…and she’s fantastic.

This morning, I’d been awoken by yowling about 30 seconds before Soot the nearly 20 year old cat got let into my bedroom, and my head was sat on until some time I forgot because I got up and washed my hair and tried to make it reasonably curly before being re compressed to my bed for a little while; and it was 8:45 when I got up and started making breakfast and I managed to find a candle (which was huge and thin – so I put it in a glass to get it to stay upright), I attempted to deep fry things (in a frying pan), partially succeeded (I’m more of a baker than a chef), and took this breakfast upstairs on a tray.

While Mum ate it, I was downstairs eating mine (wandering around while eating it off the plate with a fork and scraping remnants of fried mushrooms off the bottom of the frying pan), Soot strolled in and out of her room, and once everything had been consumed, I sat on her bed and, at her request, read her the Spring Brambly Hedge story – which involves a little mouse called Wilfred celebrating his birthday. After that, I tidied up downstairs; she got in the bath with the rubber duck family at 10:30 AM,

Soot was back on my bed, and I re-joined him as the sun was shining on my duvet. The sun went in and it got quite grey outside (my phone said it was 6°C and snow was expected late Monday night), and it was 11:15 AM when him and I went downstairs; I was sat on in my chair for a while, then got up and dressed myself (and put my thermals on), packed my bag and tried to get my hair looking nice, and it was 11.58 AM (and still 6°C) when we left, and the bells chimed as we left the house for coffee in the town. A sign advertising The Madness Musical (14th to 18th March at the local theatre) was tied to a pole on the main road, a few daffodils had flowered nearby, and the car park had a man in a fluorescent jacket patrolling; the place that used to be Argos was selling show home furniture, and downstairs in the shopping centre, quite a lot of shops seemed to be permanently closed. We sat down with a toasty thing, coffee, and did some people watching: a man carrying two pot plants was walking very fast, and another bloke was holding a big motorcycle helmet, a security guard in a suit and tie was peering at a bicycle in a corner, a guide dog was being trained, and I overheard the security guard telling a delivery man that this was his final warning. It was 1.13pm when we got up; Wilko had unbelievable numbers of plant pots in its windows, I photographed the mass of table mats, and in Waterstones – I saw books called ‘Stolen Focus – Why you can’t pay attention’, ‘The Little Book Of Ick’, ‘Abject Quizzery – The Utterly Depressing Quiz Book’, ‘Nuts & Bolts – Seven Small Inventions That Changed The World (in a big way)’, ‘How To Teach Philosophy To Your Dog’, ‘Lab Rats – why modern work makes people miserable’, 1 by Phillip Pullman called ‘Daemon Voices – On stories and storytelling’, ‘Slime – A Natural History’ (about the 3 billion year history of slime), lots and lots of little boxes containing things such as a desktop dog park and Himalayan mood lamps, and a book called ‘How Not To Drown In A Glass Of Water’.

In Boots – there were facial loofahs, cleansing konjac sponges, nanofacial steamers, quick drying hair turbans, hand held Shiatsu massagers, and nose wax kits; and then on Beauchamp Avenue – a tiny poster was advertising handcrafted woodcutter whirlygigs.

We were home with dribbly noses at 2.36pm, Soot was in his dent on the back of the sofa, and the hens were just heading down into the run. My phone hadn’t tracked us very well, Soot had his grooming session and then got into his now sunny dent, I looked up what a frappe was (Wikipedia describes it as ‘a Greek iced coffee drink made from instant coffee, water, sugar and milk’ – and that it was invented in 1957 when someone was looking for a way to have his usual instant coffee during his break but couldn’t find any hot water – so he mixed the coffee with cold water and ice cubes in a shaker); then the window cleaner appeared with a ladder and started cleaning the windows, and as it approached 4pm – I was reminded about the usual Encephalitis Society virtual gathering and turned the computer on. It lasted its usual hour, and at 5pm – Soot had just joined me, and we relaxed until 5.50pm, when it was 5°C (Accuweather warned us of a ‘realfeel’ of 1°C), he took over my warm spot, I decided to put my fur hat and walking boots on, and we left for an art museum in Warwickshire – where a light spectacle was being held – at 6.07pm. Darkness rapidly fell, and we arrived at 6.32pm; and due to the pitched blackness – so I didn’t write anything for 40 minutes, and just photographed as much as I could…

…and at 7.10pm a small area of food stalls was reached – with Bridgnorth Bakes, Indian Street Food, hot dogs, halloumi fries, and coffee. We shared a hot dog and halloumi fries – seated on a wooden bench, lots of people wearing bobbly hats and a few dogs were visible, and at 7.32pm we moved again.

It was about 35 minutes later that we made it back to the car (with a brownie to take home), my teeth were chattering (despite my fur hat), and it remained pitched black; and Soot greeted us back home at 8.35pm – then joined us upstairs while the brownie was consumed and Mum said what a wonderful birthday it had been.