An interesting week in Hampshire...

Sunday was a quiet day and I managed to get a lot of work done on #Nine Lives . I have grasped the proverbial bull by the horns and pencilled in the 3rd of October as the publication date, which should give me plenty of time to finish the editing and do a final polish.Lulu, our 21-year-old feline visitor seems much stronger now, but we have to keep an eye on her for her meow seems to be broken and we don’t always hear when she needs something. I have tried to clean her up a bit, her coat is in a terrible state, but nothing short of  shearing and a bath will ever get it right, and I keep postponing any drastic measures until she seems stronger.

Monday. While I was following some advice about background images for our website, I managed to pick up some malware that was described as a ‘Trojan’ called ‘Astromenda’. Its mission, apparently, is to infiltrate and crash computers. I was at my wits end trying to find out how one gets rid of such a thing, and finally managed to disable it, but not uninstall. Hope that’s good enough!I followed this disaster with a bout of gardening, and every bramble in Hampshire attacked me and I ended up bleeding copiously. I love to garden, but the amount of brambles we get is downright evil.Didn’t think the day could get any worse, but not wanting to push my luck, I retreated to my book.
Tuesday .  Not sure if I’m imagining it, but my e-mails and social networking seems to be taking longer than ever. Possibly a good sign, at least I like to think so.Lulu is getting stronger every day, so much for thinking she wouldn’t last long. She seems to go from strength to strength, how long can cats live, anyway?Decided to risk giving her a bath, as touching her was not pleasant. I expected all kinds of opposition, but she was really good. Didn’t struggle or complain at all, really surprising. Most cats cannot stand water, but maybe she is too old to care. At least now, when she ever decides to let us fuss her, the experience will be pleasant for all of us!

Wednesday.   Today, I entered Anita’s short story ‘Eye for an Eye’ into a competition at Magic Oxygen. Too good an opportunity to miss, as it was exactly the right word length.This was prompted by the fact we have both managed to be accepted by Chris Graham at The Story Reading Ape website and will be published on the 15th and 30th of October respectively.We are also scheduled to appear on A Woman’s Wisdom on the sixth and 13th, so a significantly busy month all round.  If this doesn’t improve our author platforms somewhat, I can’t think what will!
Thursday .  It was time for my annual MOT at the doctors, where they check I am still breathing and not heading for another crisis.Mainly good news this time, cholesterol is nearly normal and blood pressure OK. The blood tests and things all came back fine. There was a thinly veiled hint about my weight, which I pretended not to have heard, but apart from that, a clean bill of health. So, good news all round.Lulu is starting to really assert herself. Far from behaving like a veritable fossil, she is becoming quite a character. I was a bit late with her supper yesterday and hadn’t heard the muffled squeak that passes as her meow, so the little madam had trotted down to the kitchen and was helping herself to our other cats food!
Friday I had been putting it off, supposedly for Lulu’s benefit, but if I’m honest it was for me too. It was time to try to do something about the state of her coat. Her fur was so badly matted, I wasn’t looking forward to putting her through the ordeal for even if I was very careful and as gentle as I could be, this was not going to be pleasant for either of us.Since she had walked, or I should say ‘staggered’ into our lives, she hadn’t really complained about anything. Even putting the drops into her infected ears was met with resigned passivity, so I was dreading actually upsetting her.I decided that little and often would be best and after ten minutes, both of us had had enough. But it was long enough to have removed quite a pile of hair.
She was looking decidedly better with each day that passed, and at this rate, I shall have to find something else to write about…
http://amazon.co.uk/author/anitadawes

I live in the hope that our cats will end up like this!