as usual I am kept under close surveillance

The Look Out team consists of: 
The-One-That-Perches-On-Things
The-One-That-Peeps-Through-Things
and 
The-One-That-Licks-Things-To-Keep-Calm

I am the TV

at night the cats sit on the window sill outside to watch the latest episode of Me

Conversation with 5 year old who has decided that she wants to become a doctor

our lungs are amazing! our whole body is made of lungs; our eye balls, our fingers, our hair...

so what are our lungs made of?

pottery

The new household

Fred and Ginger are prize-winning visions of sleekness their home is full of toys and play towers

Fat boy and Fluffy are the hobo cats who live outside - Fluffy  is timid and has a very tiny head on her fat grey body, Fat Boy is her father - an enormous tiger-striped champ with a broken ear, his wide eyeballs give him an air of shockedness

I have been instructed to take care of all these cats - there is an entire room full of food for them including a fridge and a freezer packed with prime cuts of beef and chicken from the butcher.

This is Black Pete, the one-eared neighbourhood pirate cat - we are all scared of him

I'm back at school

the computerised system for timetables etc., still doesn't work very well so there's a lot of tutting going on.

I am catsitting far to the north of the city - in a crazy woman's home. The place is stuffed to the ceiling except for tiny channels of not-stuff that just allows a person, if they are careful, to weave a path through - until today there was no possibility of sitting anywhere or finding a space to stand and chop in the kitchen.

I spent the evening gathering up the dirty underwear which I don't think should live under the dining table even when mixed with Doritos and fag ends. Then I moved a few broken electrical goods and now I have made enough hoovered space to sit nicely with a cup of tea and wonder where the cats are.

Two identical sleek siblings are the bona fide feline residents here, there are also two scared hobo cats. On the half hour a sleek cat snakes through the open window, slides under chairs and table, then with a glance back at me, heads out the door to report to the others what I'm up to now and now and now.

Barcelona was hotter than hell

The puppy and I assumed this position A LOT 

I had one great skirt, long and billowy and I wore it constantly  

When it was time to wash it I put the clean billowy skirt out to dry on the washing line which is cantilevered off the balcony -the flat is up at the top of the building.

I didn't put enough pegs on the skirt so when I next looked out of the window my skirt was no longer there.  I went outside and leaned over the balcony - my skirt had caught on the washing line of someone below - but very delicately. Before it blew off again I rushed downstairs and knocked on the door of the apartment and as I waited for the reply and noticed the tumbleweed in the corridors I realised that I was the only person stupid enough to be in Barcelona at this time of year - everyone else has found a mountain to visit.

The puppy and I gazed down at the skirt and decided that it would definitely blow away in the night.

Over the following days I peered down below to see my skirt still just hanging on down there - then about a week later I came in the front door of the building at the same time as a lady with her arms full of ciabatta she looked at me suspiciously and said

where are you?

I said that I was with the puppy in the top apartment

Ah - the two boys - where have they gone?

I told her - then she said

I was in the mountains for two months - I have your skirt would you like it back?

Currently living with a range of beautiful flooring designs

khaki harlequin floor with red braid trim, accessorised here with red chewy

pink-and-white zig zag floor with visible mend

classic monochrome

all floors available with added canine

horse-and-kangaroo eating cat. sitter wanted

I checked out the details but unfortunately I don't fit the profile;

... We are looking for a reliable animal lover. A single gay man preferred but not exclusively so. We are not looking for couples or families however, sorry. We would prefer someone based in Europe please.

 The female cat has a food allergy so she can only eat fresh horsemeat or kangaroo meat, ... You have to be OK with that and with keeping an eye on her so she doesn't eat anything she shouldn't...

Back in Bristol

The centre of town was buzzing today. Crowds thronged around a main street on a steep hill which had been lined with plastic and made foamy with bubble bath, people were sliding down it on lilos while big brassy bands trumpeted and children shrieked at their parents.

To the side of all this I saw a parade of people carrying cages of birds; budgerigars, finches and canaries into a beautiful old chapel. A poster advertised 'Concert for the Birds' and I  remembered the Youtube video where Snowball the cockatiel dances enthusiastically to a Queen anthem.

I followed the budgies into the chapel

It really was a beautiful chapel, the caged birds were placed up on window sills and spaced around on the backs of pews. We were all quiet then the pianist started playing Liszt Preaching to the Birds. I wondered if the birds would fall silent or sing along but they continued with their stunted flights, or stillness, or chirruping exactly as they had before the piano started.

The strangeness of keeping a bird in a cage became extremely vivid but I'm not sure if that was the point of the piece.

I'm Still in the House with Wooden Wallpaper

The people who live here have gone away, they've left a dog called Charley to take care of me. He's taking the role very seriously and is keeping me in sight at all times, making sure that I eat all my food and don't leave anything not even in the pot.

Last night Charley was concerned that I might run off with the telly or all the food. When I was nearly asleep he crept onto the bed so quietly I wouldn't notice and lay across my legs to prevent my getaway.

Today he took me out and tried to cheer me up by bringing me toys and sticks but I was in a mean mood and kept on throwing them all away.

We Are Dissolving

The rain is melting all the rivers and also the iron in our gate hinge - we fixed the gate hinge

I saw this dog today - a furry rosette has turned his back stripe into a sea horse

Job Titles

On Tuesday mornings I visit an elderly couple: I arrive, we exchange a little light banter, I don’t see them again for the duration of my visit.

There is actually nothing for me to do in this large detached house, it is completely neat and dust-free. 

Last week as I was leaving, I mentioned their tidiness and she said Oh we don’t want our mess to get in the way of your work, which puzzled me as I imagined myself to be their cleaner.

Today, for two hours, I walking around, up and down the stairs, plugging and unplugging the hoover, opening and closing doors and I suddenly saw myself clearly; less hairy than a cat, less needy than a dog, less trouble than guests but nevertheless a living thing, moving around in their big big house. 

Can’t decide whether to think of myself as a part-time pet or a performance artist.




A few days ago I attended a talk at the Wilderness Society given by an 'explorer',  a young man with romantic-but-ill-researched notions of crossing deserts.

Women NEVER call themselves explorers.

Except Dora

No Pets Please ...

I tell Lola about the dog woman

Lola says 

all animals are trouble even the little ones…

I got given two fish right but then I had to go away and so did my flatmates so I had to put the fish in a bag and put the fish tank on my back and carry them over the other side of town to my friend and I told her she had to use old water for the tank it has to be two days old or the tap water kills them but the water wasn’t old enough and the fish died and she was so sorry that when I came back she bought me two fish but one was bigger than the other and he bullied the little one and I called my mother who told me to separate them but while I was on the phone I watched the little one die he just went over on his side like that while I was watching …

Stuffed

 

our need for consolation is insatiable - Stig Dagerman

first I visited the woman-who-can't-fold-things, for her I folded a sofaload of clean clothing.

then I took a dog for a walk, both the owners work full time.

alfie lives in a kitchen that is ten thousand times too small for him in  a full-to-bursting flat made from the edge of a bigger house, furniture escaping from rooms and cats climbing out of windows  -  we had our walk and then I wrestled him back into his cell - I have become embroiled in a hostage situation.

image: set for Addams Family

Fuzzy Pictures: day 4

Darn fox - still evading capture

Fuzzy Pictures: day 1

My lovely Lumix has broken, just as I've got the urge to photograph things, but I shall not be deterred, my iphone 3 will stand-in and herald the start of a week-long 'Fuzzy Picture of the Day' feature.

Today's image shows you two things of which I am very proud:

Thing Number One = Brick-o-matic Bread, it might look a bit black but it's jolly nice and people have been known to pay a lot of money for this sort of thing in Paris.

I'm much prouder of

Thing number Two = this is yeast that I've kept alive for two whole weeks. Yeast must've inspired someone to make the Tamagotchi; one has to feed it, protect it and keep it happy or it dies.

I've never had a proper pet or looked after a baby (my sister is having one and might need my help), this is a sort of practise run.

Rock Paper Scissors

One of the Camera Boys has a snake - it is half his age and twice his height

When he goes away to film the snake usually goes to visit the Camera Boy’s parents

Camera Boy has just moved to a new house where there is another Boy With a Snake

There is also a Girl With a Hamster

This time the snake will stay home

The Camera Boy is hoping that they will all get on together...

R.I.P Kevin

6th March
Driving a large van and an overloaded estate car, The Director, two Camera Boys and myself set off for France in the very early hours of Tuesday morning, it was a long drive and my putting diesel into a petrol-fuelled vehicle didn’t make the trip any faster.

We got to the Lovely House well after midnight and got the kit and computers locked away before we fell in to bed. The cats are still pretty wild so I’d expected them to stay well out of our way for a while. In the morning I heard an awful sound, outside I found Julie pacing around in front of the house howling, Kevin’s body was lying by one of the outbuildings, we think he must’ve got swiped by a car and used his last energy to make a dash for the house.

Catnapping

28th November
I went back to the Gardeners yesterday. The whole cat thing has got me a bit anxious. As a child I went on and on about wanting animals and my parents drummed it in to me that pets are a Big Responsibility, and have a habit of either living for unfeasibly long amounts of time or, conversely, dying just when you’ve got very fond of them.

As an adult I’ve been far too unsettled for pets although years ago I did keep animals that I planned to eat. I loved scratching the pig’s bellies and spent hours watching them make straw nests. My first pig was a very sociable gingery Tamworth called Urquhart. When the time came, I got him in the back of my Morris Minor (my first car) for a trip to the butcher, he scoffed the nuts that I'd put in the car for him then worked out how to push the front seat down and get into the passenger seat next to me so he could look out of the window for the rest of the journey.

I’d asked the butcher to simply halve the dead Urquhart longways, but when I went to collect him his legs were sticking out all stiff, I had to manoeuvre the pig halves into the car diagonally, poking the extremities out of the front window and drive home with my head cocked to one side and Urquhart’s head rolling around in a plastic bag on the back seat.

Now, temporarily here in a French farmhouse, I'm still not settled enough for actual pets but wood pile cats seem an ideal arrangement for all concerned. Being old enough to fend for themselves I’m simply offering them an alternative place to live that won’t involve too much emotional investment on either side (will it?). My neighbours advised me to keep the cats shut in a shed for 3 days when I get them here. There is a pigeonnier and some odd little outhouses next to the Lovely House which seemed a good place to keep the cats initially. The pigeonnier is linked to the house with a tiled roof and a back wall making an open-faced barn where we keep our piles of firewood. There are various openings through the walls and lots of perches and hiding places. I think it must be cat paradise.

This time the Gardeners had managed to stuff a pair of yowling cats into two baskets, which I quickly put on the back seat of my car and drove carefully home, they growled like that girl with the revolving head in The Exorcist all the way. My heart was pounding as I placed the baskets on the new straw in the pigeonnier and left them to calm down for a while.

To release the cats into the shed without having to open the door and risk them escaping, I’d devised a cunning plan of attaching strings to the basket lids which I pulled from the outside through a little hole in the wall, this worked great, the lids flapped open, the cats shot out of the baskets like bullets, there was a very high up window - they bounded up the walls, through the window and escaped like rockets.

I thought that was the end of it and figured the cats would be well on their way home but a few hours later I went to clear away the food and water that I'd put out for them and caught a glimpse of a tail disappearing, I saw some eyes watching me from a high perch this morning - I think they are considering staying - I put out a dish of chopped ducks hearts.

My internets are being taken away tomorrow - who knows when I'll be back online…