July 7th - History was made...

The battle to integrate Charlie into our household is a long way from being won.  We were woken this morning to the sounds of scrapping going on in the front garden and I ran out to see Charlie giving Chivers some grief from the safety of the rocking chair.  Shortly after this Chivers must have got a shot in as Charlie came in having lost his collar and I found it underneath the seat.

Charlie will not leave Chivers alone and Chivers gets irritated by him - he mooches off but not too far.  Minnie actually came into the garden twice today but took one look at Charlie and disappeared almost as soon as she arrived.  Again she doesn't go too far - we would just like them both to come in, be left in peace and stay.  Early days I know but it is hard work and we don't see very much improvement at the moment.

Charlie is calming down with us but he has a bizarre habit of suckling my arm in the morning when we let him out of the bedroom.  I have looked this up and apparently this is as a result of being separated from his mother too early.  He suckles and pads and it is excruciatingly painful after a couple of minutes.  I have tried to wean him from my arm with a fluffy slipper 'mother substitute' but it hasn't worked that well.

We have found integrating Charlie into our household harder work than we had anticipated.  He is almost schizophrenic being sweetness and light one minute and then a whirling dervish the next.  I think we need to give him more stimulation so that he knows that toys are toys and other cats and humans are not toys.  We dashed into the duckpond market on our way to Mum and Dad's to get him his own stainless steel food bowl because apparently he should be aware which food bowls are his and not eat from the other bowls and a new toy for him to play with.

As I said we were down at Mum and Dad's today - our normal Sunday get together and probably our last Sunday lunch at 3 Lakoudia Street (which is beginning to look a bit bereft of belongings!!).  After the debacle of Thursday and the missing car documents I wanted documentary evidence of having handed over EVERYTHING to Mum and Dad including the covernote for my sister and brother in law who arrive on Wednesday.  If it gets lost now I know that WE DONT HAVE IT!!!

I may have remembered the car documents but I was in the doghouse with John because I forgot to take the Yorkshire Puddings to go with our roast dinner.  Mum had done a lovely roast pork and even better we had the leftovers of the joint to take home and have in sandwiches.  It was delicious, and, I don't want to gloat but Dad and I were on fire with the Canasta today.

We made our way home, fully laden with all sorts from Emba including about 5 pallets which John will split for kindling in the winter.

We wanted to be home in time to watch the Wimbledon men's final and I was even going to have a little lager or two/three!!!

Watching Andy Murray is soooooo frustrating and both Mum and I have to put up with Dad and John moaning about how useless Murray can be but like I say: what year exactly did Dad then John win the final - John said that he would have given Djokovik a run for his money - yeah yeah yeah.

In the end I thought it was a brilliant match - the scoreline was maybe a bit flattering and I was so bloody glad Murray got the issue with his trainer sorted - I mean you would think with all his money he could have got a decent pair on from the start wouldn't you?

Anyway we sat and watched history being made and I think it was thoroughly deserved.  As John said the Lions did it and Murray did it and hopefully the cricketers will do it so shouldn't those overpaid, overindulgent England footballers pull their fingers out?