Well.

 

Not long after I finished writing to you last night, I found that Perdita was walking on three legs, holding her right forepaw against her side as if someone had been twisting it behind her back. All thought of Christmas dinner was banished. How could I have been thinking of myself, when…

 

Eventually I realised that she had caught a claw in the matted fur on her back, just in front of the tail. A vet shaved it off once (at enormous expense) but she let it happen again. I tried to set her free, while she growled and hissed at me. I gave up. C. was coming this morning. With two of us, one could hold the cat while the other cut the fur. So I went to bed, uneasily.

 

The first thing I do every morning is feed the cats, Paradox prancing in front of me, Perdita hanging back. This morning, no Perdita. I didn’t search, but she wasn’t visible in any of her usual places. I spent an uneasy couple of hours, with Paradox, as you can imagine, saying “Why are you worried? You’ve got a perfectly good cat. We don’t need that other one.” I watched the Andrew Marr show – the last one ever – while working out how to explain all this to C. First, we would have to find the cat…

 

But, ten minutes before she arrived, there was Perdita. She had solved the problem by herself. She wasn’t even limping. C. and I walked around the garden. We went clockwise this morning, instead of widdershins as usual. So all is well for the moment. 

I have managed to get a Tesco delivery spot for 8-9 p.m. on Tuesday evening, better than nothing. The order will include a spatchcocked poussin which will do well enough for Christmas dinner (and a good deal cheaper than last year’s French Black Chicken which I don’t think I ate much of). I’ll also have sprouts & cranberries & kale in a recipe I found recently which I tried to make for my sister when she was here. I messed it up that time, but I think it’s worth trying again.

 

I did a bit of knitting, during the Andrew Marr show. Next is measurement.

 

Language

 

I was gratified to learn, Mary Lou, (Comment yesterday), that Google has heard of “mitigate against”. I feel pretty sure that I’ve never seen it in print. Nor have I ever been aware of a confusion between “home” and “hone”. I’ll watch for that one.