In defiance of the health warnings .....

The Builder threw a brick at the cat and bonked him on the head!!!!!

He's been re-doing the front yard (this should really be on the garden blog!). So far he's taken out the "rockery" by the back gate which was filled with ivy and now he's concreted over the hole.

Yesterday he turned his attention to the front wall.

You can (just) get the car or the van into the "driveway" but I find it difficult (you have to drive up over the kerb and I can't reverse it over with such a tiny space allowance. Then, when trying to reverse out, I can't see the front step or even the wall particularly well). I realise we can't move the telegraph pole which really makes the space narrow, but we decided that it would be easier to manipulate the vehicles in if we took away the step and cut the wall back. So this is what The Builder was doing yesterday. Supervised by Marlo.

Marlo then disappeared, as Marlo is wont to do.

A bit later, as The Builder was chopping back the wall, a man walked past with a rottie on a string.

Suddenly - there was a kerfuffle. The rottie shot into next door's drive, barking and growling and making like a Hound of Hell. Marlo shot from where he had been lying in the sunshine next to Debbie's car (so unseen by The Builder) and right into the path of the brick that The Builder was lobbing in the direction of his rubble pile. Bounced on his bonce, it did. So there's poor Marlo, spitting and snarling and stunned, all fluffed up and agitated. And there's the rottie on the end of his piece of string, all snarly and growly and hunting for the Evil Kat to Kill. And two men all bewildered and a-bovered, trying to sooth their animals.

Fortunately, neither animal came to any harm, so that's ok.

Tabitha tried to dedd her bunnies, too. Came outside yesterday morning, to find their hutch had toppled off its leggies and collapsed onto its wire front, trapping the bunnies it what was, to all intents and purposes, a dark, enclosed box. She was heading off to London for a meeting so couldn't do much, though I think she did pick the hutch up so they could at least see out! I think they have now forgiven her for just setting the hutch upright and legging it to the station!

It's nice having a freezer full of stews and casseroles and soups. We had lasagne for dinner last night (in defiance of that World Cancer Scaring Body that wants the whole world to be stick thin and eat lettuce leaves) made with beef and mushroom stew that we liberated from the freezer a few hours in advance. Took no effort to make! Oh - and we washed it down with liberal quantities of white wine. At least, I did. The Builder went to sleep, exhausted after his cat bonce bonking exercise and stayed asleep for most of the evening.

The World Cancer Scaring Body has caused a right kerfuffle. Mostly people are scoffing. At the WCSB and their silly conclusions and recommendations, as well as at their food. It was oh so, oh so tempting to get the wherewithal for a fry up ready for tonight! Instead, I restrained myself and took some low fat, low salt chicken, ginger and spring onion sausages out of the freezer. There will likely be liberal quantities of white wine with the sausages too. And cheesy mashed potato. Made with butter! And gravy. I may yet take the bacon out of the freezer!

Actually, I know three people who have had unpleasant breast cancer episodes in the last two or three years. They are each of them stick thin, take loads of exercise, drink little or no alcohol and are vegetarians. Sigh. No hope for me, then!

I have a lovely new, pink, stripy cardigan. I look remarkably like Bagpuss. It's very cheering. (The pink, stripy cardie; not looking like Bagpuss, though there's nothing wrong with that either.) A colleague gave it to me because someone had given it to her, she didn't much care for it and thought it was the sort of thing that I was likely to wear. She was right!