Whining

One of the great advantages - for the cats - of my having retired is that I am often on hand to turn a tap on, so that they can have a drink. They do, of course, have a nice bowl full of fresh water, conveniently situated on the kitchen floor quite close to the door from the dining room, the room in which they spend most of their time. But they don't like this much. They much prefer nagging one of us till he/she gets up and provides running water for them.

Today has been a little trying and it's salutory to remember the days when I didn't have time to do any of the things that I've found difficult today. For example, when I was working I wouldn't have been able to have a second dishwasher chap come to the house, scratch his head in cheerful bewilderment - "I've never seen a dishwasher with this fault before" - and depart, saying that he'll need to order a part. At least he had a cheerier outlook on life than the previous bloke. Time will tell whether he's better at getting the thing to work. It might have been cheaper just to buy a new machine.

And, if working, I wouldn't have had the time to watch the kitchen tv while tidying up after breakfast, and wouldn't then have discovered that it said "No Signal" - a bit tedious, since we got the aerial chap to fit a new aerial last week. He comes back again tomorrow, though of course the tv was working again at lunch time, though saying "No Signal" later on again. What's the betting it'll be fine when he comes to call?

Nor would I have had time to take my mum to her lunch with the Probus Ladies' Club, from where she was supposed to phone me to retrieve her. I think we've now established that she can no longer remember how to work her mobile phone. Or at least, she phoned me all right but I think that she wasn't holding it to her ear because though I could hear lots of conversation, I couldn't hear her and she couldn't hear me. This situation took quite a while to resolve but I got her back in the end.

However, when I was still employed I might have been driving the car to work, in which case I would still have noticed the whiny sound that it's developed. This became apparent just after I dropped my mother off for her lunch. In my experience, car whiny sounds are not good. And are expensive. I'm taking the car to be investigated next Wednesday. I hope it manages to stagger on till then.

I know, I know: some people don't have dishwashers, televisions, mothers, cars. It's not that bad. But, you know. It's not that good either.

At least we do have cats.