Pandora!

Meet Pandora, the newest arrival at Much Malarkey Manor. Couldn't you just dip her in chocolate and eat her up? Pandora arrived, very unexpectedly, after a phone call from Chris saying that he had a kitten who needed a good home.

Well, it was love at first sight.

Pandora is nine weeks old. She is very schmoozy, very playful, and very, very purry. She purrs non-stop.

'What are you going to call her?' said Leane, Chris's girlfriend who I think secretly wanted to keep her for herself only they already have a house full of animals.

'I don't know,' I said. I always thought that our next cat would be called Blossom if it was a girl, and Dumpling if it was a boy. But I wasn't sure about this one.

After an evening of thinking, my shortlist was this:

1) Blossom

2) Petal

3) Viola

4) Hero

5) Daisy

6) Poppy

7) Butternut

and 8) Steve.

'Steve?' I hear you say. Yes, after Steve, Paul Temple's wife in the Radio 7 series 'The Paul Temple Mysteries.' If you've never listened to it I suggest you give it a go. It's an absolute HOOT! Basically, Paul Temple and his wife, Steve, speak with very upper class cut glass accents. They are terribly, terribly polite and Paul treats Steve like she is a fluffy bubble head who isn't capable of putting marmalade on her toast in the morning, let alone assisting him in solving complicated (but clearly obvious) murders. Steve often offers to do things like answer the telephone or pick up a glove and Paul says he can manage and she replies 'All right, darling,' and then goes for a lie down with one of her heads. It makes me laugh because I imagine all the feminists in the land have fits of apoplexy at the sheer political incorrectness of it all. Andy and I sometimes do parodies of Paul and Steve. We are very funny. I won't tell you which of us plays whom.

Anyway, with the as yet unnamed kitten all tucked up in the rabbit cage that was the Pumphrey Wing that became the Slocombe psychiatric ward, I thought I'd sleep on the selection of names overnight and see what came to me in the morning. Andy made a couple of frankly unhelpful suggestions like Fatbum and Dave on the premise that if I could have Steve he could have Dave. I said this was all wrong because Dave is clearly a name for a dog, not a cute likkle ikkle kitten.

The kitten had to stay in the cage in my writing room away from Phoebe and Tybalt until she'd had a health check and blood test to rule out things like feline leukaemia. I furnished the cage with a seed tray filled with litter, food and water bowls, a big blue cushion, a little teddy bear toy and three play mice especially purchased from Sainsbugs. Kitten seemed very happy and went to sleep.

This morning I woke and kitten's name was immediately obvious - Pandora. Downstairs, Pandora had done a big poop, a wee, eaten all her cat food and kicked her water bowl over. She was raring to go so we had a bit of a game using the toggles on ties that decorate the front of my top. I took her upstairs where she bounced all over Andy. And then she whispered in my ear that she thought she'd quite like it here as long as she could be in charge. I said, 'Sorry Pandora, but Phoebe is the cat in charge in this house and you must bow to her superiority or she will squish you like a bug.'

Pandora has now gone to work with Andy for her check up and stuff which is just as well as I have a lot of writing to do today and she would be a dreadful distraction from the task in hand.

And finally, thank you to Andy for letting me keep her...mwah, mwah, mwah!!