They're lucky they're so cute

The car was filthy. In fact, it was feeelthy. Covered in a mixture of wood dust, gritting salt, and thousands of muddy little kitty paw prints, it looked disreputable and somewhat embarrassed amongst the bigger, brighter, shinier cars in the short-term parking at Terminal 3 yesterday. Time for the car wash. We headed over to Asda, joined the lengthy queue -- other people clean their cars on a Sunday, too? Who knew? -- and shamefacedly slunk through the wash cycle. Hurrah! A lovely clean new car!! Instead of paw prints, you could just see the scratches from their claws! Bliss! I headed home, parked up, took the shopping in, unpacked it, and returned to the garage to put the bags back in the boot just a few minutes later.

Guess what?

No, really. Guess what I saw on my return?

Paw prints. On the roof. How? How was this possible? I thought they were indoors, playing in the bags as I tried to unpack. But no, they had obviously run through some dirt, jumped onto the car roof, danced around for a bit, and then headed in. Or, they'd projected paw prints onto the car using only the power of their evil little minds -- in which case, I for one welcome my new feline overlords.

This is not, of course, the only example of the sheer delight they can bring. Yesterday, Shin helped me plant some seeds in my new seed trays. And when I say help, I really mean get in my way, put her paws in the potting compost, and then try to eat the newly planted seeds.



Then, it was time to fold up the sheet that had been drying in the conservatory. Look how she helped with this -- before curling up and falling asleep on the duvet cover formerly known as washed and clean.



And while I was gardening today, they kept running back and forward past me, coming with a whisker of having their, well, whiskers removed by my fearsome shears. But then Shin curled up on my lap whilst I was having a restorative cup of tea, sitting on the step and listening to the birdsong over the roar of the M3, and how could I stay angry with her? She's off the hook ... for now.