Storms of November and naughty cats in The View from the Terrace

There is a raging storm outside. I just looked through the bedroom window and the little silver birch trees on the railway embankment are bending over and there are golden leaves blowing everywhere. When it’s like this it always reminds me of lines from a Houseman poem,

‘The wind it plies the saplings double
And thick on Severn snow the leaves,’

Of course I am a long way from the River Severn now but I expect the leaves are falling fast on our little river down in the village.
That poem also takes me back to when I was a little girl. I used to cycle to school along the path beside the River Severn in Shrewsbury and I remember this time of the year when there were leaves everywhere.

I went to Shrewsbury High School which was in the centre of the town on a hill overlooking the river, since we lived just one street away from the river in a district about a mile and a half away most of my journey was along the river path. My dad used to encourage me to ride to school. The bus fare was a penny each way in those days and each day he would give me one of those old threepenny bits and tell me I could keep the change and if I rode my bike to school I could keep the whole threepence! That was a great encouragement and it worked. I only took the bus in bad weather.

As I sit here typing this I am having problems because Suki has decided that she wants to sit with me and her place of choice is between the keyboard and the screen. I have already put her back on the floor twice. I love it when she sits with me but it just doesn’t work in that position, she keeps typing things. This is her contribution. 56666666666666666666666666666666645
What with her and our other cat Scruffy who likes to sit on the printer and keeps printing blank sheets when he moves, I am finding it hard to concentrate.
This is Scruffy(right) in the garden last year with his brother Macy

Scruffy was originally named Hoshiko by Cat who was into all things Japanese at the time, but Chris always called him Scruffy and it fits him, I have never seen a cat who managed to get into such a mess so often! Macy always looks angry. I sometimes think we could make money out of him promoting him as ‘Angry Cat’ like that ‘Grumpy Cat’.
Here is Suki last year

Unfortunately she had an injury early this year and has lost the sight of her left eye which has now clouded over. She copes marvelously, you wouldn’t think there was anything wrong and she’s such a quirky cat, it rather suits her.

Last updated November 17, 2016