Mr Sandman...

I firmly believe that your body tells you when you need to sleep and when you have had enough and that if you listen to it and act on it then you will achieve a tremendous sense of well-being and wake feeling refreshed and ready to face the world.  Absolutely no chance of that in this house-hold I am afraid as the cats have body clocks which fluctuate with the seasons so at the moment they are up and awake with the larks.

Minnie comes in first with that annoyingly invasive starvation squeak that is so hard to ignore but if you can then she will mooch back out of the bedroom in disgust and wait in the conservatory for you to appear.  For some reason she has taken to being fed outside - either outside the back door on the edge of the pump house or outside of the conservatory.  I think this is so she gets some peace and is not knocked off of her food by Boris.  Boris is normally next to come in - he announces his arrival with a series of miaow-miaows and then flops either on or between or next to your legs and from there he will sleep until you decide to get up and feed him.  Charlie on the other hand cannot be placated when he comes in to announce he is hungry - he whinges and whinges and gets up to all sorts of naughtiness including climbing up the walls until you give in.  Chivers, the dad of the pad, is either asleep on the sofa keeping a watchful eye on proceedings or appears after the others have been fed just as you are settling back in bed with a coffee and the morning paper.  He likes to eat alone finding the antics of Charlie just a bit too much to bare.

It is our fault - we say we are going to keep the cats out of the bedroom and then give in immediately even though they have been provided with many many different sleeping places around the house and garden.  There is something very comforting to see them sprawled out, legs akimbo, tummies bared absolutely at peace and with no fear of danger in a country where their animal welfare record is so poor.  Our four rescues are loved beyond belief, they are our children and our company, we love them and they love us back (usually when they want feeding).

Anyway still feeling like absolute poo I hauled myself out of bed today because I needed to get the guest bedroom ready, clean and cat-free for our visitors - even though whilst my back was turned getting the steam mop for the floor Boris snuck in and made himself comfy.  He was unceremoniously booted out (for that read carried onto our bed and made a fuss of).  The room is now clean and ready and hopefully has everything Jordan and Abi are going to need for their week (6 days actually because of poor flight times.)

Our bedroom is done too and we have fresh hay (sorry John) and whilst looking for that hay I decided that the linen cupboard need sorting so I have done that as well.  Please peeps stop me if I ever look like I am going to buy any duvet covers - I have plenty and some still unused from having brought them over with us from the UK.

It has been incredibly hot here today - which is great when you have a head cold!  I cannot believe how much the temperature has ramped up.  Poor Mum and Dad have had to have all the windows shut at their place because the wheat or whatever it is being grown around them is being cut today - a dirty and dusty job.

Happily I can report that there seems to be no lasting damage to any of the appliances after yesterday's episode which is good news - I managed to remove the pool cover and fish out the dead bird which committed suicide in there this afternoon and have now put the cover back on although I guess none of these actions will have been carried out to John's standards!  I have some final cleaning to do before Saturday which I shall leave until Saturday, plus some shopping as the fridges look a bit bare.  Just need this bloody cold to go now...