Saturday

Whoever predicted rain for the (long) weekend was right on the money. As soon as the first light came over the horizon this morning, the rain started falling - gently at first and then a little more insistently - which means no ROM this morning and possibly for the rest of the day. But not even rain can stop Pearl's walk so we set off for a quick one down to B's shed while S started the Skype call with L and E. we have been trying to institute regular calls with them but seem to keep missing - so we were pleased when they suggested this Saturday morning rather than the usual Monday evening - especially now that Monday nights are reserved for Trivia! The call worked well - everyone was awake, alert and participating - and it was a bit like when we were in Sydney where we would meet the first Saturday of each month for a catch-up over breakfast - except we were doing it electronically.

Thankfully, the walk with Pearl was without event especially since a large pile of manure has materialised in one of the paddocks (and who said I had no sense of smell - but more on that later) and all I could think was that Pearl would definitely want to go and play (read: roll) in it. She didn't - as I kept telling her, if she did we would need to take her somewhere to get her washed and dried, because it was too cold to do it at home.

My sense of smell does appear to be returning (not sure where it's been all this time but it may have something to do with cat allergies) - so I was the one who discovered that Beazley had had an accident in the living room overnight. The rule still applies ("you find it, you own it") so at 5:30 this morning I was cleaning up with paper towels and disinfectant. "Why does it smell like disinfectant out here" asked S when she came through later - and when I told her, she had the same reaction as I had ... why. He's been quite good lately, and this is the first we've had to clean up since M left. Ah well, we will keep an eye on him - and try to avoid garlic - who knows, it might be true: I told S that I thought it was the smell of garlic - because I was certainly carrying that around with me following the snail entree last night.

S humoured me today and came with me to see Ridley Scott's new offering Prometheus at the Nerang cinema. We were just about to buy the tickets when we saw they had an offer - Friend them on Facebook and you could get tickets for $6 (or $7 for 3D movies) so we quickly did that - although it was not as straightforward as it looked and we had to rely on the kindness of a stranger to help us through the last section (finding where they had hidden the promotional barcode on their site). And how thankful were we that we had cheap tickets - because I would have been even more disappointed! That will teach me to read reviews before I go to a movie - because it was all there in David Stratton's review, in black and white, for me to read! Still, S did point out when she read it later that I had made the same points as David - so 2 hours of Prometheus had not dulled my critical skills (although it very well could have).

The sun was setting as we drove home about 5 and we did spare a moment to remember M's comment that it's still light after midnight in Russia. That must make it fairly difficult to get to sleep - I can't believe that a hotel where you have to go downstairs to get hot water would have heavy window coverings to block out the midnight sun!

We settled in for the afternoon and evening - including timing dinner so we could watch New Tricks - and it wasn't until the replacement program started that we realized last week's episode was it for a while. So S took us channel surfing and we finally settled on SBS and the Bollywood Star Search. I'm not sure we'll be watching next week when the 6 "finalists" (chosen tonight) jet off to Mumbai to try to further their dreams in India's film industry.

The furries seemed to like it though - they were all inside and in their respective positions - Pearl on her bed on the living room floor, Beazley up next to S, Tink stretched out on her couch (where M usually sits), and Maggie listening from her daybed in the towel cupboard! We felt a little mean going into early lockdown but since they were all in, and since it is a bit chilly out there this evening, we did it anyway.

We are getting used to the cat litter patrol morning and night for them. We were concerned for a while there though because they didn't seem to be using the tray in the room off the laundry - it's the new litter and I've been wanting to see how well it clumps - which is hard to do if no-one's doing anything in there. But finally someone did use it - rather than going outside - because that's what they've been doing more of (Beazley asks to go out quite a bit now). It does clump substantially better - so much sothat S is talking about doing a deal with N to swap the "old" litter for the "new". But that's enough talking about the litter trays - best go off and do them ...