Mindless destruction

On Sunday morning we took an early stroll around the public open space near our house. This is what the young people had left after their Saturday evening.

A neighbour heard them at one o'clock in the morning. Ten of them, boys and girls were kicking the wall attempting to knock it over, and ignored his remonstrations. He called the police but they didn't come. It took the teenagers an hour to knock down the wall, but in that hour the police didn't come.

Now the local newspaper knows and so does one of the local radios who interviewed our neighbour about what he heard. It was broadcast on Tuesday morning, the day I took off to paint our garden wall with anti-climb paint.

Daughter is 17

Her birthday today meant a quiet celebration because she went bowling last weekend with a couple of friends and seems quite content with what she has. Aunty L sent her some nail varnish. "Ooh! I don't think I've ever had red nail varnish" she glowed.

Her SDad took us out for an evening meal. He nearly fainted when he saw her bright red nails. Here they are.

Model trains

Husband's hobby is building model trains.

Sick smelly cat

We have a cat called Dinka. But she is old, very, very old. We reckon being at least 17 years old makes her the equivalent of 88 human years old, and she moves and walks old. She used to scratch the mites in her ear, but she doesn't do that very much any more, thank goodness because the bits flew out over the sofa, cushions and carpets. Unfortunately she is totally deaf, so jumps when someone comes up behind her.

For the last year she has being having epileptic fits. Sometimes she doesn't have one for weeks, at least not when we are in the house to know. She had one last week at ten to nine in the morning. My mobile beeped as I got a text message:

"Dinka has had a fit on the new carpet. Where's something to clean it?"

And now, this last week, she has started to stink. She still cleans herself a bit, but her wind is horrible. Poor old Dinka.

In the above photo, she had been watching her territory out of the window. There's a young and bouncy tom that lives in our garden. He appeared at the bottom of the garden, near the rented houses, about a year ago. Husband and he got on very well together. Husband is a soppy thing for cats and started to feed him, delighted with his response to the interest and his purrrrr-rr-rr. Originally he fed him only once a day, but over the winter it got to be twice a day, and at the top of the garden and the cat (Whisper or Jack Flash - we can't agree his name) moved into the laundry house. So now that spring has come, Dinka notices Whisper out on the patio in the sun. Her patio. Here's a photo of him peeping in at the conservatory door, like he does the moment you go in there.

Family bliss (not)

This morning A got up to find the cat stuck in the dining room with the doors closed. We dashed out to work, leaving teenagers in bed. We weren't too happy when we came home to find the b* cat had deposited something nasty on the dining room floor. Husband grumpily cleared it up, and I snapped at him to eat something, and stalked off.

I informed teenagers that if things didn't get sorted out, the right doors locked or left open, then they were going to have to be in their bedrooms before we go to bed. Consequently son sulked all the way through his supper.

Bah! Families! Who'd have 'em?

Older teens

When they get to be teenagers we have different night-time problems.

This week, our-nearly-19 son went babysitting, and since I mustn't now worry about him, we went to bed before he came in. He unlocked the door, noted that the lodger's light was still on, and so he went to bed. He left the door unlocked. All night. It was still unlocked at 6 o'clock in the morning when we got up. Fortunately we were not murdered in our beds, and unfortunately son did not learn his lesson as no one burgled the house, crept in and stole his laptop. Bah! Pity. but probably just as well.

On the other hand, last night, step-daughter #3 hadn't been seen. We hadn't seen her come in, nor heard her. Mind you, she doesn't say anything when she comes in, no "hello!", she just tramps upstairs to her room. So we wondered if she were home or gone to Bristol a day earlier than she had planned. Father stuck his head round her door late at night, and found her tucked in and fast asleep in bed. Not so fast asleep unfortunately that he didn't wake her. He reminded her in the morning, gently chiding her for not acknowledging his existence in the same house and not letting him know that she was around and okay. "I was confused!", she complained.