The current cat

doesn't drink water from her bowl or a running tap  but when I take a shower, she runs upstairs and jumps in when I step out. 

Then she sits in the puddle that I've left behind, head cocked waiting for drips to land on her tongue

We've had a bit more Chumpy

in the Life Class, which was divertingly chaotic. I'd booked a pregnant female model for this evening's class but she couldn't make it, so one of the office staff agreed to fall asleep and let us draw her, I put some Agnes Obel on the music box and it was lovely.

House of Dangerous People

The Man has been filming jaguars in Costa Rica, standing far too close while they suck the heads off gigantic flipping turtles. He was also nearly squeezed to death by a giant boa constrictor but he returned alive to Bristol last week. I was missing him and missing being at home so I took a break from studies to go and make dinners, do laundry and sniff the Bristol air.

Our home has been languishing emptily but now we are joined by two new female housemates: Lu is Chinese, she is studying how to prevent landslides, this is research commissioned by the controversial Three Gorges Dam project. Our other housemate Sarah is employed as a danger-aversion-person by EDF who are building a controversial nuclear plant near Bristol.

I've been instructing Lu in the art of moth-combat and the need to shake woolies out on a regular basis, the idea of clothes-eating-moths horrifies her far more than the prospect of nuclear explosions, snakes, jaguars or landslides.

At the very posh local farmers market

a chap was selling premium dairy products; hand churned butter, fancy milk and  ... buttermilk.  Proper buttermilk is so difficult to find that I'd forgotten about it's existence. I was sort of excited to see this rare thing but couldn't remember why.

Seeing my hesitation the dairyman handed me a leaflet with suggestions for how to use buttermilk, then he said

one of my customers drinks it but you're not supposed to do that 

Why not?

it's already been used  

!!!!!!!!!

In my search for a good Local

I was directed to a bar along the waterfront and across the park. It was almost empty, a blazing fire blazed in the middle of one wall, two young men were behind the bar trying to work the till. The bar room contained a dozen assorted wooden kitchen-type tables and chairs, the only other customers were two women and their gentleman friend.

I finally got a pint and took it to a seat at one of the large tables, shortly afterwards the other party got up and assembled themselves in coats and scarves. During this disruption they asked me if I lived nearby, we had a short exchange and they left.

Five minutes later one of the women ran back in and asked if she could join me. We entertained each other for the next half hour. My New Best Friend is the twin of the other woman, I shall call them Sybill, the other twin had lived in the neighbourhood longer and knew more people - this was a good opportunity to even things up a little.

We arranged to meet, me with both twins the following week.

That was yesterday. The experience was like a being in a story co-written by Lewis Caroll, Edward Lear and Mervyn Peake

The first thing I had to be made aware of was size, they were identical and both the same size they said, so they could wear each others clothes but they also pointed out that one was taller with a much longer body and exceptionally large hands and feet, we stood and compared all these things. They felt that they were so identical that the large-handed one differentiated herself with a fat bow on her head.


The large-handed twin was by far the bossier - as she questioned me she would stop to wave her enormous hands in the air and cry

My darling we have absolutely NOTHING in common!

Their lives revolve around omens, they each have their special sign to look out for, the small-handed Sybill looks for things with vertical lines and the large-handed Sybill looks for horizontal lines, this system is used for every important decision; for example when they need to know to trust an estate agent - they look at the pattern of his tie. This and numerous other examples were given to show how well the system works.

We are planning to go to the cinema together soon  

We are very critical
yes very critical

we used to work in the cinema industry as extras so we know a lot about it

we've been directed by ... who's that actor who's now a director?
(many names are tried out)
Clint Eastwood
yes him
we are very critical and we don't like much   
and we don't like much food  
no we're very fussy  
we're terrible to eat with