Home Alone

or at least, the only human in the house. The OH has Gone South abandoning me to life with three demanding cats and an even more demanding dual fuel stove and I really rather wish it was summer and he had taken the cats with him!

When I say south I mean really really far, like all the way to Devon, where he is visiting his mother. Originally it was just going to be a quick work trip to Leeds, dropping son no 2 back in Glasgow on the way, but as his mother had been in hospital for a few days just before Christmas (and don't get me started on trying to get any sense out of any of the hospital staff on where she was, what was wrong, what they might be doing about it) and has continued to feel unwell off and on ever since,he decided to carry on and see how the land lay for himself.

 

This has meant me being on my own for a week and it's been a mixed blessing. I have no problem with being solitary. I do have problems with the cats thinking I am at their beck and call every minute of the day. I am afraid that the OH's 'on demand' feeding system for household animals has been abandoned in favour of a strict feeding timetable. This means that I don't have to be constantly checking their dishes, their expressions and their general demeanour to see if they need/want more food. This in turn reduces my stress levels considerably and also ensures that I don't fritter away the day in a constant round of cat pandering.

 

Of course the stove is another matter entirely since it brings the uncertainty principle into play and uncertainty is something I find difficult to cope with. At least I know if I put down a plate of cat food it will get eaten and I can be fairly certain that if I put down three plates of cat food all three cats will eat although not exclusively each from their own plate. Heaven forfend that they should conform to all the veterinary wisdom about how cats need their own dishes in their own separate places and won't share or eat in the same place as other cats. . OK, sharing maybe isn't the name of the game, more a case of grazing in case the third plate has something better on it ( a word to the cats, it really doesn't!) . The stove however is a different thing. I can follow the same basic procedure to light it, or indeed to keep it lit overnight, every time  and sometimes it will co-operate and sometimes it won't. I find this troubling and baffling in equal measure. It also makes me loth to try since if it fails it becomes retrospectively a waste of my time to have tried.   Now, it's true that if I weren't trying to light the fire  I wouldn't necessarily be doing anything earth shatteringly important with the time; establishing world peace or fixing it for Son no 2 to get his big acting break e.g. , but I could be doing something more interesting or useful or enjoyable than scrabbling about filling coal scuttles and heaving them about the house.

 

Anyway it's not for much longer as, DV and the ferry company willing, the OH gets back late Wednesday which only leaves me three days and two nights to struggle with the stove and face down the cats.

 

And in good news this year's trip to Australia gets closer by the day*

 

*I realise this would be true whatever date  we had chosen to go, so to that extent it's a meaningless phrase but in fact, all other things being equal we leave on 12th next month. I would be looking forward to it even more , if I weren't peering at it from under a thesis chapter that needs writing before I go!