Poor old Skuff, or "scabby cat" as my 18yr old moggy is affectionately known. Three times this week the b*stard has pooped and/or peed up here in the loft room - Thursday night inside LC's Barbie House!!
It's a bit cold, and a bit rainy so I suppose there is an excuse for not going outside, but all of a sudden what has become the problem with the TWO litter trays we keep in the house?
Apparently these aren't worthy anymore, so we have to put up with little presents every so often.
Maybe it's an age thing - he is prone to stress thouogh, so I wonder if that has something to do with it/

Second afternoon sesion in the church garden (between the rain showers!) raking and bagging up all the leaves and twigs that have been thick on the ground all winter and now look distinctly shabby.
Caretaker is struggling to keep on top of it, so Tx has decided to extend her responsibility for the rosebeds ointo the wider garden and help him out. The church grounds run alongside a main road, on the corner with a quiet residential road, directly opposite the school. So we, and hundreds of other people passing through the community, see it every day and it has been quite a depressing site for ages.
I'm convinced that the sate of the grounds has something to do with the small but noticeable increase in the number of car break-ins in the car-park. Three this year, and the last one just this morning.
I think the woman involved must be 'connected' somehow, because when I went over to enquire what was going on, a police SOCO introduced himself while busy fingerprinting the car?
I had no idea they still bothered with this?
And he doesn't seem to have lectured her on the "leaving-a-handbag-on-the-back-seat" scenario either, which is more often the case this days.
We have notices up now in the office windows, and have discussed CCTV but that is prohibitively expensive.
I do think though that with better maintained grounds and a more obvious sense of 'life' around the place (especially at weekends) things will hopefully not get any worse.

The grounds do look a lot better now. One more session should clear the leaves, and then I can attack the moss and get some new grass seed down.
Took St and LC with me to dump the leaves at the tip, and while Tx was clearing up ready for home, the other Church Warden PM came past on her way to our house. She only returned from a six week holiday to new Zealand yesterday morning, so it was great to catch up and hear all her exciting news.
"Best holiday of my life" etc etc…
One of those women who is seriously popular in the community, everyone's mum and grandma to hundreds of children. Worthy of some kind of local honour I think. Modest too, and just a genuinely lovely person. Only been warden for a year,a nd during their conversation she referred to her colleagues decision to move away after Easter.
"I'll have to come and have a chat with your husband!" she joked.
"No need..."
PM is the last of the three people who need to know, and she was very supportive and excited at the prospect of working with me next year.
On tuesday night, I had an hour long conversation with the vicar who was similarly positive, so now it's just a matter of making a statement of my intention to stand at the right time. Nominations open in three weeks time I think.
Since the holiday in Wales last year I have seen the Vicar in a new light, and both our families all get on really well. He did suggest, quite rightly of course, that my standing for Warden is actually nothing to do with him, but he was glad I asked for his opinion and was delighted that he could honestly say it was a 'splendid' idea.
And so it is. A strange feeling, to be so called. With this and the emerging role at metamatic, things are really moving on.
As mr Vicar hinted, people around here have a high opinion of us, and I am more respected than I probably know. Scary thought.

Perhaps that's why I'm writing this inbetween baking batcheds of rock cakes!! Aaaages ago, I asked Mum for my grandma's recipe for these easy-peasy things, and tried it out with St and Ali last weekend with good results. So now I'm making about 50 to serve as dessert after the spag bol I am cooking for Church Family Meal tomorrow. Put a Lemming Meringue Pie together this morning with Flo for those, like Tx, who 'can't be doing with' dried fruit of any kind.
I think I'll probably do one more of these in the autumn.
Cut down from three or four a year to just the two - it's high time someone else had a chance to get into the kitchen.