Don't Panic!

Panic Number 1 - thought I was developing vision problems. Things were looking mildly blurry here and there. But panic over. Turns out it was cat lick on my glasses. And my i-pad screen.

Panic Number 2 - thought I had developed mild middle-age stress incontinence. But panic over. Turns out is was a patch of cat lick on my trousers.

Panic Number 3 - thought the whistling in my left ear had returned after a lengthy and blessed absence. But panic over. Turns out it was a snoring kitten, asleep on my shoulder.

Panic Number 4 - thought I was developing some horrid skin problem, with symptoms of puncture wounds all up my legs. But panic over. Turns out it was a kitten discovering she can climb upwards by digging her claws into human flesh really hard.

On other, non-panic related matters, I was saving our damson harvest to photograph and show you. But Andy ate it. One damson we had this year. One! Mind you, it was a very fine damson, almost of plum-size proportions. And the lack of damson harvest was more than made up for by the mega-apple gathering, much of which was retrieved via the use of a shrimping net and with not too many boinks on the head.

I was offered another job on Thursday. Unexpected phone call in the evening. Slept on it, then turned it down. Nearly didn't because I thought, wow - more money, and given I am, at the moment, mildly obsessed with paying off our mortgage as soon as possible so we can escape to the countryside as soon as possible and get away from the noisy neighbours as soon as possible and live amongst fields and hills and trees and bunnies as soon as possible, it would have helped achieve this.

Then I thought, are you bonkers? Did one too many apples drop on your head? You are supposed to be developing a work/ life balance so that the life bit will give you time to do lovely things like learn about textile art, and felting and doing clever things with paper and wool and pretty floral material. How are you going to do THAT if you keep trying to up the balance on the work side? (You muppet, I added, as an after thought.)

So a mild panic over on that score. As I said to Flora Bijou Mybug, as we stood by the living room window, looking out on the world as it drove past, and I was telling her all about the DANGERS of cars, and people who ride their bicycles on pavements even though it is ILLEGAL, and people who sit on our front wall and make me want to throw rocks at their heads in order to remove them, 'We shall, one day, live away from all this tension. One day you shall be able to romp outside, free from the dangers of the motor car, and people who might kidnap you because you are turning into a mightily attractive kitty-cat.' And she said, 'But what about the dangers of wild animals like foxes and badgers and great white sharks, who might decide I look like a mightily attractive supper.' And I said, 'There are no great white sharks in the countryside,' and she said, 'And the foxes and the badgers?' And I said, 'There are no great white sharks in those, either.' 

And she said, 'Okay,' and licked my nose. And now I think I might be developing a cold.