Wedding season

It's official .. I am old .. gone are the days when I could stay up all night nightclubbing and then go to work the following day after an hours kip. I had two separate events I attended this weekend, on both occasions I was home before midnight and I feel like I have run a marathon!!

Had an enjoyable time though ... well sort of ... first event on Saturday was ladies only ... so I left my two men at home for a bonding session and enjoyed my first late night out for years. OK .. not quite Ministry of Sound ... with mum and Vertigo in tow but an enjoyable evening.

Second event was on Monday and I managed to turn up frazzled and fashionably (an hour and a half) late, with Mum, Dad, Cream and Zoo in tow. As soon as we got to the venue, Mum was off with the kid parading around her latest grandson to everyone and anyone within sight. I even caught Dad showing off to his mates that Zoo could wipe his own nose!

Of course within an hour, Zoo had managed to charmed all the women and half of the men too and then proceeded to throw himself into a game of "trains" being played in the foyer. "Trains" involved all kids from barely walking up to 10 years old, charging around the foyer after each other, whilst the parents looked on helplessly. Beside a couple of interesting moments when we were all sure that the game was going to turn into "fatal train-crash" and when one kid decided he's pop outside to see what those dodgy looking blokes were smoking, the event passed off without incident.

Zoo was exhausted but exhilarated at being up past 8pm and Mum and Dad had to be taken home at 11 o'clock, kicking and screaming with cries of "but we want to stay longer!"

The wanderers return

Nine o'clock tonight Dad arrives on the doorstep ... and as it's a well known fact that mum does not normally like being left alone at home at this time of night, we ask him where Mum is. Dad explains that he had dropped her off at Auntie's house half a mile round the corner but wasn't prepared to stay to listen to all the women chattering nonsense.

So we settle down to watch TV, check out the new fence (more on this later) chat about the upcoming family events, peer at the sleeping Zoo ... before we are disturbed thirty minutes later by a continuous chiming of the door bell and a pounding on the front door.

I open the door to a frazzled looking Mum ... "I found an angel" she yells waving frantically at an asian girl pulling away in a car. It would seem that when Dad dropped Mum off, he didn't actually wait to see her enter the house, so although the lights were on, evidently no-one was at home. Mum had no money and no phone but managed to make her way down the steep hill and get to the closest busstop, where she took the opportunity to take a breather. It was at this point that her angel turned up asking the "Bhagi on the bench" what she was doing out at this time of night on her own and offering her a lift.

PS. Goldie came home today too ...

Willie or will she?

We have been taking full advantage of our visitation rights to Goldie ... Each time he gulps down a handful of crunchies and some water and then starts purring away ... he's a nervous cat around people he doesn't know and absolutely loves roaming around the garden for most of the day so being in a little pen surrounded by strange faces and other animals for the last week must be awful for him.

As I arrived this morning the vet told me that Goldie had left me a little present ... a distinct wet patch in his litter tray ... hooray!! Not as much as there should be, but certainly a start!

The vet also mentioned that he was going to try an anti-inflammatory but that in difficult cases the only solution is surgery ... (the boy becomes girl type!) I suppose Goldie is a unisex name, DJ Goldie or Goldie Hawn, who's gonna know the difference.

I went to visit him in the evening and he had obviously overheard the vets comments ... his litter tray was full of pee and he made a concerted effort to dribble a little pee just for my benefit.