Friday 21st June - the longest day...

It started with promising sun shine. Sort of warm, sort of cool, sort of sunny, sort of cloudy.

We took the cats to the vet this morning for their annual checkup and vaccinations. We were the only people there, arrived early, and yet were late going in... how can that be? Oh well, what else did we have planned? Nothing.

Leo got off lightly; she's got bad teeth and gums; if she were younger maybe we would consider dental treatment, but when a previous cat, at about the same age, had treatment, the anesthetic pretty well did for her; she came home very sorry for herself and unwilling to eat, and went to her eternal rest a few weeks later. So, while Leo can manage as she is, (which she can!) we'll leave things as they are.

McCavity has been diagnosed with arthritic hips - she certainly expressed full and comprehensive dislike for having her back legs manipulated. So she was carried off by a nurse, and returned later, looking very thoughtful and wrapped in a towel, having had a blood test to see if she could be given painkillers. Luckily, she can, and the plan is to conceal her medicine in her cat food. There is always the risk that Leo gets the painkillers instead of McCavity...

They have spent the whole day asleep; poor dears, they are all of sixteen years old now, which I suppose translates into Very Old Indeed, and clearly found the whole morning Too Much.

Apart from getting up, turning round, and lying down again, they have barely moved.

I've been practising watercolour sketching in preparation for the holidays. I print off photographs from the internet, and copy them. It is a lot easier than doing things from real life. For a start they are already reduced to two dimensions, and then everything is also frozen in time.

My other new acquisition is a little willow basket sort of thing. When we went to the Weald and Downland Museum last weekend, I made it - it was such a pleasure to make. I was enchanted by the developing twist along the sides as the inward spiral grew (you start at the open end).

I've hung it from a window hook at the bottom of the stairs so that I see it every morning.

Now, about this longest day... it is evening now, and so the day still has some time to go. We should be out in the garden. celebrating the solstice and all that...

Nah, that's not going to happen!