrow I’ll be back to crazy and lazy and London town. There’s always a cat these days, it’s the rules. Usually there are multiples, even if I’m not counting myself.
AlBarclay 