Bank Holiday Friday...

Today we were on Sunday routine as it was a bank holiday for Epiphany.  Sunday routine means a lie-in (which could just mean that John stays in bed one second after 7.30am!).  Now that our little lovelies can make their way in and out of the cat flap and they don't have to have a box of cat litter there isn't such a requirement to get up early and sort them out.  John can just open the door to the bedrooms and they can come in if they want to.

We had coffee in bed for the first time in ages and waited for the bundles of fun to arrive.  Although Minnie Mou is turning into a very independent moggie whose cuddles are very firmly on her terms only she is rather keen on our bed - I think she likes to sink into the duvet!  She is also very much a daddies girl and is much more tolerant of John's attention than mine but then he is more patient with her than I am.

Although the forecast for this weekend was appalling we had some early morning sunshine breaking through the curtains which John and Minnie found very pleasant for snoozing in.  Chivers was having none of it and was out stalking the garden for unfriendly leaves or suspect bits of plastic.  Where is he when one of the feral cats is in the garden?  One of the slappers from up the road was in the front garden this morning looking menacingly through the conservatory doors but there was no Chivers to give her a good cuffing - he is going to have to toughen up if he is to be 'Top Cat' in this neighbourhood I can tell you.  Minnie has twice the balls that he has and she hasn't got any (if you get my drift!!!).

John moved his Sunday routine to the lounge and engrossed himself in the Paphos Post which is one of our local freebie newspapers although it has very little in the way of news but quite a lot of interesting classified ads.  I left him too it while I started on the meal that I was going to serve to Melanie and Simon later.  Welcome to the carnage that is my kitchen when I decide to cook!  John thinks that there may be just one pan I haven't used but I'm not so sure!  Still you need quite a lot of pans when you cook mulled brandy, parsnip apple and roast chestnut soup, butter bean and chorizo chowder, chicken tagine, orange spiced cous-cous, banana and sultana bread and butter pudding, poached oranges and orange yoghurt cream!  Not all for this evening admittedly but once I get the bit between my teeth and there is food that needs to be used up there is just no stopping me!

When John made a bid to get up and get going Chivers got him in a headlock trying to make him stay put!  It was a bit of a struggle but in the end John came out on top but at the rate that Chivers is growing it will only be a matter of time before he is the victor!  Those big paws could do some damage if he wasn't such a wuss.  Still John had to move as we had to get ourselves ready for Melanie and Simon coming round this evening

We had agreed that if it was raining that John would pick them up and right up until just before they were due with us it remained fine and dry and then the bloody heavens opened so his taxi service was required.  We got the house all cosy with mood lighting and the fire on.  Mood lighting is great on two counts, firstly everyone looks better in poor light (remember all those times at the end of a disco when the lights came up and you stared horrified at the Adonis you had smooched your way through the slow and gropey with and who turned out to look like Quasimodo's ugly brother in full light) and secondly candles provide supplementary heat - I mean to say the Chinese cant be wrong can they - they heat your food with it quite successfully.

We had a lovely evening with Melanie and Simon.  Melanie is a cat lover - Simon is allergic so it is an opportunity for Melanie to get her fix.  Minnie and Chivers are very wary of strangers because in their world the only time they have seen someone other than John and I or Mum and Dad it is generally because they have been taken to the vets so it takes them a little while to be friendly plus Minnie can be aloof just for the hell of it!  The plus side to this is that when we have visitors they tend to sit in their bed rather than racing around the lounge up and down the sofas like things possessed, neither do they come begging at the table.  Eventually Chivers relaxed and decided to give Melanie the ultimate sign of friendship in that he gave her hand a good old licking.

We rounded off the evening by getting out the Wii - good old bowling - everyone enjoys it!

We then had a quick try at the balancing game where you try and get the balls down the hole and topped it off with ski-jumping!!  The only trouble was that by this time it was about 1.00am in the morning and these things are probably better (or should I say safer) done earlier in the evening!

Fortunately the rain had stopped by the time Melanie and Simon came to leave!