Bad Planning 28.11.07

Well, once again it seems I can't win! Sam occasionally tells me off for embarrassing him by writing about him on the blog, but Emily was grumbling at the weekend because I haven't written about her for ages! Hopefully today's entry will put that right.

Emily seems to have settled into university life fairly happily, she is working very hard and always seems to have a deadline to meet. Her English course demands a lot of reading, she has always been an avid reader but I think she finds it hard to muster much enthusiasm about one or two of the set books. When I saw her at the weekend she was struggling with 'Mrs Dalloway' and she gave me a very complicated explanation about the style of writing and why she finds it hard to get into. It made me very grateful that I am free to read whatever I like these days. I'm a bit like Sam in some ways because I often prefer to read non fiction books, but I enjoy crime fiction of various kinds, Kathy Reichs is my favourite these days.

Emily is doing French as her second subject, and that requires a lot of reading too. Some of the French reading material looks really grim, but I'm probably being unfair, I hated French when I was at school but it was a compulsory subject up to 'O' Level so I just had to grin and bear it. I don't know where Emily got her flair for languages from, but it certainly wasn't me!

We are lucky because we see Emily most weekends. I think she misses Oreo more than the rest of us, but it is always nice to see her and to catch up with her news. On the subject of missing things, Oreo will be missing his manhood very soon, I rang the vet today to make an appointment for the 'deed to be done'. He will be six months old on 20th December but it doesn't seem long since he first came to live with us, he was such a cute little kitten. 20th December is also Sam's birthday (a bit of bad planning on my part!) and he will be a teenager at last. He has been telling me that he is almost a teenager for so long that is has almost become his theme tune. I have always felt sorry for Sam because his birthday and Christmas are so close together, but we try to make it special for him. I feel a bit sorry for myself too, because I have 5 family birthdays very close to Christmas, including Sam's and Emily's, it is a very expensive time of year!

Sweet and Innocent! 02.10.07

Emily left the following message about her first couple of days at university.

I registered with my department today and my supplementary subject got sorted as well so :D i am doing french as long as all is well. i got my safety bus pass today, and i have signed up for the english society and the concert band - it's one of those things where you go along and see if you like it and then join so :) i might need my flute though in this case! I've ordered my bus pass and just need to pick it up on friday. it's okay in the meantime though because the bus day saver is only three pounds - i used it today! :) i love you all and miss youuuuu!!! i hope my baby oreo is okay too!

Oreo is ok, but he nearly drove me mad earlier on. He had a very energetic few hours and when he had given up on tormenting the dog he started on me. He ran up my leg to steal my breakfast, kept stealing the washing as I sorted it into different loads, jumped right into the kitchen swing bin and kept hanging on to the iron lead while I was ironing. In the end I shut him out of the room and he kept jumping up at the door handle trying to get back in. He is a determined little devil. Finally he settled down and by the time I took these photos he look all sweet and innocent!