I forgot to mention.....

This talk of wild life has reminded me that the Bear may have returned to the locality.

I went to stroke Eddy a couple of days ago and he pulled his head away. This is very unusual as Eddy is one of those cats that loves to have his ears scratched and his cheeks rubbed. On closer inspection I could see that he had two nasty gashes on his head; one at the base of his left ear and the other above the right eye.

His claws are a little ragged too.

He has either been involved in a major scrap or has forgotten that cars are harder than cats. I really hope its just a bad fight as he really has used up all of his nine lives. With just three legs he cannot afford to damage any of his remaining limbs.

On the plus side his wounds are all superficial and are healing well - but then again cat bites tend to get infected, car wounds are less likely to.

Hungry?

I woke this morning and the alarm clock said just gone 4. I congratulated the aforementioned timepiece at having evolved to such a point that it no longer gave any unnecessary precision in the time it displayed.

Aside.... How many times do you actually need to know the precise time? Generally to the nearest 5 minutes is more than adequate. So why are clocks so precise? Mind you, Commander Data couldn't contract "is not" to "isn't" so I'm guessing that if Doctor Noonien Soongh couldn't do it then current Horologists are going to find it a bit beyond them to give me a clock that says " time to get off to work" rather than "8:15".

I nearly died at the thought of tossing and turning for three hours so did what all good Atheists do and prayed for sleep. Fortunately the Gods, who don't exist, smiled on me and the next thing I knew Jon Humphrys was announcing the news at 7.

So where is this going? Part of my early Morning ritual is to feed Potato the contents of a Whiskas Pouch.

Now I know this is not an original comment but why are cat foods not sparrow and mouse flavour rather than Tuna and Salmon? Have you seen a Tuna? They are Ocean Monsters that can easily get to 9 or 10 feet long and weigh hundreds of lbs. Now I know that Eddy claims to have beaten a bear in a fight but can you really see a Moggy diving from a Helicopter in to the Southern Ocean to wrestle a Tuna to the surface in time for tea? Imagine finding that corpse has been dragged through the cat flap.

Alright I'm getting there... Potato is not original in his approach. He winds himself around your legs and meows until you trip over him or get sick of the noise. He then gets a pouch of cat food and I get a moments peace. Now recently he has taken to scoffing a couple of pouches which is not a big deal as he is a large tabby. But this week I have found that he is applying the same technique to 30% and seems to be getting through 3 or more pouches for Brekky and then retiring to the sofa with a stomach that looks like it actually has a Bluefin Tuna stuffed inside it.

Have you ever seen the film Cool Hand Luke? It is a classic piece of cinema starring a young Paul Newman as a prison inmate. I'm not going to run through the plot here but if you are not familiar I would definitely add it to the list of films to see before you die. Putting aside that cheerful thought, there is a scene in the movie where Newman decides to take on a wager that he can eat 50 hard boiled eggs in an hour. It has to be seen but there a point where Newman is having his distended stomach massaged to facilitate the progress of the eggs and Potato's current gluttony reminded me of this classic film.

I found a Cool Hand Luke DVD in Potato's favourite lair the other day and the chickens' production has been down a bit of late too. If I find a scrawled wager in his fur coat I'll have the proof I need. He's up to no good.

Hiatus

That pretty much summed up the feeling this morning.

We look forward to a week off having both survived a cull and will enjoy the time before we go back in to the fray that is delivery of IT and Network Services to Ingrates.

I woke around 8 and released 20 frustrated chickens who should know by now that I like a bit if a lie in at the weekend. Tyson & Marauder charged around the garden and eventually decided that they would follow the example of the chickens and lay a couple of eggs of their own!

I then retired for a leisurely coffee (Monsoon Malabar) before clambering in the Prius for a run over to my Dad's house. I stopped off for diesel at the nearest petrol station and felt mugged when I had to hand over in excess of £60 for a tank of gas. At 28 - 30 mpg I tend to drive her with a light right foot and with that level of fuel economy diesel need to be bloody cheap for me to consider driving "off route" because it is cheaper elsewhere. Tesco frequently do a 5p off per litre offer when you spend over £50 on groceries. With a 50 litre tank this means that my maximum saving is £2.50. The Prius does about 6 miles to the litre so at 1.25 per litre £2.50 works out at 12 miles of driving. In other words Tesco needs to be on my doorstep to make it worth driving the Prius there to take advantage of the offer.

Now I know that I should drive something more economical but I love her and her ability to consume vast quantities of kids, dogs, animal feed and crap that needs to be taken to the tip. She is also very easy to find in a car park which means that I never have to think about where I've parked her at the zone b, space 23 level - just in the car park near the station.

Right, where was I? Yep - My Dads. He and Step-Mum are off for a week away and I have been trusted to water plants; specifically pots and tomatoes. It was nice to potter round the garden with Dad and pull his leg whilst he was allegedly taking me through my duties. We get on well together and have both reached the stage where we are friends as well as father and son.

With Father away I have a plan. I'm seriously considering nipping out to Halfords for a couple of cans of yellow paint and some body filler. I reckon that with a couple of hours work I can get my lawn mower shiny and yellow. then all I have to do is chuck it in the trailer and take it over to Dads. Swap it out with his new Husquevarna. Job done. He's never going to put me in the frame for it especially with all his tomatoes pert and upright having received more that adequate watering during his week at the sea side. If I'm lucky he might not notice for weeks.

Cue Vincent Price again.

On the subject of Lawn Mowers, 30% is not happy about the terms of my e-Will. I may have to change it with more funds heading in her direction. I have also had to have a word with Potato. You may recall that under my current e-Will Potato and Eddy are trustees of my estate until TP reaches maturity. Potato had plans to invest the funds in the dairy industry specifically in cheese production.

He looked quite upset when I explained that being a Cheese Magnate did not mean that he just lay in the sun and chunks of Cheddar and Edam would be drawn magically towards him. Poor fellow, spelling is not his strong point.

I pointed out that with his feline skills he might be better playing the stock market since shares seem to be a bit like mice. You seem to have to just hang around watching them and only pounce at the right time. On other occasions you seem to have to play with them. Potato lifted his head from licking his bum hole to give this a moments consideration before returning to his ablutions... and people say cats are sophisticated!

Eddy is also not happy about the Trustee arrangement as his shortcomings in the leg department means that the traditional hand in the air voting arrangement will not work in his favour.

As I said I may have to update the e-Will.

Intelligent Design

In terms of education I suppose I'm best described as a scientist rather than an "Arty" type. Having said that I do like to daub a little now and again and would like to think that I have an aesthetic sense.

But I also love science and discovery. Knowing why a star twinkles and why the sunset is an emotionally moving blaze of oranges and reds moving to mauves and purples as the night draws in doesn't diminish the beauty in any way. Surely it just gives a greater sense of wonder and appreciation for that aspect of the universe. So, to discover more is a fine ideal.

So the Creationists premise of Intelligent Design is never going to get my vote. This is the argument that everything is so complicated and well designed that it could never have evolved by chance. There are many examples where observed fact contradicts the arguments of Intelligent Design and one of my favourites is a nerve that runs from the brain to the larynx taking a route that loops round the aorta. Fair enough, you might say, but in the giraffe this results in an extra 20 feet of pointless nerve. Surely intelligent design would just have taken it from brain to larynx without the tour of the chest cavity unless the Intelligent Designer was also a taxi driver in a previous life.

Either that or the Creator did mammals late on a Friday and needed to get back for a shower and change because the Creator's partner wanted to go and have a look what the neighbouring Creators had done with their Universe...

"ooh - that's really and nice and I love how you've got that. We really need to sort out the state of some of those Spiral Galaxies and have you seen the interstellar dust over there"

At his point I need to take a moment to remind myself to send the Guys in the Lab a note about the Shetland Giraffe project.

Right, back now - Intelligent Design - I have come across a further example that disproves Intelligent Design. Stick with me here cos this may get a bit rocky. My perfect example is based on cats and Shiatsu Massage.

Anyone who waits on a cat "hand, foot and finger" will know that cats are absolute geniuses at Shiatsu Massage. They are born with this skill to perform perfect kneading of the flesh that would make most Japanese Practitioners weep with frustration at their lame efforts..... BUT .... and this is the point, if you have ever had your cat give you a loving therapy session, you will know that having 5 retractable claws on each paw really does spoil the effect.

Case closed - if there was an Intelligent Designer cats either wouldn't have claws or would be able to tuck them away in little pouches while they were busy massaging.

A few days ago I mentioned that The Demons down at Dante's had found some other Souls to torture and consequently I was taking a break from pushing the rock up the slope and was getting irritable because I wasn't fully occupied. Well don't worry - the Demons at Dante's all have performance objectives too and they are very, very keen to make sure that their appraisals all go smoothly - after all, If you were in their position you wouldn't want Satan telling you your performance wasn't up to scratch.

Well the Imp that came up with this weeks torture is well on for a high score and a nice year end bonus.

This week my aged Laptop was retired and replaced by a new one. I am hoping that it will now be flapping its way towards the horizon to settle and roost in a sunny spot where it can live out its days. Probably more likely that it has been shot and crushed and they are, as we speak, melting its guts down for the scraps of gold on its PCBs.

Well the new one is also an example of Intelligent Design. Five separate calls to the Helpdesk today and now on first names terms with they ladies and gents in India. It's not their fault. They are just the poor individuals that have to try to resolve problems with a Laptop image build that hasn't had its basic functionality tested.

Did I ever say what Dante's business was - Go on, take a wild guess.

I think the Toner is running out.

Saturday Morning, the start of a long weekend.

Its funny how you feel differently about a day when you get up at a time of your own choice rather than a time dictated by Dante's Nine Circles of Hell or the need to prepare TPs lunchbox before the School Bus leaves. Everything is much more mellow when you are in control of the agenda.

My morning routine is pretty similar whether it is a School Day or a holiday with the exception of making aforementioned packed lunch. I still have to let Tyson and Marauder out, feed and water the chickens and pour a number of double espressos down my neck.

It is odd though that Potato and Eddy also know it is Saturday and are having a lie-in too. Normally Potato is most insistent that I, as Domestic Staff, serve his breakfast before I do anything else in the morning. Today however they are both curled up together and have indicated that I can bring up the papers (ironed of course) and coffee an hour later than usual.

I should point out that Sell-by-date, now in his dotage, is not an early riser and usually waits until around 11 before indicating that he needs to go out and empty his bowels. He is a martyr to his bowels and if you are stupid enough to wade in to a conversation with him about them don't say I didn't warn you. You should know the warning signs by now since you must have as many aged relatives as I do - Ones who have lost all inhibitions and lack anything remotely interesting in their life so will tell you about polyps and unnatural secretions. RUN AWAY!

A true story - A few weeks back I was walking Tyson and Marauder and I bumped in to a fellow dog walker. I know her well enough to chat to and have recently learnt her name having known her dogs' names for much longer. This is the way of dog walking that it is often that you know someone by their dog's name!

Anyway, I asked her how she was as I hadn't seen her for a while and she told me that she hadn't been walking recently as a result of having her haemorrhoids removed - FOR GODS SAKE! I hardly know the woman and she is talking about her Bum Grapes. Puts fingers in ears and sings La, La, La!

Where was I - Saturday Morning - now that I have constructed the Maginot Line T& M can assist when I let the chickens out. They carry out the morning patrol of the coops with great enthusiasm and prowl the runs like Camp Guards looking for the entrances to "Tom, Dick & Harry". I thought I had heard the chink of an enamel mug against a bed frame a couple of times recently but its probably my mind playing tricks.

I collected the eggs and found this .....

...... Looks like one of the hens is running low on ink. I'm sure I reset the egg count when I did the last install but cant remember seeing a "Low Ink alert" recently. Good job we are off in to town this morning as egg receipts are going to be down this week with produce looking like this.

Now what type of toner cartridge does a chicken take and can I persuade 30% to install it?

Postie came - usual stuff - bills, election pamphlets and a letter from Amnesty International. Apparently the readership of this blog is broader than I thought and they are gravely concerned about the plight of the lawn mower. Apparently I am guilty of incarceration without trial, enforced labour and failure to adequately meet it's nutritional and health care needs.

Its a good job they don't know what happened to the Strimmer!

Is that the best place to put it?

I've already mentioned that Potato and Eddy have an interest in the local wildlife or possibly, more accurately, a scorched earth policy.

Like most serial killers, the Perpetrators approach is to stalk and disable the victim, then drag it back to their lair for hours of entertainment before dismemberment and ritual display of entrails on the kitchen floor.

I know its grim but I don't make this up - I just come down to the carnage in the morning. Its only by comparing it to "The Silence of the Lambs" that demonstrates this side of their nature.

I probably need to go on record now as a cat lover and that I do my best to clean up the evidence so that the CSI Team have nothing to pass over to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Saying that, there have been mornings where 30% has risen before me and there are little chalk outlines of mice on the floor and the cats "would like to telephone their Brief".

Anyway, there is one local mammal that they will tackle but don't seem to finish off and that is the mole. There are a few occasions when they have brought home moles and then let the damn things go. On two occasions in the garden and once in the house. The one in the house was easy _ caught him up and released him in my local Doctor's Surgery garden - that will serve him right for the crappy diagnosis he failed to make when I presented myself with a Repetitive Strain Injury.

The ones in the garden, I'm afraid, had to go so Mole Traps were borrowed from Dad and set. I know there are people who will tell you that cheap, ladies perfume poured in the burrows and children's windmills or empty wine bottles stuck in the mole hills will make them go away - my response to this is "my @rse". If you want your garden to look like the Somme in 24 hours flat go with Charlie and the contents of your recycling bin. If you want dead vermin go with mole traps.

Why the cats don't like Moles I cannot tell. They may not taste very nice or perhaps they are just too hard. It could be a combination of the two. On thinking about it - if you consider humans who are involved in significant earth moving activities I would guess that a) they are "hard" and b) they don't taste particularly nice.

It could be option c) - Moles are a bit "Ninja"

Anyway - back to the point - once we had trapped the mole and examined the carcass it was time to dispose of the evidence. I could have consulted the cats but their method of disposal has already been discussed and I don't have the Psychological profile for their preferred dissection and ritual display approach.

So we buried it - and that got me thinking - How do I know its dead? What if it is a Vampire Mole? Isn't burying it the quickest way to resurrect it and allow it to DO MORE EVIL? If you think about it it is a bit like someone dying and deciding that leaving them in their favourite armchair is the best way to dispose of the body.

To me, burying dead moles is just plain WRONG. So when the bloody cats did it again TP and I skinned it and learnt that preserving a mole skin is an interesting Dad/Son activity.

Finally..................... when my nephew was about 4 years old he was stroking the family cat that was stretched out in the sun. I told the aforementioned Nephew that if it got much hotter the cat would unzip its fur, remove it like pyjamas and just sit there in its pants. .................. then a while later I told my sister what I had told her son and stood back as she charged off to the garden.

Post Script: Cats really do sit on your sofa in their pants - they just put their little cat suits back on quickly when they hear you coming.

You should have seen the Bear !

Ah - Saturday !

Today I hauled my sorry rump out of bed at around 8.30 - that's a lie in by my standards and unusually 30% was already up, still pyjama'd, but up and standing in the garden drinking coffee with Jules. I probably need to assert that Jules is not some form of garden ornament but is a real person. Jules is a "frolleague" of 30% and very good company.

Last night 30%, Jules and I attended a St Georges Day evening down at the Local. A good time was had by all and there was a three course meal, a few G&Ts and much toasting of the Queen. The G&Ts necessitated a sleepover by Jules hence her being in the garden at 8.30 this morning.

The G&Ts resulted in a leisurely start to the day, a few odd jobs in the garden, a dog walk and Tyson and Marauder had a trip in to the local Canine Grooming establishment.

They do tend to get a bit shaggy - unusual for Staffies - so we pop down there when we are feeling flush and T & M get to read the latest copy of Heat Magazine while they are having a shampoo and set. On this occasion we also took Sell-by-Date for a manicure.

OK - I'm getting to the bear.

I've covered members of the family in earlier blogs and have made scant reference to the 1.8 cats that live with us. Now is time for their formal introduction. One is called Potato and 0.8 is called Eddy.

We have had Potato and Eddy for 4 or 5 years and like most cats they do what they want, when they want and barely tolerate us even though we provide shelter, veterinary care and food and do the most peculiar things to try to keep them happy.

I'll start with Eddy as you may be wondering why I refer to him as 0.8. A couple of years back Eddy decided to cross the road without looking and learnt that cars are harder than cats. I learnt that pet insurance is not as expensive as having several x-rays, a rear leg amputation and a second operation to remove a broken tail. Hence he is 0.8 of a cat aka "Eddy Percent" - say it aloud.

He has made a fantastic recovery and despite being "special needs" does not seem in any way impaired as he continues his life mission to kill and maim any rodent or bird he comes across. He has a kill rate on par with a Teenager plugged in to Modern Warfare on the X Box and God knows what he would be like if he was 20% more complete. I'm guessing that the local farmers are somewhat relieved, as are their cattle and sheep.

Eddy has obviously used up eight of his nine lives and consequently takes no cr@p from either Tyson or Marauder. He tells them that the injuries came from a fight with an escaped Kodiak Bear and they leave him well alone. Hence the title of this post. If he can be bothered to reply, when asked about his unfortunate predicament, his reply very much delivered in the style of Clint Eastwood is "You should have seen the Bear"

Potato, on the other hand, is completely different and is entire - actually he is not entire as we chose to have approximately 4% of him removed by the vet quite early on in his life, as we did with Eddy. Having typed this I may need to do some recalculations to come up with a more accurate figure of how many cats I have.

Potato is very easy going and consequently Tyson and Marauder make his life a misery by showing puppy affection for him. Fortunately Potato seems to have a limited understanding of "dog" and tolerates being rushed up to and sniffed with amazing patience.

Alternatively it could be down to his "habit" as he is a cheese based life form. He adores cheese. Potato's view is that milk is for kids and its the hard stuff for him - preferably vintage mature cheddar and plenty of it. I watch him each morning lurking as 30% knocks up a cheese sandwich for her lunch and if she doesn't provide him with a couple of pieces he'll take matters in to his own paws and just tuck in to her butty when she turns her back to get a sandwich bag.

Once "monged out", he slinks away to sleep off the cheese rush on whatever bed or sofa takes his choice. Camembert Dreams perhaps.

.... and, on that final note, for the pedants and mathematicians among you I will finally clarify that I have 1.72 cats.