Our two kittens, Tess and Frankie, are a couple of weeks shy of their first birthday. I’m still reluctant to leave them to their own devices when they’re outside, but I’m learning to live with it.

Yesterday I came home from work, sat down to a spot of writing, and let the girls out into the back garden for a while. Not long after, I turned around to see Tess had snagged the wing of a pigeon and – despite my attempts to stop her – was dragging it inside.

She let it go in the utility room, where it made an attempt to escape through the kitchen window… except it was closed, so it proceeded to smack itself against the glass while Tess tried to finish off the job she had started.

After I got the window open the pigeon squeezed out and dragged itself to (relative) safety, and I spent the next hour cleaning up blood, feathers, and DNA from all the surfaces.

So much for my writing!

I have worked for the last ten months, during the pandemic – and for that I am grateful – but yesterday was my last day. Tomorrow I begin a new job, one that is more in line with what I am looking for. The hours are better, and there are absolutely no weekend shifts… and for that I am even more grateful.

When all is said and done the money is probably going to work out to be less than I have been getting, but after weighing it all up I quickly came to the conclusion that it’s not always about the money. In fact, it’s rarely about the money. As long as everything is covered with a little left over, the rest is gravy.

What it’s really about is getting home at a reasonable time, and being able to spend my evenings with The Fiancée© – something that has been missing for quite some time. It’s also a blessing to have our weekends together so we can make plans to, well… do whatever we want!

It’s easy to lose some of the magic from a relationship when you’re not there to see the trick, so don’t let money lead you in the wrong direction.

Sage advice from me to you.

Unexpectedly, I spent last evening – the day after my birthday – in the Accident & Emergency Department at hospital. A few hours earlier I had closed the side door of my van at work with my right hand, and forgotten to move my left one out of the way. For a split second I feared the worst.

Fortunately, when I opened the door my fingers were still intact, although the pain I could feel and the amount of blood coming from my hand suggested I was in a bad way. I didn’t have anything in the van to stem the bleeding so I went to the nearest house and was given a towel… which did the trick, until I was able to bandage my fingers properly.

Some painkillers, super-glue, and a couple of x-rays later and – thankfully – there doesn’t seem to be any lasting damage. My ring finger and middle finger of my left hand are bandaged, and there’s a measure of swelling and bruising, but after some rest I should be back to normal in no time.

Oh yeah, and maybe I’ll move my hand next time.

The Fiancée© will be celebrating her birthday tomorrow, and it’s the second year in a row that she has had to placate loved ones about an operation. Last year, I had my polypectomy the day after her birthday, and this year – today, as I write this – both our kittens are at the vet getting spayed.

As I’ve said before, this is my first time with cats, and it’s also the first time I’ve been aware of the sterilisation of a pet. It was quite a heartbreaking journey to the scalpel this morning, as both Tess and Frankie cried almost the whole way there.

Not to make it about me, but it was quite upsetting to know that they were frightened and confused, and that I was the reason this was happening. They hadn’t asked for it. At least once I wanted to turn around and take them home, but I know this is for the best, and that they will recover quickly.

I hope that this operation won’t change them in any fundamental way, and that their personalities will remain intact. I want Tess to continue to be the inquisitive troublemaker, who loves to sit in boxes and purrs like a Harley Davidson; and Frankie needs to still be the cautious one who takes her sister’s lead, and always looks like she’s trying to do long division in her head.

Most of us (myself included) will be glad to see the back of 2020 when it comes – in fact I know a lot of you would like to personally put it on the back of a truck, drive it off a cliff, and watch the whole thing explode in a bright ball of flames.

We’ve all had to muscle through this year just so we can get to the end of the calendar, and because of that, some of us have come out the other side as different people. Better. Worse. Who knows? Jobs have been lost; lives have been lost. Families have been torn apart. Twelve months ago someone wearing a mask was an oddity; today, you don’t leave home without one.

But nothing magically changes when the clock strikes midnight on December 31st, and the promise of a vaccine in the months to come shouldn’t be an excuse to relax. Next year begins with the same fears as this one ends, and dollars to doughnuts, 2021 will not be any better if we don’t all pull together and try to do the right thing to help put this in the rear view.

So be smart, and think about the big picture.

Some are cat people; some are dog people. I’m a dog guy. I’ve had a lot of them. My parents used to foster them, so we had a lot until such time as they found a more permanent home. Oddly however, I’ve not had any dogs since childhood.

I’ve never owned a cat. I don’t dislike them. I just generally prefer the personality and nature of a dog. It’s just as I said – you’re one or the other, aren’t you?

Until now.

Tomorrow The Fiancée© and I are taking a trip to collect a couple of eight week old kittens. Cats are her thing, but she hasn’t had any for many years. For a long time I resisted her requests, but I guess I mellowed during lockdown because all of a sudden we’re getting two of them!

We struggled to come up with names, but eventually we landed on…

Tess

… and…

Frankie

I’m on the first day of a two-day training course, which makes this my first day of actual work in very nearly six months. I had to get up at 7am for an 8.30am start, but that still feels like mid-morning when I used to be halfway through my shift by then.

Of course, there are teething problems with the training, and the class has now been pushed by an hour or so, so I’m taking the opportunity to post this. It would seem that while a lot of things have changed recently, some things – like delays and red tape – have not.

So, this is the beginning of a new chapter. If I’m honest, I don’t want this one to last very long – I want something different; something better – but in this Covid world, beggars and choosers and all that.

Oddly, I always did more writing when I was working full-time as well, so that’s a bonus I can look forward to. I have a few new ideas that I’ve been mulling over for a while now, so I’ll probably be able to get them fleshed out a little over the weekend.