… tactical substitution during the night.

When I finally crawled into bed last night, Cujo the Killer Cat climbed onto the bed and curled up next to me. Of course it’s not too easy to sleep when someone is continually head-butting your arm demanding strokes and the like.

Eventually though I fell asleep but when I awoke with the alarm (you can tell that I’m full of all good intentions) Cujo the Killer Cat had gone at some point and curled up against me on the other side of the bed was Oscar, the ginger and white cat.

He’s a cat that Hannah brought back from University. He had been effectively abandoned by his previous owner and she couldn’t see him allowed to go feral.

Cujo the Killer Cat took a great deal of exception to this intruder and does her best to keep him under control, but he’s learning to fight back.

But anyway, here was was on my bed this morning, which is quite unusual. He’s not usually this affectionate with me.

But there was an undefended stomach there that demanded attention and so I duly obliged. And once I started to tickle it he grabbed hold of my arm and held on to it, refusing to let go. Consequently we stayed like this for some considerable time, and neither of us complained at all

So much for my good intentions.

In fact, had it not been for the necessity of my going for a ride on the porcelain horse, the two of us would probably still be there now.

With the time that was left I managed to do some of the work but with it being a Bank Holiday there was one of Rachel’s legendary breakfast brunches with which I needed to contend. People travel miles for one of those and it’s no surprise.

Darren and Rachel had recently bought some wooden furniture for around the pool and it needed wood treatment. Darren went to rig up the compressor and the spray gun and I went as labourer and we spent a happy couple of hours in the sun this afternoon giving it all the treatment.

Later on Rachel wanted to go down to the mill to feed the mill cats so I went along for the drive. We went visiting while we were out and I ended up having a really good chat with someone about the Norse in North America. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that this is a subject in which I have quite an interest.

Tea tonight was made by making use of all of the leftovers that have accumulated over the last week – I’m not the only one who does this. However, it wasn’t a curry but a stir-fry of rice, vegetables and black beans. Things like this are just as delicious as when they are cooked, and sometimes even more so.

However, at last I’ve managed to finish the dictaphone notes. There was actually some stuff from last night that I had recorded. We’d been coming back from a works outing somewhere. The coach was coming up the bank past Wistaston Manor. The driver said that there were a couple of people to alight here. He couldn’t remember their names. There was a huge pile of paperwork that I’d collected which was totally in chaos. I couldn’t find the names either. I was just so disorganised and had stuff everywhere. I only had half the passengers on the bus. In the end I went back and enquired as to who they were. We stopped and a couple of people alighted. I made a note of their names. Then a few more alighted as well but I wasn’t sure why. I imagined that the next stop would be somewhere round the top of Ruskin Road but there were people milling around so much that it was actually impossible to have them sit down so that I could enquire where they wanted to be. All in all it was a total chaotic situation. Only the driver seemed to have any kind of control over anything and even then it was only by the sheerest luck.

There was also something about me being on an express double-decker coach on another occasion last night but I can’t remember anything else at all about that.

The notes for the last couple of days are now on line too so now I’m off to bed for an early night. There’s a Welsh class again tomorrow so I have to be up and at the computer at … gulp … 06:00 and I’m not looking forward to that.