Odds, sods, dags

Good work to everyone who demonstrated in London yesterday, and to the four arrested on Prestwick's runway yesterday protesting bomb transports to Israel. And I don't give a toss whether the paperwork was in order or not.

Dear Michael Hardiman posed a parenting question at PoV to which many responded, leaving me feeling like an absolute thug. I suggested that restraining a violent three yr old might be a good idea, or assigning them to a 3-min 'time-out'. The 'good' parents are all able to talk their three yr olds out of such states, and my resorts to 'time-out' when in extremis are cruel. If I'm honest, the few times I used time-outs, they were cop-outs, but prevented greater harm because I was going to kill the little bugger/s otherwise. It was them or me. Am I digging the hole deeper?

Her Majesty's butt problems reached a crisis this week. She staunchly resists any inspection or examination of any of her personal areas- especially those marked by curly fur at her caudal and ventral aspects. However, it became apparent the butt dreadlock problem hadn't resolved when she developed an unpleasant odour. A painful (for me) and much protested exam proved the problem at her derriere was getting worse and not better. She prides herself on her immaculate appearance and blinding whites, so I suspect this situation was not nice for Her either.

First measure we tried was a bath, conducted with a basin of lukewarm soapy water and a shower nozzle with a gentle flow. Knowing from Her temperament this wasn't going to be any easy task, I enlisted both kiddos as helpers to restrain her while I washed her bum. All we succeeded in doing that day was getting all scratched up, soaking the bathroom, turning the cat into a screaming flattened creature of fury and wetting the dags so that they stank even worse. Cat's tails are amazingly scrawny when wet. For two days afterwards, both She and we were traumatised, she a pariah being pushed away for the smell of her, and we waiting for the dags to dry out for Round Two, which was to cut them off.

Round Two we were better prepared for, having met before to plan a strategy and equipped ourselves with heavy duty Marigold gloves and a towel as a straightjacket. The big wan was on front end restraint, the wee wan at the back end dealing with the furiously lashing tail and I with the scissors to excise the offending dreads. I would like to say it was a straight in-and-out operation, but this was not so. It was a distressing 15 minutes while She was caught, restrained, escaped and caught again, boxed with me, hissed and spat, fought with the kids. She almost convinced me at one point that we were cutting away some kind of tumour, or giant cat haemorrhoid, and that I was killing her. I never knew there could be so much venom in a 7 lb animal, though I suspected.

The good news is that She smells sweet again, and within an hour of the trauma She was back looking for adulation. She still has a few small locks left, but we'll leave it a couple of days before having a go at removing the last of these and thereafter she's going to have to be groomed whether she likes it or not, even in curly places.