Five am, Mip Mips hyperactively frolicking around my
bedroom. By six I roll out of bed, go to the toilet only to find Shadow
dropping a load on the floor next to the litter box – and it stinks awfully!
Wonderful, so even before I get to go I get to clean up crap!
Five minutes later, the toilet is still running – I
try everything I can, but there’s no help for it, I will have to call a plumber!
Theoretically, it’s the landlord’s responsibility – but if I leave the Agency
to open up, firstly they’ll find the cat colony in my bedroom and secondly,
they will leave my flat unlocked and open for anyone to walk in at their
leisure! That’s what happened last time. Better to pay for the repairs than
risk having my flat cleared out! The neighbourhood watch has already warned
that burglaries are on the rise, and everybody should be extra careful. Rose is
home till half noon today, and again after about three – so I make the
arrangements. Fortunately I keep cash at home for just such emergencies – so
Rose can pay the plumbers. I don’t know what I would do without her! She has
been such a life-saver on several occasions!
When I moved in, the flat was advertised as having
recently been renovated – plumbing and all! In the year and a half that I’ve
lived there, this is the fourth time the plumbers have had to come out! First
the geyser sprung a leak and had to be replaced, then the isolator switch
broke, next the ripple relay was faulty – but that’s not plumbing even though
it affects the geyser, then the leak under the bath which had seeped through to
Rose’s ceiling and now the running toilet! And that’s not counting the leak
under the bathroom sink nor the leaks under the kitchen sink – which I’m not
having repaired! I have never had more than one plumbing problem in any place –
well, except the East London flat, which had also been recently renovated,
where I was without hot water on numerous occasions. But seriously, four
plumbing problems in 18 months? Urgh! This place is a nightmare! If it wasn’t
for Rose, I would probably have taken the first chance to get out – even to
Pretoria! Well now Rose, Silver and the Mip Mips.
Speaking of which, the two first-born Mip Mips, Tiger
Tim and Quizzy Lizzy, are already eating Mommy food. They both joined Silver on
the tinned salmon bowl and both are nibbling kibbles as well as drinking water.
The twins are a bit behind in their growing up, but not so much that it should
be cause for concern. It was a twin who leaked on my bed last night, as well.
I just learned something new: Next time a toilet is
running, try to descale the cistern – often the scale (chalky deposit caused by
water evaporation) builds up under the gasket, so water leaks into the toilet!
Had I known that, I would have tried that two weeks ago, when it first started
running. Silly of me, to have ignored the problem just because it resolved
itself. Ah well, an expensive reminder of a basic life-lesson!
At work, my one and only female colleague has her last
day today and is giving the traditional farewell – she brought us chicken filet
and rolls, our electrician fried them and we all had them burger-style!
Delicious! Our electrician is a first rate chef – the chicken was neither dry
nor undercooked. I had two, as there were plenty. I doubt I’ll need to worry
about dinner tonight.
Back at home, I’m just about to loose it. Firstly the
Mip Mips are adamant they want to explore further than just the bedroom, something
I equally adamantly intend to prevent. Every time a kitten tries to get past
me, I cuddle it until it runs! Next Ziva comes crashing in with a dead bird in
her mouth! Since she can’t get behind the mirror with it, she gets onto my bed
then drops it on the floor by the window. The kittens are all agog, some even
try helping themselves to a piece or two. I’m not taking this well, not well at
all!
I know it’s her nature, and she’s not doing something wrong
– but if she doesn’t stop killing birds, I can’t keep her. And that makes me
very, very angry. She is intelligent enough to know that, too. She wants to go
back out to get another bird (as I took the first one away) – but I ignore her.
I’ve closed off the lounge – but she just jumps over it, so I carry her back
and drop her in the passage (not hard, mind). Eventually she gives up and
nurses her kittens. So I shut them into the bedroom, so I can carry out the
litter box to clean it without fear of Ziva escaping. Then I clean the bathroom
– again.
Eventually I go into the bedroom and sit down on the
bed. Ziva comes all meek and quiet doing her best ‘I love you’ act. She’s not a
very cuddly cat, and the days of her sleeping on my lap are long gone – she doesn’t
do that anymore. That, too, is simply her nature. So, I relent and stroke her.
I hope that I have made my point, I hope that she understands that bringing
birds into my bedroom is not acceptable. She is very intelligent and has picked
up a lot of what’s acceptable behaviour in my home, like using the litter box –
something I don’t think she ever has seen, let alone used, before.
Well, it’s been a tough day, at home and at work,
where I tackled some extremely complex work visa application (anyone who has
ever had anything to do with applying for a visa to work in South Africa will
tell you just what unique kind of hell you enter!).
Also at home, I received an e-mail confirming my ‘new
account’ – addressed to some Miss Morris with an address in the UK! Funnily
enough it included a line starting “In the unlikely event you did not place an
order …” Ha! Unlikely? She certainly could not have confirmed this as her
e-mail address since I’ve recently changed my password to a jumble of letters,
numbers and symbols none of which form a word, name or anything meaningful.
Since the company is quite legit, I wrote informing them of the situation –
asking they unsubscribe me and un-link the account from my e-mail address.
I’m going to try another early night – hopefully with
more sleep than I seem to have had last night!
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