Before we went away there were two outstanding things: the cats had had their annual check-up, a little late due to covid, and QT needed a tooth out after the dopey git somehow broke it on the catflap a while back, and that irritating ABS problem needed fixing. I’d taken a week off following the holiday, to, among other things, give the garden an annual tidy, but the first day was going to be taken up.

Up early, lock catflap into vet mode. Suffer whinging from cats that haven’t been fed since 8pm (it is hard to feed one and not the other). Wake up my better half, engage her help to cram fatso into carrier, place carrier into car, drive to vets. The vets is rather inadvisably having it’s car park resurfaced, which, combined with the covid arrangements and a glut of people bringing pets in, wasn’t fun. Still, I hand the boy over, weep gently at the quote, and return home. Wait for shopping to arrive, load some of that into the car, and drop some of that at a relatives in Pelsall.

Next on the list, that ABS problem, plus the rear discs/pads and a couple of suspension bushes. Car dropped off, taxi home. Now wait around nervously: one interruption from vets (“we forgot to allow for antibiotics”), then come nid-afternoon, it’s time to collect one very sorry-for-himself cat in the Ibiza, hoping he doesn’t make this car smell of cat wee too. While I’m collecting him, the garage calls, so the nice nurse gets to hear my daft ringtone while handing QT back to me.

Back home, taxi to garage. Weep gently at bill, collect car. Emergency diversion to Tesco (the first time I’ve been in a supermarket in 2020), for cat litter and tuna. Home again.

Car is back to not whinging, cat is wobbly, bruised, but still hungry. Both cats get tuna, boy gets fussed over. A busy, expensive, but productive day.

The rest of the week? Well, we did get to the pub a couple of times, including this beauty, I did a bit of bike spannering, and the garden got tidied, and I managed some much-needed R&R. It might be very much the end of summer again, but we’ve had great weather.