Eek, must catch up

I am the worst blogger in the world. In the interests of getting back into regular blogging, a quick summary of everything that has happened since the end of November:

1. We had Christmas. I worked Christmas Eve, then Tom drove us back to Peterborough in thick fog, with Hobbes mewing in the car the whole way. We spent four days at my house, and Hobbes coped admirably, given that he has never really liked other animals and there was one crazy dog and two older cats already in residence. At first he spat and hissed; then he decided he wanted to play and spent Christmas following them around, snatching at their tails (well, Zapp's tail. Sweep doesn't have a tail, and even if he did Hobbes wouldn't have got to it, because Sweep sensibly kept well out of his way). Christmas was lovely and it was fab to meet Suki - the aforementioned crazy dog - who only has three legs and therefore beautifully complements Sweep. If only Zapp had something cut off, we could start a little amputee menagerie.

2. While I'm on the topic of pets (when am I ever off it?) Hobbes ate a two-foot long piece of string. One morning we found piles of vomit everywhere, and he seemed very quiet the whole day. I had decided to take him in to work the next morning if there was no improvement, but that evening the whole situation was made abundantly clear when I had to pull the string out of his bum. It was gross. Still, he's lucky he could get rid of it the 'natural' way... surgery wouldn't have been fun.

3. Hobbes was diagnosed with feline chlamydia. Stop giggling at the back. In cats it tends to cause eye problems and a runny nose. He had another bout of conjunctivitis, but this came on fast, and was worse than last time, so I took him in to work. Because he is insured, we could afford the luxury of an expensive viral test, which unfortunately returned a positive result. It means that he may suffer recurrent conjunctivitis for the rest of his life; we are going to try some special eye drops that should combat it, though. He must have caught it as a kitten. It tends to be transmitted via close face to face contact. Careless nuzzling is a dangerous thing.


Hobbes is like a real cat now.

4. In clearly less important news, Tom got a PhD offer (with funding!) from Bristol! This is really, really fab. The university's probably the best for Tom's particular brand of number theory, and we are both ready for a change, having been at Oxford for four years now. We should be able to afford a house! So obviously my imagination is running completely away with me: I will get a job at the zoo, we will get a second cat and maybe a dog, I will take up gardening etc. Even if none of these heady wishes come true, it will be wonderful. I am really looking forward to September. It will mean giving up this job before I get the chance to go to college, but I am confident I can find another that will make me happy.

5. We had a billion tons of snow. Literally. Look!





On the morning of these photos I was working the early shift. I left the house at eight and Tom had to help me open the outer door to our little flat complex, because the snow was holding it shut. I'd just had a shower and my hair, still wet, froze into little icicles.

I think that will do in the way of an update. I'll try and get back into the swing of things.