My fingertips are hairy

with clumped up cat's hair  - the more I brush myself down the longer my hairy fingertips become, my clothes and footwear are also coated. I have to put in a half hour of stickyroller-ing before heading downtown.

Looking after houses and animals can get stressful; today I thought I had broken the internet and that the cat might starve to death -  by the end of the day I'd figured out how to make the plug be properly switched on and that the cat likes eating his food cold from the fridge so right now I'm feeling pretty successful and celebrating with a beer while he sits on my lap getting his neck rubbed and covering me in another thick layer of hair.

I'm staying in Crouch End

with an arthritic and very hairy grey cat  - in the space of a single day I too have become hairy and grey, the house is painted white - this must be what being a yeti is like

Birthday gift

the man doesn't like wrapping his sandwiches in plastic

it's his birthday

I have given him one thousand paper bags

Sugar for carnivores

... contains

I raise my eyebrows at the assistant - she says it is called 'red' sugar because red is lucky

The Brain Doctor is back

but not in a good way

he's full of aches and pains and his foot has swollen up.

I'm worried and say so and that makes him irritated so I move on to other topics and he becomes upset about my lack of sympathy.

We shut shop early

The Brain Doctor is away

so I am busy making things and visiting friends. I am reknitting a cashmere jumper donated by a friend because 'the colour is ugly' -  raw-sausage-pink. It is also too small for either of us.

In Cornwall this weekend, I walked in oak woods awash with a hairy lichen rumoured to be an excellent dyestuff, I put some in my pocket and for the last two days I have been boiling the lichen then adding urine and vinegar-soaked cashemere. The wool transformed into beige spaghetti so I continued with additives including and entire caddy of tea - if this doesn't work then at least we have something for supper.

The Brain Doctor will go away again soon and I think it will be safer if I go and look after someone's animals for that period - checking through the 'wanted' lists again, today's best advert is this one:

Responsible Couple needed for 6 cats in July

...We have 4 females and 2 males-2 mothers, 2 daughters and 2 fathers! One of the fathers is feral and hides so you will have to look for him in various places of the house and garden ... Although there is a garden it is lawned with no place for the cats to go to the toilet. The cats are enclosed in the garden but they do try to escape. It's important that a cat count is done periodically throughout the day.

I keep hearing about crippled women

who hadn't realised that if only they had worn a correctly fitting bra they wouldn't be suffering this way now.

I've been feeling a bit crippled lately


it was time to visit the big shop famous for it's bosom-measuring service.

I was given an appointment for in 10 minutes time so that the assistant behind the counter with the appointment book could put on her bosom-measuring face.

Maybe the assistant was on loan from the fish department - she was not comfortable with bosoms. Eyes averted she put a tape measure over my clothes and measured the middle of my rib cage then she went and took a lunch break.

She came back with arms full of ugly beige boulder-holders in a variety of sizes, instructed me to try them all on until I found a comfy one, then she disappeared for ever.

It's sunny and I've been to a place

where I can sit outside surrounded by students and unemployed people. To my left are some tattooed lads trying to do the quick crossword but they can't spell 'Memphis' or 'leotard' and they think the five-letter word for a leg joint must be 'thigh' so they're not making much headway.

On the other side are some female students discussing housemates, most of the girls agree that having to share with boys is the worst but then one girl describes her housemate.

... I'd had a romantic evening with Rob because he was heading off to Cambodia the next day but in the night I started projectile vomiting - fair play he'd had it a couple of days previously and gave it to me so he had to look after me but it carried on the next day and I was lying in bed listening to my irritating housemate parading her family around the house showing them all the rooms and she just opened my bedroom door without knocking with all her family there saying this is Julie's room then she saw me and said oh - are you still ill? then she stepped in a bowl full of my orange sick tipping it all over the carpet.

On the reception desk

at the Brain Surgery

is the latest copy of New Scientist featuring the latest news on head transplantation

I discussed this with one of the lady patients - we agreed that the idea was probably being marketed to women as most of us wish we had someone else's hair - I'd give anything for curls

Today's wish list

from the photolibrary:

We’ve had a request for some fairly obscure creatures, that I’m hoping you might be able to help with? The client is after any image of any species from the various phyla listed below:

Cycliophora
Goblet worms – entroprocta
Jay worms – Gnathostomulida
Kinorhyncha (mud dragon)
Loricifera (girdle wearers)
Orthonectida
Placozoa
Micrognathozoans
Rhombozoans
Xenoturbellida (strange worms)

I appreciate that some of these at least might be quite hard to find! But worth a try. Please let me have any suitable images in low res jpg form via e-mail in the first instance.