Worms Postponed.

I’ve just awoke from a sad depressing dream. I was being cruelly spurned by my nearest and dearest. Even Graham Portermouse, my best friend at school, made a surprise appearance after a gap of some fifty odd years. I was about to go down the garden, and probably far further, to eat worms. It rather made nonsense of the current glib advice to, “just be yourself, act naturally.” It’s rather lovely but anthropologically, which as it happens sounds worryingly like the psychological study of my ex wife, we wouldn’t have spent eons evolving a brain the size of a planet if it was that easy. We would be limited to socialising in small hierarchical family groups governed by the dictates of gene proliferation. Even a dog wouldn’t come near unless we discarded a morsel-clad bone. No our large brain is testament to the complexity of being ‘in relationship.’ And I guess there are times, like last night, when it cries enough, the war is lost, it’s worms for tea. Well breakfast chronologically. Far from ‘being myself’ I am in a whirl of considerations, lost in a melee of conflicted reasoning for what’s best to do. I’ve been at it for seventy years and thus acquired far too many misconceptions to mention. I’m jammed in the cleft of a viciously clefted stick. Unlike an alligator who acts naturally and lives in a swamp the best I can hope for is to unravel enough misconceptions to be happily acceptable jointly to myself and others, and that’s no mean feat. At this point, namely 7.30am, I make a coffee and return to the attic to a fluttering of wings, a thump on the window and Britney magically appearing from under the bed beadily looking for her escapee. I’ve only been gone five minutes and nature ‘acting naturally’ has taken over. But anyhow I’ve done enough art, music and theatre to know something magical occurs when all this conjecture is put aside. Something true is recognised across these isolating boundaries of considered reasoning. We needn’t be as facile as a sportsman’s interview after the match. Anyway the coffee’s drunk, the bird is in here somewhere keeping quiet, Britney’s locked out and scratching at the door, the sky is blue and all’s well with the world, though it’s getting a tad cold with the windows wide open (for the escapee). So it’s toast for breakfast, worms postponed. 

UKIP And Cats.

My views on immigration are reasonably middle of the road; liberal tinged with self-preservation. But sometimes a line must be drawn. We have four cats, Dave, Domino, Betty and Britney, which considering this is a mouse household shows an admirable appreciation for diversity, but it seems four happy, well-fed cats tend to attract others. There’s Cocky Black Cat, a stray who despite biting lumps out of Dave and costing us £70 at the vets on antibiotics and pain killers, is slowly playing on our sympathy, and Pretty Cat who’s obviously owned but lonely and just comes round for the crack. And then there’s Pip an asylum seeker from Royston who wants to come on compassionate grounds seeing as Martynmouse doesn’t let him in the house since ??? moved out to live with the lovely Asian couple across the road because he pees everywhere. That would be seven and definite grounds for me voting for Nigel Farage in the upcoming MEP elections. I mean they’re all unemployed, our NHS budget wouldn’t stretch to the vet bills, none of them speak English and we already buy cat food by the hundredweight. Fright quankly Mothermouse already complains when Domino chooses to bless our favourite possessions with the mark of his own territory. Nope I’m applying zero tolerance to our immigration policy; from now on it’s one out, one in.