The joy of just hanging out

Now this might not look like much to the casual viewer; just a load of washing hanging on a washing line, slightly stuck in a tree.  To me, it’s a revelation. 

We’ve been here over two years now and whenever I’ve put the washing out I’ve had to make sure the dark stuff goes closer to the central pole and that the show side of each item does not touch the washing line.  This is because the washing line was green and everything pegged to it had little green moss lines on it afterwards.

Today, before I put the washing out, I cut the old line down and replaced it with new line.  The replacement line’s been waiting for about a year but I somehow thought Ian would do it.  That of course would have required Ian to hang the washing out and then notice the little green lines.  What possessed me to think it would ever make onto, let alone to the top of, his To Do List I will never know.

I can’t say it was quick, but it was easy. 

Below is some of the old line… looks like the results of the gardening I did later in the day, but it’s white washing line.

Payback time

I love child labour.  The girls moved about 300 logs (they were counting, I’ve forgotten the details) for 1p a log, doubled if they finished the whole log pile.  They did.  Marvellous.

They did pretty well out of it in the end – they exchanged the cash option for books and I’m sure I completely overpaid… I’m a sucker for books.

A pool without a leak

Ian fixed the pool.  It was doubly heroic because it was bitterly cold, even indoors by the fire.  Outside standing in ice water it was very, very cold.  He drained the pool, cut out the rot, and filled it.  He even braved electrical appliances in the pool – my only job to stand by and cut the electricity supply if all did not go according to plan.

We hope this will mean that there is far less water flowing in and out of the ground and that therefore the algae problem will be reduced… we hope.

More death...

There’s been another death.  We will never know if the cat was involved this time.  Perhaps on this occasion it was suicide but in the absence of written confirmation of intention, I believe the coroner would have to record death by misadventure.  Whatever the cause, the tell-tale sign down by the feather still stuck to the glass records the poor pigeon’s last thought: Oh shit.

Living with a killer

I've never lived with a killer cat before.  The odd mouse, yes, but a daily kill - or two - is new to me.

I've learnt not to come downstairs in the morning without shoes.  I did it once.  It is quite dark in the kitchen in the morning and those worn, dark, slightly sticky carpet tiles harbour dark stains and Jack-the-Ripper shadows even on the brightest of days.  The day I thought the kitchen was all clear but then felt something revolting between my toes was not a good one.  "Get Daddy," I commanded as I went off to wash my foot without inspecting it.  Ian is amused by it all and cheerfully corrected me: "It wasn't its guts, it was brain."  Thanks.

So, I've learnt to scan the floor when I come down in the morning, but in the past couple of weeks Izzy's moved to a whole new level.  She particularly likes Ian's choir nights and pub nights confirming in my mind that cats are evil, vindictive creatures - she's never like me much and I'm almost certain this is less for the fun of the kill than the pleasure of making me spend an entire evening with my feet elevated above the carnage.  Now it's not just mice she brings in to taunt, but birds, and birds of all sizes at that. 

Perhaps I should gather up the feathers instead of vacuuming them.  We could go into duvet production.

Izzy's a small cat.  By the end of summer wood pigeons are large birds.  I'm not entirely sure how she even manages to squeeze them past the clatter of bicycles and through the cat flap, but she does. 

Fortunately this afternoon I'd not been in the kitchen when Ian walked in chuckling at the lastest blur of feathers and contribution to the family pot.

Tonight she brought in a tiny bird, trotted past me to her preferred rug of torture and began the kill.  I am squeamish; I summoned Ruth.  Izzy ducked and dived as we tried to get her out of the way.  She grabbed the bird and took it under the stairs, but we cleared a path and the bird was suddenly exposed.  Izzy snatched it away to the playroom, but clearly realised even an emu could escape detection in the chaos and she soon had it back on her preferred rug where she recommenced her circling.  We couldn't catch the wily cat nor the nervous bird.

Suddenly Izzy grabbed the bird and broke away from us heading up the stairs and onto the altar rail.  The bird escaped and Izzy lost sight of it hidden above the stair.  Briefly.  Then she was down on the beam and popped up underneath the rafters.  Izzy looking at me from one side of a joist, the bird from the other.  Then back up onto the altar rail and down she dropped safe in the knowledge that we could reach neither her nor her prey.  But the bird got away and amazingly could still fly. 

So here I sit.  The bird is now high up on the wall completely out of our reach.  The cat is locked in the kitchen.  Stalemate.  For now.

I imagine when Ian gets home he will walk through the kitchen, find some alternative corpse on the floor and come in chuckling to tell me about it.

Ugh.

Genius

My husband is a bloody marvel.  In the 18 months we've been here it has never crossed my mind that there is an alternative to shoving the vacuum cleaner back into the cupboard hard enough that the dustpans and brushes would simply be forced out of the way.  Ian had a brilliant idea.  A hook.

Now if only he'd thought to use the dustpans sooner!

Kitchen carpet

Whoever would have guessed that anyone could make our kitchen floor look worse?  Well, the puppies certainly have... but they are so cute!