Shut up, please, please shut up!

OK, so it is a cat blip... sort of.

Thing is, last Friday we took the dog to the vets to get her checked up again. Her course of antibiotics was almost finished and we really needed him to say yes the septic arthritis is OK and we can stop the drugs to see what will happen. So far so good. She's still on painkillers but we're going to do a trial to see if she can cope without them this weekend. Vet not too keen on long term use without regular blood and urine tests. (Not only does that make the little bell inside my head go "kerching, kerching", I am not really too sure how you go about getting a urine sample from a dog - never mind one with very short legs!).

Anyway, the point of mentioning Dandy's ailment again was that, while we were at the surgery the man bought the cats a little toy. You know, one of those things on a string? Well, the cats have got a fair few of them now. All are in different stages of disrepair, but most are functional. So why buy this one? Basically because it was different. It was the elite of the elite. This toy had a googly eyed bird on the end of the string that chirped. As you swung it around it mimicked the real thing.

Got it home with much excitement in the air. The cats were going to love this - and they did. We didn't though. After five minutes of play and another five of relative inertia we realised that the motion sensor wasn't going to switch the damned thing off as it was supposed too. By bedtime I had had quite enough. I bashed it and I thumped it to no avail so finally, in desperation, I drowned it. Took a while but eventually this rather barbaric treatment of the cats new most favourite thing ever, did the trick. It shut up and we marched off to bed and had a good nights peace thank you very much.

This state of affairs continued for several nights thereafter too. Was even thinking about throwing it out last night. After all, the elite of the elite just ain't elite if they can't cheep anymore! Then, to our amazement and horror, we came in from work to find that the stupid thing has started cheeping again tonight. The man stood in the bathroom doorway (where the believed deceased was resting prior to suffering the indignity of Angus Council refuse disposal) and in true Victor Meldrew fashion exclaimed, "I don't believe it!".

So, tonight will be spent drowning a small blue toy, drinking a glass of red wine because I can and thinking about how best to organise my working day tomorrow before I go to Edinburgh to see Pain of Salvation and Opeth. Yaay!

PS Should have said, it's not really a cat blip... it's a really annoying cat toy blip!