Guinea pig cinema

Take one old cushion cover. Unzip it and line it with newspaper and an old towel. Add hay. Carry it through to the living room then collect guinea pig 1 (Mr Kipling) and place him inside the cushion cover. Return and collect guinea pig 2 (Panda) and guinea pig 3 (Willow). Grab another towel in case newspaper, etc. doesn't collect all the wee that content guinea pigs will bless you with. Settle down with the guinea pig cinema on your lap. Watch film and feed cucumber snacks to the guinea pigs throughout. By the end of the film, all guinea pigs will have found corners to sleep in. Mr Kipling's weight has him hanging hammock-like in the cushion cover over the side of your thigh. As you reach in to extract the guinea pigs one by one you experience the high temperatures that only three guinea pigs in cosy surroundings can reach. They all immediately fall asleep in the cage. Then you realise that the newspaper, two towels and hay didn't make a jot of difference to being wee-d on. Ah well. I wouldn't have it any other way.

The film was Killer Joe, which was uncomfortable watching at times (violent nature) and very, very darkly comic. I'm glad I've seen it, but I wouldn't recommend it. Juno Temple was brilliant as was Matthew McConaughey. Chilling.

I heard some sad news today. Walking down my road, I saw my neighbour with his family and his daughter's dog, who I love saying hello to. It's such a sop. As I shoogled the dog, my neighbour told me that his cat had died in his sleep in the night. I was quite taken aback. My neighbour's youngest grandchild gave me a hug. Awww.

BushCat, the bushiest of cats, was one of my first friends in West Norwood. He comforted me when there were tough times in the flat. I taught him to play string in the garden and Fred used to turn him upside down (he didn't mind) in his arms. He even stayed over one night without us realising - he was just sleeping on the bed when we woke up! Once, when Fred's parents' Jack Russells were tethered to the garden table, BushCat calmly sat just a tad more than a whisker's length beyond the full stretch of the tether, with two furious Jack Russells snapping at the air. He also liked a box, and was always covered in stuff (cobwebs, mud, leaves, twigs...)

When Whisky moved in, poor BushCat (real name Puss Puss) was ousted. He always remembered us, though, and it seemed he could tell from our footsteps who we were, jogging down or up the street at a rate of knots to say hello. At the final metre, his bushy tail would rise and he'd "Brrrroww!" at us. I'm going to miss that bushiest of cats.