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Catching up

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1:12 pm 1:12 pm

I realise that an immense amount of time has elapsed since my last entry, and I do apologise for my silence. I’m really far too exhausted (see last photo) to give a full account of my activities, but I don’t mind indulging your curiosity with a few representative photographs. Just think of it as a kind of upmarket Hello, just with a genuine celebrity instead of all those dreary nonentities.

Well, the first thing that happened was that it snowed again. I know all about snow now, so was able to enter enthusiastically into the full spectrum of wintry activities. Well, at least until I got frost in my whiskers.

Ellie, of course, just stayed on the warm windowsill and looked at it.

A couple of weeks later, something really mysterious happened; the entire family of house humans (apart from the Gawain whom I hadn’t seen since Christmas) disappeared for several days and left me in charge of the house. (Ellie thought that she was in charge, but she’d obviously misunderstood.) I was a bit concerned about the technicalities of keys and water bowls, but a delightful young lady called Sonia from the vet’s surgery came round twice a day to feed us and take me out, so I needn’t have worried. She was so nice that I tried quite hard to get into her car when she returned the keys, but I was once again thwarted in my automotive plans. I try pulling quite hard whenever we go past the vet’s, but haven’t yet persuaded them to go away again.

I don’t know where they went, whether they got as far as Newsy Land, but it certainly involved a large boat and the recovery of the lost Gawain.

So for a few days the family was at full capacity once more. One thing was rather disturbing – I heard the Sue (the Gawain’s girlfriend, with whom I established a close friendship at Christmas) calling out to me. I looked everywhere, but couldn’t find her. It appeared, to my horror, that she had been trapped inside the Gawain’s computer. It all seemed most uncomfortable, but she sounded happy enough.

Talking of individuals in inappropriately sized containers, Ellie continues to treat my bed as though it is some kind of public feline amenity. The Mum keeps showing me how to flip her out and suggesting that I do the same. It’s amusing to watch, but I fear that I am too much the gentleman to employ such tactics. (And deep down, I must confess to enjoying a nice justified sulk.)

Sadly, after all too short a time, the Gawain and the Mum headed off to the bus station and only the Mum returned. She claims that he is back in Newsy Land, though I’m almost sure that neither Ulsterbus nor Bus Eireann have it on their timetables.

His spirit is still with us, however, as the chess-playing tradition is continued by more junior members of the family. I prefer not to humiliate them by exhibiting my King’s Indian.

Meanwhile I am back at Work, attracting the sympathy of strangers as I plod along in the Dad’s wake. Their concern, well-meant as it is, would be slightly more courteous were it not expressed as ‘Aahh. He’s far too fat to walk.’ It’s thick and healthy fur, I tell you, helped along by the house-humans’ tea tree shampoo. I must confess to being a little weary this evening though.

Reunion

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1:17 pm 1:17 pm

The Dad and I went to the local shop yesterday (peppercorns and garlic bread, if you must know) and Ellie decided to follow us. That much isn’t unusual, but generally she’s distracted by birdlife in the park, and hangs around there, being feline, until we come back. Then she lurks about the shadows and, just when I’ve forgotten to be vigilant, leaps on my back. Ho ho, indeed. I’m sure it was amusing the first few times.

Anyway, whether there was a dearth of starlings yesterday, or she just felt like tormenting me in new and exciting ways I can’t tell, but she crossed the road with us and moseyed on down past the building site. Then she disappeared – whoosh – like a minor character in an Albert Campion story. The Dad, being an old softie, was all worried about her, and when she wasn’t even back for breakfast this morning, insisted on going out to look. He wanted me to come but I explained that it was before eight o’clock and especially cold and that my terrier senses simply wouldn’t be at their best.

Later on it snowed, proper snow, big white flollops of it, and I did feel the teeniest twinge of remorse, in between snores. When there was a lull I agreed to accompany the Mum on a final search. I don’t think the Mum’s sense of smell is any good at all, for she left the sniffing business entirely to me, just following on behind, quite unlike her usual bossiness. I must confess to having a bit of fun with this, leading her to all my favourite lift-the-leg spots before I finally got back to young Ellie’s scent. Unfortunately it stopped at the bottom of a tree, and since Ell wasn’t at the top of it, I was a bit stumped. It was the Mum’s suggestion that we should go on towards the shop, and my humiliation as she insisted on calling Ellie at the top of her voice as we walked along the road.

All of a sudden, as we passed an unprepossing row of brick houses, a small grey shape sped out from behind a garage, whipped across the road and hit me at a forty-mile-per-hour nuzzle. It’s a good thing I’ve got a solid head.

Something has gone wrong with the outside.

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4:48 pm 4:48 pm

It was all right first thing this morning when the Dad took me down to the playground, but by lunchtime the whole world was covered with cold white stuff. It was quite fun, once I got used to it, tasted good and could be kicked around without anyone telling me off. The children of the neighbourhood obviously thought so too; I’ve never seen so many of them outside, all throwing bits of it at one another (and me) and building statues, presumably to the chap who dropped it. The Aidan made one in the back garden, and gave it the Mum’s scarf to keep it warm. I don’t think the Mum can have noticed yet. She’s a bit fussy about her scarves, as I noticed when I tried to make her new one a bit longer. You’d think people would be more grateful.