Billy and Emma go to the vet's

I haven't been in a vet's surgery since my last cat died which must be four years ago at least and but I was asked to take my two feline friends, Billy and Emma, there yesterday. I much prefer it to the doctor of course, even though you have to pay and it is much more entertaining. People tend not to talk to you at the doctor's but at the vet's everybody is a friend and a small square cavalier spaniel howled his disdain to me for several minutes. Apparently he doesn't usually do that. He is not chubby, he is actually square with a little head at one and  - well, you get the idea. He is, like so many of us, a food addict and wakes up at six every morning demanding tea and toast, banging his bowl off the floor and, if ignored further, his bowl off the cupboards, all of which must be very unentertaining for the woman who is owned by him. She never gets a lie in.
If she puts bread out for the birds he eats that and he will even stoop to bird seed which must at least be useful for his insides. I once had a gorgeous ginger moggie who used to climb up on next door's big square bird table and demolish everything in sight. The blackbirds were not amused.
Billy and Emma were not amused either by the vet's and, having the luxury of a cat box each, having not wanted to go in they now did not want to get out and even when the vet turned the cat box and tried to politely shake them, they wouldn't have it. She had to dismantle both their refuges. Billy ignored her after that. Emma politely put up with having blood taken though it was a difficult procedure, Emma being seventeen and very skinny.
Alas poor Billy had to stay to be sedated and have his very long coat sorted out since he is now too old for self grooming. Emma went home alone and probably missed him very much since he is her brother and they have rarely been apart. Billy comes home at lunchtime today and the fire will be on for him in his favourite sitting room. Emma, poor soul, has to go back some time this week to have her coat done and her teeth sorted. Oh dear, the dentist, now that really is a place nobody wants to go.

Love me, Love my Dog

I spent yesterday evening with my favourite small friend and a two year old Jack Russell.
Unfortunately I was wearing my pretend fur coat. It's purple and no, as somebody once asked me, it was never anything that walked about. Purple rats, I don't think so. Jack Russell, bright as he is, decided that I was a large purple labrador or something heading in that direction and did everything to attract my attention. He gnawed my knuckles, scurried sixteen times around the living room to prove what a big catch he really is and kept leaping up to glimpse this wonderful creature who had invaded his space.
I had, unthinking that I was going to attract all this attention, worn a lovely green wool dress, Asda, £15 and expensive black tights, M&S, £12. They are meant to show that I have no tummy and no bottom. Alas, at both back and front I have expanded and had to keep pulling them back up to my waist. I think medium sized would have done. So even when the fur coat disappeared into the wilds of the hall, Jack Russell thought my toes were for nibbling and my black knees enticed him. I told him how expensive the ensemble was but nothing would prevent him.
To the school gates, therefore and there, oh, heaven,  a very beautiful cavalier spaniel. Fortunately she was not in the delicate state that might attract him but did that make any difference? He kept trying to lunge to reach her. Luckily I am adept with expanding leads and it did him no good. She was black and tan, knew how gorgeous she was, and her fan club, children and mothers alike, kept coming over and telling her how lovely she was and cuddling her small squashed face. Jack, ignored, and unaware of how small and bristly haired he really is, was jealous and howled.
All the way home he stopped at every leaf, every muddy patch and I had to explain that we really couldn't go any faster because Jack knew that ten minutes earlier a french poodle had stopped in exactly that place.
We had a lovely evening, helped forward by Domino's, don't you just love it when you ring up and they deliver? Thank God I wasn't born sooner!  Also a couple of large glasses of Prosecco. Me, not Jack. We played Gruffalo dominoes, cleverly and unwittingly bought by me a while back, made up a large dinosaur jigsaw, most of which we needed help with as I am dinosaur stupid and can't tell a tyrannosaurus from a box of playing cards. We played a mysterious fairy game where you give up your wobbly teeth for golden coins. Very complicated. Some idiot obviously thought that one up when he was drunk. Good thing I never took to gambling and such, I am useless at it.
Jack never quite gave up on my attraction and ended up chewing to pieces of the see through case in which I keep my green reading glasses. Believe me, it was a small price to pay. When Mummy came home my fascination for everybody was lost and I went home in Paddy's Cab.
We did have a wobbly moment over snakes and ladders when we noticed that there were more snakes than ladders, and decided  that yes, life is rather like that.

Did I mention?

Okay, so the paperback of my new book will be out on the 13th of the month. Just in time for those of you who want something lovely to give a friend or a loved one for Valentine's Day. If you would like to see the flip book and I find these things magical the link is http:/extracts.quercusbooks.co.uk/fall-and-rise-of-lucy-charlton/.
I have to remind myself what the book's about. I'm almost finished the next one and knee deep in what my present characters are doing. It's strange how soon you forget. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done and I do hope people will like it.
In the meanwhile, against all the odds, Miss Appleby's Academy is still selling well. So chuffed about it.
Lucy Charlton has come into the kindle saga top hundred at 98 and Far From My Father's House which I wrote many moons ago is in contemporary fiction top hundred list. Life never ceases to amaze me. The first six books are all modestly priced as downloads on kindle at 58p each and considering that each one took a year to write that can't help but be a bargain.
Also, can I just mention the short story which comes before The Fall and Rise of Lucy Charlton and is Lucy Charlton's Christmas  - and it's free!