Drama!

For mysterious reasons,  later on Tuesday afternoon, I decided that the cats' water bowls needed cleaning. I took them into the laundry to wash them properly. I decided not to refill them at the laundry sink but to take them back into the dining room and fill them in place. The cats were peacefully eating their wet food.

I had obviously spilled some water on the dining room floor when I picked up the bowls, because as I walked to put the bowls down I skidded on something and skied across the dining room tiles, eventually crashing to the ground. I dropped the (ceramic) water bowls which smashed into many pieces. The cats ran away.

I sat back up and considered things. I can get up at Austin's place from the futon mattress I sleep on. I moved myself into the position I am in when I want to get up in Austin's spare bedroom - and impaled my hand on a piece of broken ceramic.

I hauled myself to my feet. Sorted out my hand (extra large bandaids!) cleared up the ceramic pieces, dried the floor, found the cats.

Fortunately, I have another couple of water bowls and put them out.

Order restored.

I got out of bed on Wednesday morning and could hardly move. My shoulder was very grumpy.  My back hurt. My knees hurt. I decided not to go in to work. I probably could have managed once I got to work but the thought of siting in the car and driving for two hours to get there was not appealing. Plus, I would have to get back later in the day!

I pottered around gently, making sure to get up and walk slowly up and down the hallway every half hour or so, to stop myself seizing up completely.

It was a lovely day and the cats were happy, pottering in and out of the back courtyard, and the front garden.

Mid afternoon, something came in through the cat door in the fly screen from the back patio. It was a sparrow! It was, not surprisingly, unhappy to find itself trapped inside a house, although it could, of course, have just gone back out the way it came in. But no. It flung itself at the closed windows, at the ceiling, at the walls. I opened the patio door as widely as it would go. I opened the front windows in the lounge room, which do not have fly screens. I tried to encourage the sparrow to go out.

It hid behind the TV.

Then Brandy noticed it!!!

I moved Brandy out the way, pulled the television table forward, encouraged the sparrow to go out through the adjacent window by poking it gently with a broom handle.

Eventually it flew out through the window and perched on the front fence. I put the television table back in position and put the broom away.

My back and shoulder were definitely not happy with all this activity!

Before all this excitement, on Tuesday I had picked up some sticks from the little tiny woodland behind my side fence. I was going to make a Christmas wreath with them but in the end stuck two of them in a vase with some sand to keep them upright. I thought they looked quite pretty once they got some Christmas decorations

I had ordered from the internet what I thought was a Christmas gnome door decoration. And it was a Christmas gnome door decoration. But what I had assumed was a 3D, toy style decoration turned out to be a wall hanging style decoration. It was too big for my front door - it would have covered the digital lock and the door handle and I couldn't work out how to fix it to the door without it blowing off and disappearing off into the forest, or wetlands or into someone's garden.

I've put it up behind the Christmas twigs:

Now that I've got used to it, I quite like it. But it definitely wasn't what I was expecting!

The calendar for the rest of December is jam packed with activities, events and stuff. I shall fortify myself with coffee before heading properly into it.