Dogger

We received a hand-written card through the post yesterday from the animal hospital who'd dealt with Cas towards the end of his life, saying how sorry they were that he'd died. It was such a  nice touch, but somehow unsurprising; they were brilliant all the way through Cas' illness. They never gave us the impression that Cas was just a rat. They treated him like one of our family. 

Fiona is here at the moment. She's been with her parents in Northampton this weekend and is currently talking about Pete Townsend and Roy Harper, which is making me want to be a 1970s prog rocker! 

Nathan's been rehearsing a play all day and I've been playing the 'cello pretty solidly holed up in the bedroom. The sound's definitely coming back although heaven knows what will happen when I get nervous, or can't hear myself playing!

I went to a party on Upper Street tonight where I met one of the people who reads the Shipping Forecast on Radio 4. How cool is that? It's a sound I associate with my childhood. It's the sound of returning from my Grannie's house on Christmas Day, snuggled up in a sleeping bag surrounded by a thousand colouring books. "Sailing By" followed by all those mystical sounding places like Dogger, Valentia, Portland Bill and St Catherine's Point automatic. Whenever I hear it from now on, I will always wonder if it's my new friend reading. Even if it's a woman! Apparently they have to read it at a very specific pace because people transcribe the information as they hear it. Fascinating.