Cold cats and cats with colds

A mega six degrees at 9am. Cloudy, with that tantalising pre-spring smell on the air.

All the cats in Carmine have colds. If you were one of those taking a Sunday stroll around Carmine yesterday, you may not have seen our feline friends, but you may have heard the sneezing and the snoring, the wheezing and the coughing. From inside bushes, behind rickety dry-stone walls, from high up on the rooftops and from behind oversized plant pots.

I worry.

The cat infirmary has two new rooms. The pantry remains infirmary ward no. 1, equipped with a luxurious electrically heated blanket, supplied with all the zucchini chutney a cat could ever want and sleeping at present two. But now also the sitting room and the bedroom have been equipped with litter, food and water, and with snuffly tenants.

The mice, are, of course, dancing on the tabletops by moonlight and helping themselves to all the chocolate and nesting materials they can find (rugs, books, elaborately-decorated Christmas stockings...). Even if a cat decides it might have enough energy to go mousing, they can hear its wheezing around the corner and down the lane, and will have leapt commando-style, back into the woodpile before the poor cat has time to blow her nose.

I'd better get on with the ironing.

PS : About that New Year's Resolution...can I have an extension, please?
PPS : Congratulations to AJ for a fantastic school report. We're very proud of you!