As you may have noticed I’ve been away for a while. No, wait a moment, let me explain, NOT away as at Her Majestys Pleasure, but away from the keyboard of my magic Ewriter. So, this ‘little’ actual happening has been on my note pad since August.

Today I feel that I must share it with you. So…

Early morning spasms awaken me, creatures of infinitesimal size run around inside my arms and legs as if they are on a marathon, chomping and treading about like hungry crazed parade ground soldiers.

The TDL (to do list) is quite extensive today, the car is booked in for a full professional valet, a requirement as it just happens to be one of my OCD things, especially after transporting a member of the feline colony over every hill, along four motorways, down every dale and across seven county borders toward the Essex coast recently.

So, here is the reason why.

This road trip was the first chance I would have been able to do a few good miles non-stop. ‘Mamma bear’ as she is referred to, not by me I must add, is sat shotgun. Charlie poo on the back seat in the borrowed transporter cage nestled securely amongst suitcase, carrier bags, bath seat and a saucepan complete with lid plus ad finitum of miscellanous rubbish accumulated over a twenty day period.

I’m sure that many of my readers are well aware feeding any animal before travelling is NOT a good thing. I had asked if *it* (I’m calling it an it, because I don’t like OR relate to cats) had done it’s business and possibly wee’d, hopefully she would refrain from feeding it last night, but as she felt sorry for it, she did.

Just as Brabinger was passing Junction 27 on the M5, suddenly, and without warning, we were encased in toxic fume. There is only one smell worse than cat poo in a litter tray, and that’s fresh cat shit in a car. It was everywhere, just like a Maze prison protest, fortunately all behind cat cell walls. The drive to the next turn off from the motorway seemed like an eternity, we heaved, well, you can guess what it was like. Pulling off to the junction lay-by we skidded to a halt, I manhandled the stinking flimsy cage out of the rear space, stuck my hand into the pit of hell and pulled out all soft bedding, sodden with detritus I bunged it into a carrier bag, the dress, I must add was NOT mine, had originally been folded nicely, it was now in a heap on the rear parcel shelf.

This life form had to go, and that meant right now. At that point the vile creature bolted between my arm and the edge of the carrier flap, luckily it was caught by its foreleg and passively chastised. Me? Absolutely seething!
The journey was then resumed, but, what we didn’t know, was that it wasn’t going to get much better. As if raising the volume on the radio was going to make matters better, perhaps numbing my hearing might compensate my sense of smell, as said before, just like my ears, I don’t wear my nose for beauty, didnt.

The only problem now was that my passenger had lapsed into dance mode in the front seat, believe me I have feelings for people who suffer from ADHD, extreme OCD or any self phobia but not knowing their background or personal circumstances and how they would react meant that driving along at ten percent (ish) above the national speed limit was a little spooky. ‘Right’…  I think to myself, time for change of tack. My left hand turns the digital receiver to the off position and switch to Sally SatNav. Considering I have never ever used it whilst driving on a motorway before, and the concrete slab road reverberating through the run flat tyres, burnt deep frequencies from ear to ear in a straight line, totally annihilating the voice of the seductive instructress.

Coming up to the apex of the Gordano Avon flyover I open all four windows, it’s the only chance to get rid of the impossible smell of cat crap. Perhaps, with a bit of luck or a God-given mysterious way, the cat and its belongings, all of them, might just get sucked out in a green haze vortex and eventually land in the back garden way below the preformed galvanised stanchions of the highway towering way over the suburb of Portishead.

“Holy Cat Crap” shouts Batman as he fist pumps the air and disappears into a wormhole!

Another early Saturday morning, it’s 06:40, the two latest editions to the menagerie have slept through from 10:30 last evening, it’s a steady progress. They both awaken because I am strirring, two tiny creature with noisy squeaks and whines greet me with such sweet innocence and beauty, how on earth can you get angry with anything quite so lovely?

Little Missy is sat in her bed, made up of a dark brown suede effect with a green and light brown tartan cushion, this one also chewed to pieces, just like the two previous. Yes, she’s a minx alright, of the previous, a zip runner had gone missing, however it was found twelve hours later in one of her steaming hot precious dog eggs. This of course does explain why she was having an off day,  I certainly wouldn’t have liked what she was experiencing. She just sits there and stares at me, waiting for my hand to enter her territory within the cage and pick up her empty dish, she pounces, I coordinate badly. As gravity takes over, it hits the side of the water bowl, making enough noise to wake the dead and empties the content on the floor. At this point little happy bouncy ‘monkey boy’ stirs, he bounds out of his matching dog cave and leaps onto my arm like a sexual deviant, his greeting consists of a sharp dew claw grasp and a fine toothed ‘Boston’, If you know about wrestling, you would understand that particular movement. In fine fettle they both start to sing their greeting. Hurriedly, I get the first meal of the day prepared, half a tub of ‘Butchers Dog’ puppy food each, lowering the meal gently into the enclosures, I am aware that each canine food critic is short of a napkin and manners, any that may have been learned are immediately dismissed, each are head in before bowls are on the floor, quickly I return to pour two tiny casuelas of puppy milk, not very pleasant in aroma I must add. In true haphazard style the contents are spilled from the plastic bottle decorated in the bi-colours of the Plymouth Argyle football club strip, I struggle to put the green screw top back on to the white bottle single handledly. Knowingly, and by how it is lapped up quickly, means it’s mighty damn good for them. I stand back, chest plumped out, ….that’s our babies!

Untrained puppies are such devious little rat bags, they have no conception of any value or worth. We must have changed at least a thousand pee mats in just over a month, but they  make it so much easier to keep an area clean of spillage from loose excretionary orifaces than rather have scrub carpets. No sooner as clean pens shine, there are stinking patterns and pee stains not dissimilar to drip paintings by non other than the abstract expressionist Jackson Pollack. Perhaps this could be my big break, especially with a new idea for Dragons Den, all we would need are ready made frames and a certificate of authenticity.

I check my watch, it reads ten minutes to eight, perhaps if I sit quietly on the electric recliner chair and set to mortuary position one, maybe the dancing macaques will quieten down, especially if I pull the cover over myself completely. Hoping for an hours extra rest, at least. From the morgue slab the corpse breathes out its last breaths of shhh’s and coooes, the creatures start to take note and settle, they haven’t twigged yet that biggest monster of them all is under the sheet …… oh the indignity of it all!

Lesson number uno, if other dogs are in the household, feed them also, even if it’s happens to be almost three hours earlier for them. They will not settle, until so done. Rspecially when trying to sneak an extra hour of morning rest. At least tomorrow i’l be prepared for that one.

So, it’s over! My well-chosen professional decorator has finally finished his magic, the colour chosen has made such a difference. This  transformation is out of this world. Here, now, comes the worst part, the case of putting many, but not most of my items back in their original place.

However, there is a caveat, much of it wont be going back to its once marked GPS coordinate. They are now deemed to a box for redistribution to a worthy cause or even worse, destined to the bottom of a cheap black bin liner from the poundshop, praying that the seams dont split before I manage to get it down to the dustbin at the bottom of the steps for the refuge technicians to sift through.

My biggest heartbreak is that I have decided to rid most of my books that have been not just once, but often twice read, and I mean it, it really does break my heart. Always since a child, I wished for a library, but times and necessities dictate, instead, now a substitutional wallpaper and the few loved books will adorn the top of my white marbled fireplace, sadly partly disguised by a radiator cover, oh how wonderful it must have been to have had a living fire in the kitchen!

Please tell me though … “Where on earth does all the rubbish come from? ….

For fear of reprisal, I certainly wont go into a diatribe or write a list for all you readers of what I have actually thrown out, as you would most probably wish to reassess my sanity. Perhaps, after all, that might not be a bad thing. I have been merciless. In fact, I could quite possibly be the original Ming, him, that of tyrannical fame on the planet Mongo. Sadly not the priceless vase. Even so, I certainly wish I had one of those, sorry, let’s make it a matching pair, all packaged up and sent off to that exclusive auction house in Mayfair. Imagine, even after paying the absurdly ridiculous commission, one might come away with a six figured sum, on a good day even a seven.

All, well almost all of my dvd’s have now been packed into a box once containing puppy training sheets and heading toward a new organisation here called “HumanityTorbay” I do hope they will adorn the bookcases well, especially for a lonely person seeking a warm nights shelter, perhaps a laugh or two will cheer their tired souls. As also are the many autobiographies I have collected over the years, life about many of the celebrities I have aspired to, to be honest, I’m quite the nosy Parker really, wanting to know about their business and secrets they wished to shared with the general public. I was quite happy to part with hard-earned cash to continue keeping them in the lifestyle accustomed. My favourite though was Kenneth Williams, I cannot but help read it in his voice, …. told you I needed some help medically!

Today of all days is my annual inspection from the company who manage the property I live in. One of the saving graces are that the company owner is a very good friend. As my house, yet again, looks like a bomb has hit it and ready for an onslaught of car boot shoppers, we move boxes and find softened areas opposite each other to sit on and talk over above the height of the rubbish due for collection, we sip coffee and share badinage, one of the many lovely things about this lady, she never has a bad word to say about anyone, yet swears like the proverbial trooper, for that I can forgive her.

Her parting words are “well dear, it will look absolutely wonderful when it’s all finished” and smiles.

I reply with a cheeky grin ……. she then giggles and says, “On that note, time for me to f**k off then!

…. I open another box, staring deep into a content full of memories in material form.