IF HAYNES DID OWNERS MANUALS FOR CATS AND DOGS . . . The cats would burn them

One of them is plotting, the other enjoying the sun

In my span on this round spinny thing, I have been the owner of Goth, Hamlet, Jasper, Pippa & Jess, all of which were cats.  I have also been the owner of Judas, Jack, Nikki and (still owning) Sasha all of which were/are dogs.  Apart from the obvious different species thing, these furry compadres we allow into our home are so streets apart from each other it is unreal.  There is a gaping chasm of what we allow one species to do, and what we allow the other.  I shall proffer some explanations for you:

Eight Minutes.

I'm not the most, er, confident flyer.

There's something about being hurtled through the air in a big heavy metal object that is unnatural and wrong.

Yes, I know, physics, science, Newton's laws, Bernoulli, etc, etc.

It doesn't change my feeling: planes are not NATURAL.

Akimbo

It's not exactly the world's most flattering position. But I've been in worse. Even voluntarily.

Lying almost flat out on my back with my knees higher than my head, the view is certainly interesting. Though more interesting for some than for others. After all, I'm well acquainted with my own junk. I'm just grateful I thought to get a trim last week, and the redness and swelling has had time to disappear. Otherwise I really would be a sight for sore eyes. Because, as every girl knows, bushy is not pretty.

Fifty Strands of Grey

I guess I should be happy that I didn’t inherit my maternal grandfather’s follicular genes. For the nearly 20 years that I knew him, his pate was always as hairless and shiny as a brass doorknob.

Ever the joker, he would quip, “It’s better to have no hair than to be bald.” Not really sure of the difference, I would prefer to be spared either option. Which is why I am forever grateful that the chromosomal coin-toss that is meiosis weeded out this unfortunate trait before it reached me.

My cousin, like his father before him, is less fortunate than I in this respect. Although he is just a few months older than me, he is already well on the road to hairlessness, his forehead having set out in his teens on a quest to merge with his nape. Meanwhile I, albeit likewise almost pushing the half-century, still have a full head – even though there are doubts about the fullness of the inside thereof.

Unlike

Last night I quit Facebook. 

Standing in the kitchen as my pasta boiled and my beef bubbled, I typed a two-word, one-hashtag farewell on my phone, closed the app and then uninstalled it. This morning, I opened the browser on my computer and symbolically deleted the Facebook bookmark from the toolbar. Then I did the same on my laptop. 

I haven’t yet gone the full Monty and closed my account. That still feels oddly taboo. Though I hope to do so eventually.

And do you know what? I feel free.

MY MOMENT OF PASSION

I step from the hot sand with scorched feet

You send your hands to entwine in my toes from the ocean deep

Gently caressing, enticing me in.

I wade in further you tantalise my legs,

Lapping round me,

Flicking tendrils of cool water about my thighs

Your waves encircle my hips and waist

You pull me to you.

Winning Euromillions. The Change Being A Millionaire Has Made To Me

I have lived a happy life from the off.  As many a comedy script writer has done, we were indeed so poor that steak dinner meant shaving one steak into tiny thin strips and making it a stir fry for 5.  My clothes weren't so much as hand me downs from my sisters more like heirlooms from generations past.  Let's put it this way, when most people were squeezing into the latest Speedo swimsuits, I was still in knitwear . . you get my drift here.