Olympic kittens

I am happy to announce that, since we lost our ginger yearling cat on the road last month, we now have two new young tykes in the house, both of whom seem to think it fun to help me write this piece.  I suppose, in the life of a kitten, pretty much everything is fun really. As well as constantly attacking Louis’ wagging tail and chasing butterflies, getting stuck up trees and on the roof are all in a day’s work when you are that age and size. Hopefully they will soon discover rodents and earn their keep.

Over the last month we have had a number of guests staying as the usual summer shenanigans ensued. One nameless visitor might not be rushing back anytime soon after I picked up the mozzie repellent one evening and, in a friendly gesture, liberally sprayed her bare arms and legs only to later realise it was actually a tin of WD40! Oh well, I am sure she managed to slide into bed effortlessly that night!

As the summer temperatures soared (don’t you love the way weather presenters express themselves with words like soaring and plummeting. I guess they must learn excessive weather-speak in their degrees in degrees!) Anyway, during this scorching time of year, my winter fuel arrives, all ten tons of it dumped on the driveway in an awkward pile. There is an old saying that goes ‘firewood warms you twice’. Well I certainly hope I will feel as warm a glow from the log burner during the colder February nights as I did hauling it into an orderly stack by the back door in 35 centigrade. I did nick a few barrow loads to fire the pizza oven last week though, when a dozen or more random Irish strangers turned up for tea. Never being one to turn away friends of friends, it actually turned into a great night as 5 or 6 of them brought musical instruments and we all joined in some quite commendable renditions of everything from Irish folk songs to a few of my old classic Welsh rugby songs. Duw it was hard!

Anyway, the majority of the last four weeks have been taken up by listening to, watching, talking about and shouting at the Olympic Games. Like everyone else in UK I was overawed by the British efforts and their haul of neck ware. One thing that does tickle me in a global assembly of natives such as this is the way so many people are blessed with place-names as surnames. In one race, Mark English (from Ireland), David Rhodesia (from Kenya) , and Kirsty Coventry (Refugee team) all completed. OK, I jest, the latter isn’t in the refugee team although, if I lived in Coventry, I would certainly consider becoming one! And then the local town of Kidderminster made it onto the world map by producing a champion archer which, let’s face it, would come in quite handy from a self defence point of view at midnight on Comberton Hill. Rumour that contestants in ‘window breaking’, ‘drunken brawling’ and ‘dole queuing’ are being entered from the town in the next Olympics are totally unfounded!

Right, moving swiftly on with my head down, we are indecisive about to do with our winter this year. Obviously, after my previous comments, the British Midlands aren’t a safe destination, and we seem to have our holiday home in Scotland booked out for much of the time. So a recent suggestion has been to get mobile and head south. I have had a few experiences in a campervan in the past, once with a group of 6 sweaty rugby enthusiasts touring New Zealand – an odour I will ne’er forget - and again with Wendy making a trip to a rugby game. The idea of seeing the Mediterranean out of tourist season quite attracts me, with the freedom to pitch up for a day or two wherever seems idyllic, maybe cycling a few miles along the leafy canals or gathering driftwood with the dogs and cozying around a bbq on the beach in the evening sea breeze.  However, on the understanding that the success of our perpetual harmony is enhanced by us habiting in an expansive farmhouse here, with 3 or 4 terraces for us both to get some me-time, I am not totally so sure we can spend a few months couped up together, along with the dogs, (and possibly 2 kittens) within a few musty cubic metres.  Not only that, but we both have jobs to keep and work to do which relies heavily on a decent internet connection.  But the dilemma goes even deeper than that, in the fact that while on the move we may not be able to pick up a British TV signal for a couple of months, and thus my wife missing an entire season of Strictly Come Prancing!

What’s that? Ah yes, a nice little 4 berth Hymer will do nicely, thank you! See you in St Tropez for Xmas!