rasputitsa

Today was as if we were in the Russian season of rasputitsa, when the rains turn the ground to mud.  It rained.  It sleeted.  Yesterday's snow melted in patches.  General Winter and Field Marshall Mud triumphed.

Mr Fidget was curled up in his favourite armchair in the distinctly chilly sitting room when I got up, though according to the Systems Administrator he'd had some breakfast and been for a gallop around the garden.  Mr Cool was in agonies of frustration because it was so wet and so cold outside.  If he'd been a human being he'd have been wringing his hands.  As it was he was writhing on the door mat like Uriah Heep, creeping up to the cat door and recoiling in horror at what lay beyond.  When I opened the front door to go and see to the hens Mr Cool dithered transfixed in the open doorway, before giving it all up as a bad job and spending the rest of the day lying on his blanket on the cupboard in the study.  A few times when boredom overcame him he roused himself to conduct a one-sided fight with the hearthrug or partially disembowel the paper recycling box.

Mr Fluffy was bored and wandered about looking for things to chew, before slumping down on the study window sill to watch the bird table.  Every so often he stiffened at the sight of an especially tempting bird, but mostly he dozed.  A couple of times he went to chew the cord of the wooden blind, and I had to retrieve him in case he should forget himself and jump on top of the stove.  I don't think he would generally touch it, but mistakes can happen when creatures are in a bored, fey mood.

I sorted out a few points of admin that I'd been saving for a rainy day, read through a pile of old beekeeping magazines, ripping out the articles with nuggets of good practical advice that I wanted to keep, and caught up with my backlog of art magazines, occasionally reading out the interesting bits to the Systems Administrator, who may not have been listening given his response to the information that entry to the first exhibition at the newly refurbished Hayward Gallery cost £14.50 with a National Art Pass or £7.25 standard was Uh-huh.