January has not been a great month, so far. My loving husband and I have both been very busy at work. In addition we have encountered, in our extended circle, grim deaths, redundancy, unemployment, dissolution of a working partnership and the country collapsing around our ears. And I haven’t even mentioned the funerals. Irish people go to a lot of funerals and January is peak time for that.
Then, last Thursday, the wretched cat went missing – she had never been more than 4 hours away from the next meal before. We looked and we looked but, by Sunday, we knew we were doomed. The Princess was distraught. It seemed extraordinary that a small, fat, bad-tempered ball of fur could provoke so much misery. Then, on Monday, at lunch time, without the slightest attempt at explanation, the cat turned up, grubby and hungry and, apparently, glad to be back. Let us trust that this means our luck is turning.