Graduation!

First, let me state for the record that I love my cat. She is a sweetheart. A tiny little black cat who is loving and gentle. But I am seriously considering giving her away to the next person who knocks on the door. Regular readers will remember the GPS tracker malarky that happened in the summer when we discovered just how far our innocent baby travels at night. Since then, her behaviour has got weirder and weirder. During the warm weather, when doors and windows were permanently open, I didn’t notice that she was avoiding the dining room. The lounge window would be open, so she’d come in that way, or appear through the open back door at mealtimes. But, once the weather changed and doors and windows remained closed, it became obvious that there was something wrong.

Now, I have lost count of the number of cat beds and baskets, bean bags, pyramids, and things that hang on the radiator that I have bought for her over the years. Did she sleep in any of them? Nope, studiously ignored them until I got rid of them. Instead, she would curl up for hours in the dining room on the comfy rocking chair near the radiator. Occasionally, she would sleep on the sofa in there or could be found asleep on one of the padded dining chairs under the table. I constantly had to vacuum up the thick clumps of cat fluff and apologise when visitors got a hairy bum.

One day, it occurred to me that I hadn’t had to vacuum any of the chairs for some time. A very long time. I wondered where she was sleeping. It was still warm during the day, and we knew she tended to go a-roaming all night, so I assumed she was finding a warm spot in the garden and napping there. It got colder. All the chairs remained fluff-free. We had days and nights of torrential rain, and I began to find my oven top covered in a thick layer of fluff, dirt, and grit. It was clear she was sleeping on it. Why? It’s a hard surface and certainly not very comfortable. Fed up with having to thoroughly clean my oven top every day, I covered it in tinfoil. Cats don’t like tinfoil so it’s a good way to keep them off surfaces, although I made sure I turned the oven off at the wall. She has been known to turn on a ring leaping onto the oven and the thought of tinfoil catching fire made me shudder.

She stopped sleeping on the oven top and began sleeping on the work surface next to the chopping board. I covered that in tinfoil. She started sleeping on the opposite side. I covered that then came down the next morning to find my clean white porcelain draining board covered in fluff, dirt, mud, and puke. With a big pile of puke next to the kettle for good measure.

Now my whole kitchen, every time I’m not there, has to be sheeted in layers of tinfoil. If even a tiny gap is left she will squeeze herself in there and leave it filthy. It dawned on me that for some reason she is terrified of the dining room. I would carry her in there and sit on the rocking chair with her and try to remind her how much she loved it, but the second I let her go she was off through the cat flap as if all the hounds of hell were after her.

It got so bad she wouldn’t even walk through the dining room to reach the rest of the house. If I carried her into the lounge, then she would stay there for the evening but was desperately needy. The second I sat down; she’d be on my lap. If I tried to stand up she would cling to me, crying piteously.

At my wit’s end, I phoned the vet. Primarily to check when her jabs were due but also to run this bizarre behaviour past them and see if they could suggest anything. That is odd, agreed the receptionist, then told me that the cat’s jabs weren’t due until December but if I wanted to take her in to get them done sooner, then the vet would take a look at her whilst she was in. We made an appointment for the following week, and I went to work. An hour later, my phone rang, and it was the vet. The receptionist had recited the weird behaviour to him, and he was very concerned.

This could be indicative of something Very Serious, he said, and I heard the capital letters in his voice. I need to see the cat At Once. Can you bring her in now?

Umm, not really, I said, I’m at work and don’t get home until gone six.

Well, do you get a lunch break?

Yes, it’s between one and two.

Right, phone us and we’ll do a telephone consultation. It’s not ideal, but better than nothing.

It was agreed I would call them as soon as I got home for lunch. As it happened, our last patient before lunch had to cancel because they had Covid, so my boss told me to go home and see if I could take the cat to the vet because I had a longer lunch break than normal.

Hurrying home, I phoned the vet and explained the situation. Yes, they said, bring her in now and we’ll take a look at her.

I got home, got the cat carrier down, and looked for the cat. Eventually locating her on the flat roof outside Franki’s bedroom window, I did my best to coax her closer with Dreamies and eventually tempted her close enough to grab her by the scruff of the neck, haul her in, and stuff her in the basket. Much to her displeasure. I then strapped her in the car and set off for the vet.

The vet was charming. A lovely young woman who poked and prodded the cat. Looked in her eyes and ears. Checked her teeth. Took her temperature. Found nothing wrong. Tentatively diagnosed that she might be anxious and stressed and recommended a cat calming plug-in. If I put it in the dining room, it might calm the cat enough to sleep in there. So, in other words, the vet did a fat load of nothing.

I went out to the receptionist. Do I owe anything for this brief consultation I asked, thinking to myself £50 tops. After all, the vet didn’t do anything, I was in there a maximum of ten minutes, and the issue has not been resolved. I nearly fell over when the woman said £155. £155!! Let’s take a moment to think about that. I had to pay two days’ wages for ten minutes of the vet’s time. No tests were done. No blood was taken. No medication was prescribed – other than an expensive plug-in which I would have to buy myself off Amazon. £155. My utter shock must have been written all over my face because the receptionist bristled and said – well, it was an emergency visit.

Yes, but it was only an emergency visit because you made it so, I thought, as I handed over my card and prayed I had enough in the bank to cover it. Driving home with a vague diagnosis of stress and anxiety the only thing to show for my £155, I thought about how I was now anxious and stressed never mind the bloody cat. I phoned later in the day and cancelled the appointment the following week to get her jabs done. They’re not due until December so she can wait until then. I needed to build my funds up again.

Since then, I have been lavishing her with love and affection. I stay in the kitchen while she eats her dinner, then carry her through into the lounge. I’ve found that so long as I’m with her, she will stay in the kitchen and the lounge, but even with me, she will not set foot in the dining room.

This tells me that it’s not me that’s the issue because she’s still as loving and cuddly with me as she ever was – if anything, more so. And she’s happy in the kitchen and lounge – so long as I’m there – so doesn’t have an issue with those rooms. No, it’s the dining room. Something happened in there to seriously spook her, and it must have occurred when I wasn’t in the house.

Of course, I’ve questioned the lodger. It’s the logical conclusion that it’s somehow connected to her. Maybe she did something that scared the cat or had a strange person in the house that the cat was afraid of. They would come into the dining room as that’s the room the lodger has access to. She says nothing happened, so I’m at a loss to explain it.

I have ordered one of those plug-in things, but at £22 a pop per month it’s yet another expense I can’t afford, and there’s no guarantee it will work. I’m desperate enough to try it though and who knows, maybe a month of mummy cat pheromones will be enough to shake loose her irrational fear of the room and make her love it again. I hope so, I’m getting bored of having my entire kitchen covered in tinfoil. We did have a wee bit of a breakthrough this morning. She was in the kitchen eating her breakfast and I went into the lounge to clear some things away. I fully expected her to wait in the kitchen when she had finished eating for me to go back and collect her, so was very surprised when she dashed through the dining room as if the floor was on fire and knocked on the lounge door to be let in. I know that doesn’t sound much, but it’s the first time she has voluntarily set foot in there in almost two months, so it’s a good step in the right direction. I will keep you posted.

What else has happened? Well, I heard nothing from the plumber until this week. I was back from the graduation (more on that later) and texted him that it was getting really cold in my lounge, did he have any idea when he could call in? He came back and said he would come Wednesday. He didn’t. He then texted that he would be passing on Thursday so he would call in and take a look. Surprise, surprise, this time he did turn up. He looked at the radiator, muttered something about the thermostat pin being stuck, took off the cap, and gave it a sharp whack with a large pair of pliers. He fiddled a bit more, turned the radiator on and hey presto, it was working. I expect you have to spend years at the plumber academy to learn exactly how to hit the radiator just right.

How much do I owe you? I asked.

He looked a bit sheepish.

I feel bad charging you anything, he said, so maybe another book for my wife.

Deal, I said and dashed upstairs to see what I had. I stuffed the whole of the Blackwood Family Saga in a bag and gave them to him. His face lit up, but TBH, they don’t cost me that much to buy because they’re such short books and I know that any other plumber would have charged me a £50 call-out fee before even setting foot in the house. So, we were both happy. And my lounge is now toasty warm just when winter is beginning to set in.

I also had the chimney swept last week. He did charge me £50 and was only here twenty minutes – ten of which he spent drinking coffee and chatting to me. Oh well.

Now, the graduation.

I packed up my car on a wet and miserable mid-morning a week ago last Wednesday and set off to collect my parents. As you know, the originalplan was that Franki and Rys would come to stay after their trip to the theatre in London and we would all then drive up for the graduation together. That changed to they would go back to university by train sooner because Franki had found a job in Sainsbury’s and couldn’t have too many days off. Then the whole plan was scrapped because all the trains were cancelled due to Storm Babet.

Well, it was just as well we hadn’t stuck to the original original plan because by the time we’d crammed three adults, all their luggage for three days, the bits and pieces Franki had asked me to take up, plus all the food and drink we would need for three days into my little Toyota Yaris, we couldn’t have fitted one malnourished kitten in there, let alone another two people.

The trip was straightforward until we reached Nantwich, the town where Franki’s university is based and where our Airbnb was located. Google Maps had a bit of a meltdown at that point, although, to be fair to it, Nantwich is not a town designed for cars. Very narrow twisty roads that feed into even narrower and twistier lanes, cars parked on each side of the road making it single-lane traffic only, local road closures, and a distinct lack of street names, had us driving round and around in ever-growing bewilderment.

With Google Maps shrieking increasingly confusing instructions, my dad getting frustrated beside me, and my mum trying ever so hard to be “helpful” from the back seat, I despaired of ever finding our accommodation, when suddenly I spotted a flash of duck egg blue down one of those tiny lanes leading off the main road. All the fences and the shed are painted duck egg blue, had been the instructions. I turned around as soon as I could – surprising and pissing off the car behind me – waited for a gap in the traffic and went back to investigate. A tiny alleyway, barely wide enough for the car thankfully opened into a circle wide enough to turn around and go back to the duck-egg blue fence.

You have reached your destination, Google Maps declared, smugly, like it was all thanks to it.

Thank f**k for that, I muttered.

The parking space is tight, the information has said. Tight? Tight?! Good lord, it was so tight my parents had to get out of the car first and guide me in. Thank heavens my car is a smaller model, any wider and I would have scraped the paintwork. There was a row of three, wheelie bins crammed in the space as well, which didn’t help, and I knocked my wing mirror askew on the first one. The tiny garden shed poked out through the fence into the space and was mounted on a concrete plinth, so I had to watch my front tyres on that. But eventually, after much backward and forward, I got in. We found the key safe, put the code in, and got the key to let ourselves in.

First impressions. Very nice. A small but neat and well-equipped kitchen. A dining alcove with a table and four chairs. Hmm, there were going to be five of us for dinner, so we’d have to try and sort something out. A nice lounge with a modern comfy sofa and chair. And then we saw the stairs to the bedrooms.

The staircase is a little steep, the information has stated. A little steep?! Blimey, it was like the north face of the Eiger. I took my case up, then reached down and pulled my parents’ case up as my dad shoved from underneath. Upstairs, there was a room for me with a king-size bed. There was a small bathroom with a shower over the tub. At the back of the house was the room for my parents. The information had stated that the bed could be split to make two singles and my parents had opted for that arrangement.

At the time, I did try to tell them that I didn’t think they would be proper single beds – three feet wide – but would be more likely to be small singles which are only two feet, six inches wide. In the pictures, the bed in the second room looked like a king size which is five feet, and, of course, half of five feet is only two feet, six inches. To get two proper singles upon splitting, the bed would have to be six feet wide – a super king in other words – and I didn’t think the bed looked that big. Plus, if the cottage contained a super king bed in one of the rooms I felt that would be a selling point and would be mentioned. But I was shouted down. After all, what do I know about beds?

So now, we looked at these two very narrow beds and realised I had been right after all. They were two small singles, not normal singles. Hmm, don’t roll over in the night, you’ll be falling out of bed.

We let Franki know we’d arrived, then checked out how the oven worked and got that on to get the potato gratin in that I’d made that morning and brought with us. It takes almost two hours to cook so needed to go in ASAP. I looked at the table and four chairs again, then went around the house to see if there was anything we could use to seat the fifth person. Nope, not a single chair or stool anywhere we could utilise. There was a breakfast bar and two stools in the kitchen, but they were way too high to use. Whoever sat on one would be tipping off face-first into their dinner leaning down all that way.

First problem. Five of us for dinner. Only four chairs.

Second problem. The water was disgusting. I had brought a 2L bottle of water with me, thinking that if we were boiling tap water for tea and coffee, it would be fine. Nope, even in tea it apparently had such a tang my mother could still taste it.

Third problem. Franki had told me that the accommodation wasn’t too far from the university and that they could walk to us. Hmm, in reality, it was a good twenty minutes down country lanes and along a lonely canal path in the dark and rain.

I phoned Franki.

Do you have anything you could bring to use whilst we’re here?

Nope, nothing, she said.

Right. I thought about it for a few moments. Look on the Argos website, I told her, to see if there’s a small cheap stool or something that’s in stock in the Nantwich Argos that we could collect now. I am going to come and collect you because there’s no way I’m letting you walk. Argos is inside Sainsbury’s so while we’re there we’ll buy more water, oh, and I may as well fill up with diesel at the Sainsbury’s garage as well, so it’s done.

Okay.

I popped the shoulder of lamb we’d taken with us into the oven, put on my shoes and coat, and set off into the gathering gloom. By now, it was five o’clock and the roads were very busy with going home traffic. Luckily, Google Maps took me immediately out of town onto a twisting country lane that then brought me out on a roundabout I recognised because it was close to the university. I picked up the girls and we headed back into town, this time taking a route that would take us to Sainsbury’s. I dropped them off outside the shop and then joined the queue at the garage to fill up with diesel. I hadn’t bothered to fill up before leaving home because I’d had three-quarters of a tank full and knew that would be enough. But we would be driving to Chester and back on Friday and then there was the drive home. I parked outside the shop until the girls came out bearing a small camping stool and three huge bottles of water.

Arriving back at the accommodation I did not attempt to reverse in, this time I turned around in the lane and drove in face forward. I didn’t trust myself trying to reverse park in such a tight space in the dark when I was exhausted.

We got into the house to find the kitchen warm and smelling of lamb, but the rest of the house cold. I felt the radiators, they were all freezing, I fiddled with them, but they were all on and should be warm. We looked at the thermostat and I turned the temperature up. Nothing happened. I didn’t know what to do. I had the owner’s number so could message or even call her. I didn’t like bothering her, but the house was rapidly getting colder as night fell. Suddenly, at 6.30pm, the radiators came on. It was nothing we’d done, and I wondered if they were on timer although, if they were, it seemed silly to allow guests to arrive to a cold house.

The house soon got warm, and we sat down to enjoy our dinner and had a nice evening. We got the girls a taxi home because the weather was filthy and there was no way we were allowing them to walk home in that.

Going to bed, our rooms were hot – too hot – as the heating didn’t turn off but stayed on all night. The boiler was locked in a cupboard in my room and all night long we were kept awake by pipes banging and rattling and the boiler roaring into life. I opened my window and had to throw the duvet off because I was so hot, but then I got too cold so had to pull it back on again, and then I got too hot, and so the cycle went on and I got precious little sleep. In the morning, abruptly at 10am, the heating went off and the house began to cool down.

I had a suspicion that someone had fiddled with the thermostat. Someone who didn’t know their am from their pm. It seemed odd that the house was cold when we got there, the heating came on at 6.30pm and then stayed on until 10am the next morning. Surely, it should be coming on at 6.30am and going off at 10pm. I messaged the owner, and she talked me through putting it onto manual so we could control the temperature ourselves.

We spent most of Thursday with the girls and in the evening I cooked us another big dinner, after which we played some games before they went home – again in a taxi.

Friday was the graduation. I drove to the university and collected the girls – I’d been down that country lane so many times now I knew every bend and curve – and brought them back to the accommodation for a full English breakfast to set us up for the day. There would be no opportunity to have lunch, so it had to last us until the evening. It was a forty-minute drive to Chester where the graduation was to be held and we only got slightly lost once. That was when Google Maps told me to take the fifth exit off a roundabout but there were only three exits and it didn’t even mean the fifth, it meant the first, but anyway, we got there, parked the car, and took the bus to the city centre.

Franki rushed off to collect her cap and robes and the rest of us joined the very long queue to get into the cathedral.

There were a lot of people to seat, and I understood why they’d told us to get there at least half an hour before the ceremony. I had wondered how good a view we would have but then saw that the ceremony itself would take place at the back of the cathedral nave where none of us would be able to see it. They had erected massive screens at vantage points so we could watch it on them.

I was surprised at how grand the ceremony was. Lots of pomp and circumstance. Six men dressed in red uniforms and busby hats marched in with trumpets and began the ceremony. There were speeches and then the graduates were called up one at a time to accept their degrees, BA’s, MA’s, doctorates, and professorships. It was very moving, watching all those young men and women with their whole lives ahead of them accepting the piece of paper that declared to all how hard they had worked.

The ceremony over, we were all herded down miles of tented corridors to a giant marquee where we were given a glass of indifferent prosecco and waited for Franki to find us, which eventually she did.

She looked very smart in her robes and cap and it’s a shame she couldn’t keep them, but they were only rented and had to be taken back so we picked our way across the wet and slippery cobblestones to the robing centre, then headed back on the bus to the car.

There were a few hairy moments trying to get out of Chester. It was dark and pouring with torrential rain. We were caught in the going home rush hour traffic. I had no idea where I was going, and Google Maps was having another supremely unhelpful moment. But we managed to find our way and I drove us all back to the accommodation. I was very tired and sick of all the driving I’d done. It was a relief to get back, squeeze into the space – I was getting quite good at it by now – and walk around the corner to the lovely restaurant The Cheshire Cat, where we were booked in for dinner.

It was a lovely building, all oak beams, and wooden floors, and it was cosy and warm. Our meals were lovely, and the only thing that let it down was the cheeseboard.

Not fancying any of the puddings, when I saw a cheeseboard on the menu I decided to split one with my dad. Being in Cheshire – home of wonderful cheese – I fully expected it to be made up of local cheeses. Nope. Our waitress spouted a list of cheeses to choose from, not one of them local, and I was further surprised to realise we could only choose two out of the list. At £17 for the board, I did expect there to be a variety of cheese. Anyway, I chose the brie, and my dad chose the Stilton. When it came, the brie was a cold lump of tasteless rubber. Brie should never be served straight from the fridge. It should always be allowed to come to room temperature and squelch for at least 24 hours. And my dad’s Stilton wasn’t Stilton at all but Shropshire Blue. It was very crumbly as well, so I suspect had been frozen at some point. I asked them to heat the brie in the microwave for a minute or so. At least I could then spread it on the crackers, but it was still tasteless. We asked for port to go with the cheeseboard.

Would you like it over ice? Chirped the waitress.

We stared at her in horror.

No, we wouldn’t.

She disappeared, only to return with two large water tumblers with an inch of port at the bottom. I don’t think they know very much about the finer etiquette of cheese and how to serve it there.

Apart from that, it was a lovely evening. After dinner, Franki and Rys headed off to meet their friends who had also graduated that day and I took my parents back to the accommodation to try and get some sleep ready for the long drive home the next day.

We had to be out of the accommodation by ten, so on Saturday it was up, breakfast, pack, load the car, check we hadn’t left anything behind, and then we were off to the university. This was going to be my parents’ only chance to see where Franki was living and look around the campus. It was a filthy day, cold and wet, but we still had a look around the zoo at the animals, before having a much-needed cup of tea. Then it was hugs of goodbye, we climbed back into the car, and off we went.

The rain got steadily heavier and heavier until eventually it was like trying to drive underwater. I slowed down because the roads were slick and visibility was poor, but there were still cars bombing past me as if I was standing still. It was still an uneventful journey, which was a relief. We stopped at Newmarket which is the town before we got to my parents’ village. We needed to do a food shop and none of us fancied going home and then having to go back out again. There was a superstore in Newmarket, so it made sense to stop there, and then drop my parents’ home, before going home myself.

The store was big, noisy, and crowded with way too many people. I couldn’t find anything so ended up going round and round the same aisles looking for stuff. It was a relief to pile all the bags in the car, climb in, and head for home. I stopped at my parents and unloaded the car of all their stuff and then did the last leg home.

My word, I was pleased to be back. Although I enjoyed going away and seeing Franki and of course, the graduation was wonderful, there had been a lot more driving than I anticipated. I don’t mind driving, but when it’s somewhere you’re unfamiliar with it can get very tiring. My mum slipped some money into my coat pocket and told me to treat myself to something nice for dinner. By the time I had unloaded the car, put everything away, put on a load of laundry, and sorted out the pets, I was more than ready for something to eat. My lodger had texted that she was away for the weekend, so I lit the fire, ordered a Chinese takeaway, and chilled out with Netflix.

And now we’re on the downward slope to Christmas.

This is a simply enormous blog. A couple more things. If you are in the Stonham Barns area the weekend of the 25^th and 26^th of November, why not pop along to their Christmas Fair extravaganza? I will be there, along with fellow author Rachel Churcher, and it will be a fabulous chance to do some Christmas shopping. It will be crammed with stalls and stalls of local craftsmen and traders all selling wonderful goodies to buy for the festive season. If you do come, pop along to our stall to say hello.

Finally, I am republishing my short story and poetry collection, Eclairs for Tea and other stories, with a gorgeous new cover and it is being released in hardback form as well. It is the first of my books to be released as a hardback and I can honestly say it is absolutely beautiful. It would make a wonderful gift for someone, especially as it contains two bonus stories that are not included in either the paperback or eBook versions. Available from Amazon today, why not treat yourself to a copy or buy one for that hard-to-buy person? It was a bit of a rough ride getting it out there and I will tell you all about it next time because trust me, it’s a long story.

Anyway, have a great weekend everyone, and I look forward to chatting with you next time.

Julia Blake