Cat on the wall

Since retirement, I have been conducting an ongoing battle with next door's cat, Fudge. My husband and kids love him to bits, but as I am a dog lover and not terribly fond of cats, I am not comfortable with the way he has made our home his own domain. In my opinion, he has become rather too accustomed to spending time in our house since our neighbours acquired a dog. This was fine while I was out at work all day, but now that I am home, he had become a pest!

This is not a photo of Fudge, but very like him!

He sits outside our back door for a large part of the day, so if I want to go out into the garden to empty the bin or peg out washing, he is poised to run into the house as soon as I open the back door. This has led me to barricade myself in unless I am certain that he isn't on the step, and I always peer through the window to check before opening up.

Yesterday, I came home from shopping and as I parked the car on the drive and started to carry the bags of shopping from the boot into our porch, he jumped over the wall from next door and took up position in the porch ready to make his way in as soon as I opened the front door. Determined that he wasn't coming in, I put all the shopping in the porch and went back into the car and sat there to wait for him to give up and go home. This took about 10 to 15 minutes, and as soon as the coast was clear, I made a run for it, jumped into the porch, shut the outside door and was able to carry my shopping in unimpeded. I have to say that I hadn't anticipated that a cat, which doesn't even belong to us, could be such a nuisance.

This week had been a very sociable one; I've been to a retirement event for an ex-colleague, which was great fun and an opportunity to meet lots of friends and colleagues; I stayed at my sister's house one night with my daughter and the three of us went out with my niece for a sociable evening; I also had two lunches with colleagues, one of whom has been a brilliant mentor and friend over the years and one who I initially met as a colleague in my institution, but who then moved to a neighbouring organisation, and who has remained a personal friend and professional contact for almost 20 years.

Tomorrow night we have booked to see Bridge of Spies with Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance, which is a film which has been on my list of "must sees" for a while and which I am very much looking forward to.