It was the first time that Weeza’s children and Ro’s children had seen each other since February and they were so excited and happy. Augustus and Rufus are particular pals and they had a wonderful time. Gus adores babies too and he and his sister were very glad to see Perdita.

Eloise cat is doing very well and is still being patient, though I know this will diminish somewhat as time goes by. I can’t let her outside until her wound has healed, though it’s very clean and neat so far. She’s mostly leaving it alone and we have our fingers crossed. She won’t tolerate a Collar of Shame and went frantic when we put one on her last year, so we haven’t tried it. I thought I knew where I’d put her soft collar but I was wrong – still, though she tolerated that perfectly well, when she got bored she just put a claw behind it and hooked it off, so I’ve only searched in a dozen places, not the whole house. Weeza needed the metal detector to lend to a friend, who’s lost a piece of jewellery in her garden and it only took five searches to come up with that. And I’d bought a new battery too, so I felt pretty efficient there.