A treat to remember

It was raining all night, consequently, the cat was running boisterously around the house, and tearing up and down the stairs, going head over heels, but catching onto steps with his claws to prevent himself from crashing down the flight of stairs in the nick of time. All this kept me awake, so I listened to the radio quietly for hours, and felt tired all day.

While we had breakfast we watched the snow swirling down, but it did not settle. For some exercise I vacuumed violently and excessively, before settling down to more peaceful occupations. I am so bored by this weather.

Today I walked with Poppy and Ben in the park, watching Lilu frolic around. There were other dog walkers too, and we met Jim with his elderly dog. I had not seen him around for a while, and he told me he had recently had a hip replacement, and had been staying with his son while he convalesced.

Mas had invited Poppy and Ben to come for one of our cheapy pub lunches, but Ben was on call, and had to urgently leave. Poppy called to say this may take some time, so Mas and I went off to the Man in the Moon, as we came back it snowed, and then sleeted.

Later, Poppy and Ben invited us to go out for an evening meal with them, and have some Persian cooking. We drove off with them to Finchley Central and went to a restaurant called Shiraz which was peacefully appointed, and with friendly service. We had a really nice three course meal with wine, and Poppy and I had Persian tea afterwards, which was amber coloured, clear and delicately scented. Mason, unusually, really liked the wine very much. Really, just the very tasty starters would have been ample, but it was interesting to try all the different flavours, and we had a really nice evening.

Later on, just as we were thinking of going off to bed the cat bought in another minute mouse. I managed to take it away from him and put it outside again, but I don't know if it had been hurt too much to survive. At this rate I think I will have to try and find a small robot mouse for him to chase, otherwise the area will be denuded of wildlife, or at least mice.

Boxing Day

After a rather poor nights' sleep we had a late breakfast, and relaxed until 2.00pm. We had been invited to Poppy and Ben's for a meal with some of their family. Poppy had laid out a long table in their conservatory for the grown ups, and everything looked cheerful, bright and cosy.



















Poppy had made a huge meal with a roast chicken, lamb and a turkey, and rice cooked in a traditional Persian way, all of which were delicious. Later she served multiple desserts, which were also too tempting. At one point a sweet little 18month old girl was told by her mother to apologise to Lilu, the dog, for hitting her, which she did.

There was lots of laughter, and Ben was imitating the odd TV advert, making us laugh again. They have a really nice family, and everyone seemed so good natured. Eventually some people left, but we stayed on for a little while with them, before dragging ourselves home, across the road.

We were just getting ready to go to bed when we noticed that an ambulance was parked outside our next door neighbours' house. I noticed Glen and Wynford walk to the ambulance and get in, and it was a long time before it drove away; we wondered if Barry had been taken ill, or whether Glen had fallen and hurt an arm. We went to bed feeling rather concerned.