Spatial Geometry

Backing my car carefully into the narrow gap of my mother's drive, I mutter under my breath,

"... an exercise in spatial geometry ..."

A pause as I complete the manoeuvre, a glance at Adrian in the passenger seat as I reflect ... ,

"... what other kind is there ... ?"

Adrian absorbs this in wonder:

"Do you ever think you might live in a Dilbert cartoon?"

Displacement activities

Two days since Adrian left us to start his new job. By now a creative fever was meant to have overcome me. I was debating whether to plunge back into particle physics, engage with differential geometry, renew getting my head around population genetics, do some Python programming, learn how to use that genome analysis program that interprets your 23andme results .. or just get on and do some writing.

Instead I find myself camped on Amazon ordering mouse mats - and today an even greater displacement opportunity presented itself: we discovered a mouse had taken up residence in our pantry.

I write in the third hour of our hygiene operation ...

Yep, it's been there ..

My sister commented that Clare looked 'cheesed off' ..

Animal magic

I was in London yesterday for a 1 pm business meeting and had allocated four hours from Wells, Somerset to central London. We left at ten to nine in the morning and soon discovered congestion on the M4 - ('lengthy delays after Swindon').

We diverted to Swindon train station where I abandoned Clare and the car. At 10.30 I was on the platform waiting for the 10.40 to London Paddington, still in plenty of time for my meeting. The tannoy spoke: the train was subject to 15 minutes delay due to 'animals on the line'. Really!

Like nuclear fusion, it turned out that the delay in arrival was time-invariant. At 11 o'clock I caught another train which landed me in London seven minutes late (on a one hour journey) due to 'a slow train at Slough'. So in total, the rail network had delayed me by nearly half an hour on a one hour journey while the road network had basically given up.

I rather resent the fact that I have to build in something like 50% overhead just to travel up to London during a quiet Friday in the holiday season. And yes, I was on time - call me a pessimist.

Rant over. The cat has recently become voracious. Sachet after sachet is gulped down and he's relentless - he must have more. Clare speculated that he may have worms (this must be some kind of folk wisdom she has) but there is no real evidence of parasitization. Another explanation is that we have changed the sourcing of his food.

His surge in appetite coincided with the opening of ... Waitrose :-).

Proximate wildlife

Seen in our garden today.

Infeasibly large for a bird: a bat?

I was this close: very tame or very stupid

Update Saturday: Turns out that the tame dove (aka pigeon) is much loved: there was a poster on the telegraph pole outside our house this morning advertising its loss. We called the number when the bird re-appeared this afternoon and a much-distressed young woman and her husband turned up with a cat-basket. Via the loan of our step-ladder they coaxed it out of our tree (actually, he just climbed up and grabbed it) and with much joy the reunited creature was driven off.

I would have videoed the whole saga had I not been intimately involved in the retrieval.