Now we are one

Today, Loki and Otto are a whole year old.

Boisterous, cheeky, charming, manipulative, cuddly, devious: these are just a few of the adjectives that I could use to describe our youngest furry monsters.

But we were right: Boudicca has most certainly benefitted from having feline company – even though she possibly wouldn’t be the first to agree on that.

She’d had 16 months on her own after Mack died – we’d decided, on the basis of experience, that she should have some time to herself, to blossom in ways she hadn’t before. We decided – again on the basis of experience – that it’s best to introduce a kitten into a house with an established adult cat. The only question at the time was whether to get one kitten or litter mates – we opted for the latter so that, if Boudi had decided to give a newcomer a really torrid time, they’d have had sibling support.

Her ‘bored’ behaviour has all but disappeared – hardly any messing with the wooden tulips in the living room and not even much banging the sliding glass wardrobe doors in the bedroom: theses had become her default bored behaviours.

She even plays regularly with Loki – and very, very occasionally with Otto.

She has plenty to keep her occupied – particularly as all her assumptions about being Number 1 Household Cat are being rather mucked up by Otto’s considerations on the subject.

My little girl, having being named for Otto von Bismarck (when I still thought she was a he), is living up to her name rather well.

She may still love having big cuddles, but she never seems to have harboured any illusions about The Queen B’s status. However, unlike Boudi’s own tormenting of the late Trickie – who always considered herself a delicate old lady who wasn’t really a cat anyway but a small human in a fur coat who was put upon by cats – Otto’s undermining process is infinitely more subtle.

From very small she realised that sitting above Boudi and looking down at her would cause upset. So she set about doing it a lot.

Last night, after Boudi had hopped under the covers and was purring away in a tent created by The Other Half’s legs, Otto very carefully insisted on popping her face in to look, bringing forth irate growling and then Boudi’s rapid departure from the bed.

The Queen B’s old riposte would have been to smack the impudent kitten. But the impudent kitten in question long ago revealed that she could smack back. So now there is much chuntering and grumbling as Boudi becomes less and less obviously top cat; and doesn’t know what to do about it.

Even Loki, who is less clearly involved in the business of regime change, is undaunted. Having realised that she can now get on top of the bedroom bookcases, she half chases Boudi up there at night, into what was once the latter’s place of sanctuary and safety from junior furballs. No longer. Cue more feline grumbling.

One could almost believe in karma.

Not that this is surprising, if you take on board the idea (and it’s only an idea, with no real scientific basis) that a cat of a year old is, in human terms, about 15 or 16. In other words, Otto and Loki are teenagers.

Now, brownie points to all those who spotted the reference to AA Milne in the title of this post.

Being well brought-up children, my sister and I had AA Milne books at home. I don’t particularly remember the poem referenced in today’s title, but I do remember – and can quote chunks of – the following poem.

With which spurious link, I give you:

Disobedience

James James
Morrison Morrison
Weatherby George Dupree
Took great
Care of his Mother,
Though he was only three.
James James said to his Mother,
“Mother,” he said, said he;
“You must never go down
to the end of the town,
if you don't go down with me.”

James James
Morrison’s Mother
Put on a golden gown.
James James Morrison’s Mother
Drove to the end of the town.
James James Morrison’s Mother
Said to herself, said she:
“I can get right down
to the end of the town
and be back in time for tea.”

King John
Put up a notice,
“Lost or stolen or strayed!
James James Morrison’s mother
Seems to have been mislaid.
Last seen
Wandering vaguely:
Quite of her own accord,
She tried to get down
To the end of the town –
Forty shillings reward!”

James James
Morrison Morrison
(Commonly known as Jim)
Told his
Other relations
Not to go blaming him.
James James
Said to his Mother,
“Mother,” he said, said he:
“You must never go down to the end of the town
without consulting me.”

James James
Morrison’s mother
Hasn’t been heard of since.
King John said he was sorry,
So did the Queen and the Prince.
King John
(Somebody told me)
Said to a man he knew:
“If people go down to the end of the town, well,
what can anyone do?”

(Now then, very softly)
JJ
MM
WGDuP
Took great
C/o his M*****
Though he was only 3.
JJ said to his M*****
“M*****,” he said, said he:
“You-must-never-go-down-to-the-end-of-the-town-
if-you-don’t-go-down-with-ME!”

AA Milne

Drowsy kittens and a fresh risotto

Last night was dominated by the kittens slowly but surely overcoming post-anaesthetic drowsiness – both of them leapt straight out of the cat basket, pushing the half-opened gate aside, Otto racing to the litter tray and Loki straight to the food bowls before checking out that their toys were all still in the right place.

Then the former sat down, just outside the bathroom, and simply went to sleep, clearly unable to keep her eyes open or even think much.

After a while, she tottered into the kitchen slowly – and then proceeded to sit in front of a food bowl and fall asleep all over again.

Eventually, when she sort of slumped down, stage by stage, until her nose was on the carpet, I picked her up gently and placed her on the sofa.

Loki, having pottered and clambered around, had also decided that a rest was in order, and opted for a more deliberate sit down and doze.

But this state of affairs didn’t last very late into the evening, and gradually things became a little livelier.

Boudicca, has seemed to be in a particularly tetchy mood in recent weeks. But the discovery that the kittens are girls may cast a little light on this.

The Other Half has apparently spotted her flehming in recent days – that’s when a cat opens its mouth and has their tongue slightly out, as if they’re sniffing. Which is what they’re doing – except that, in effect, they’re tasting smells.

So with the kittens starting puberty, and flitting in and out of phases of being in season, she’ll almost certainly have been able to smell this. And knowing that her feline flatmates were fellow females, and were on heat, does not seem to have best pleased her.

The Queen B herself though, has changed her behaviour in the 24 hours since they arrived home, returning to her bouncy routines with The Other Half this morning, and jumping up onto a bookcase in the bedroom, which now I think about it, she hasn’t done for some weeks.

Otto and Loki go back to the vet for a post-operation check on Thursday and then have their stitches out in about another 10 days. They are not going to pleased, though, by not being allowed out for another nine days. Boudi will be delighted to have the garden to herself again for a while.

But in the midst of all this, I managed to concoct a seasonal risotto that I thought I’d share with you.

Start heating your stock.

Finely chop some shallots and the stalks of some asparagus, then soften in olive oil.

Add your risotto rice and stir until the rice has taken on the oils in the pan. Then add a good glug of Noilly Prat (or Vermouth or white wine). The smell will be wonderful. Let that absorb, then start adding your stock, one ladle at a time, until you’ve reached maximum absorbtion. On average, this is around 20 minutes.

Now, pop your asparagus heads and some drained artichoke hearts from the deli into the rice mix, plus some torn mint leaves. Stir very gently, pop a lid on the pan, lower the heat to the minimum and leave for 10 minutes.

Take the pan off the heat and add a good tablespoon of crème frâiche. Warm it back up gently.

Take a heavy frying pan and get it hot. Drop in some wafer think slices of a salami (I had a cracking one with fennel seeds) and just let the frizzle up a little.

Dish out your rice mix, top with the salami and garnish with a bit more mint and some grated lemon zest for a really fresh spring risotto.

The fur (almost) flies as the days lengthen

The season has changed. We’ve reached a tipping point and it’s winter no longer.

It's been pleasant all week – and gorgeous today – but it was on Monday night, after dusk had fallen, that I knew. Standing in the garden briefly, I could feel it – smell it. It was a clear sky and chilly – well, not “chilly”; not chill-you-to-your-bones cold, but fresh: different.

And not only has the air changed, the light has changed too. As my bus passed the park this morning, the first crocuses, purple and white, were visible in the early frost.

Spring might not fully have sprung, but it’s on the way. It doesn’t mean that the bad weather is over – apart from anything else, the domestic cricket season hasn’t started yet and we always get snow around then, as if the weather is making some sort of a sarcastic comment on the sport itself.

But there is a difference and it's almost beyond welcome.

For the kittens, of course, it's a first – as are many things at present.

The mornings seem to have lightened considerably – and almost overnight. So of course the furry alarm clocks are starting their morning ministrations earlier with every passing day.

Loki likes to come up on the bed and attempt to suckle our ears. Otto comes up to me for pillow cuddles and fuss. You could be forgiven for thinking that the latter is the biggest softy in our household, but while he's as soft as the proverbial with me, there are signs of a rather tougher and more calculating feline beneath the fur. For instance, while Loki gets batted regularly by Boudi for running into her accidently or similar such infringements (like being in her presence), Otto has now taken to sitting quite deliberately in situations where he is above the Queen B. And then looking down at her.

This is an offence to Her Majesty, who eventually flips and tries to smack him. He remains completely unperturbed – and does it again. This is teasing par excellence – and way beyond that traditional kitten trick (which Boudi herself used to do to poor old Trickie – karma, eh?) of standing on your back paws and waving your front paws at a bigger cat – trying to look bigger and scarier yourself.

Bismarck would be proud – and Boudi's going to have her paws full before long, if she doesn't feel that already.

Born right at the end of last October, they haven't felt a lot of sun on their bodies before – and now that there are moments when we can start to feel it, they must be able to feel it too.

They're enjoying being occasionally let into our tiny garden now – only under supervision – although Boudicca is less than impressed at yet another part of her realm no longer being safe from kittenish invasion. The other week, on one of their first such spells outside, we had a visit from neighbouring moggy Basil.

Basil (left) is bonkers. He lives in the small block of flats next to ours, with a woman who, frankly, hasn't a clue. She thinks that he's better spending time outside – but half the time, he clearly wants to be inside, warm and comfortable. Instead, he sits in our gated carpark and mewls for attention.

And he gets it from many of the residents. In the summer, if someone has a barbeque outside in the carpark, he'll always be guaranteed titbits. Even Lisa, a neighbour who says that she hates cats, bought a box of something called 'cat gravy' for him once. It's not the best diet, though, and he's really rather large.

He's convinced, though, that however she may react, Boudi would really like to be his special friend. Before the arrival of Otto and Loki, she'd dive into the garden and attempt to reach under the fence to bat Boris if he was near enough. He must have a strange idea of friendship.

It was clearly something of a shock to him the other day to discover that the fence that he stands on the other side of, moaning, now has extra cats behind it. Loki hissed at him through a knothole. But never let it be said that such things put Basil off in his quest for feline companionship.

A few mornings ago, he hauled his fat furry body over the fence and into our garden, going to sit in front of the patio doors and mewl.

Boudi went predicatably mad, scrabbling at the door to be let out so that she could chase him off; even though she's physically smaller, it's an unfair match: she's chased him right up the fence before now, all four paws spinning like some sort of cartoon cat on speed.

Loki stood in front of the window, head on one side, watching curiously. I was taking the day off and was still sitting in bed, sipping camomile tea, looking at cookery books and planning the weekend food with Otto's help – he wasn't remotely interested in the stranger outside.

I went through to the living room and rattled the door handle, which sent Basil off as fast as he could go, scrabbling madly to get back over the fence. Far kinder than letting Boudi at him.

Who knows whether he's tried his luck since when we've been at work. I've told Boudi not to let him in. There are no obvious signs that she's ignored me or that she's had the chance to give him a serious seeing-to.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the kittens react when it gets really warm. There would always be a day, in years now past, when Mack would emerge into the garden, as though from hibernation, and roll in the sun-warmed dust of the patio. Like crocuses and roadworks and lengthening days, it was a sign that spring was on the way. And it never ceased to warm the cockles of my heart.

The making of a little gourmet

Otto is a bon vivant in the making.

He has discovered cheese and chicken – and is besotted with both.

It seems a long time since I had the fun of dealing with a cat following me into the kitchen at every possible opportunity to see what was going on. Mack used to do it, and he'd sit near the sink and watch me closely. Cats being cats, he was probably thinking to himself: 'Stop stirring it around in that pan – you need to leave it be to get the lardons cooking properly'.

Otto, however, is already going a stage further, having volunteered himself as my tester in chief. This works along the lines of: 'you've just opened the fridge and now have something on the work surface ... what is it?' Boing! Onto my shoulder and then, if it looks or smells really interesting, onto the work surface.

Followed by my popping him down on the floor. Followed by 'Boing!' etc.

I suspect that this is all related to his skinniness when he arrived nine weeks ago – you couldn't simply feel his ribs, but between them: he was clearly smaller than his brother, although no less feisty, and his fur was a bit like sheepskin.

Two months down the line, he's slightly bigger than Loki, wonderfully sleek and with an immaculate coat. And he likes his food.

The cats all prioritise food differently. For Boudicca, when we arrive home in the evening, 'hello' fuss on the bed has to be followed by a few mouthfuls of fresh food and then the garden.

For Loki, this is time to spend under the kitchen table re-discovering that he's got a tail.

For Otto, it's serious eating time, to which he dedicates himself without interruption – except to check whether Boudicca's bowl has more interesting meat or to take a few sips of cat milk or to munch a few cat biscuits.

A few days ago, when I was getting myself a bit of cheese – Double Gloucester – he clearly wanted to try it. I have now made a rod for my own back. He went potty for it. He's tried Boursin – a crumbly, creamy French cheese with, in this case, peppercorns in it – Stilton (probably not his favourite), an orange Cheshire and, yesterday, a creamy goat's cheese, which was, apparently, even more bonkersly delicious than anything he'd previously sampled.

Mind, on the grounds that if he's having something she better have some of it too, the Queen B has also decided that she wants cheese. Interestingly, she has always struggled to easily take food from anyone's fingers. Otto seems to have mastered this without even giving it a thought.

Last week, after I'd pared all the meat off the carcass of the roasted chicken we'd had for Sunday dinner, I gave them some tidbits on a saucer. Within moments, Otto was growling at his brother. Clearly that chicken was for him and nobody else. Loki had to have some chicken separately.

All this comes when they were getting bored of kitten food anyway – well, apart from kitten biscuits, and Boudi's helping them much through those. Her ladyship's food seems to be infinitely more interesting to them.

Now all the containers of kitten food say that you should feed them kitten food for a year. How do you do that – force feed them? It's not easily practical to cut off the kittens from Boudi and her food or visa versa – not least because cats naturally graze, so I'm not going to leave them stuck in different rooms with separate bowls and litter trays while we're at work every day.

In retrospect, both our first cats – Mack and Mabel – grew up on a diet of ordinary tinned cat food. I doubt if, at that stage, I even knew that kitten food existed.

And they're all going to get a slight addition to their diet when I can next get to the butcher on Broadway market – raw chicken wings. A colleague with even more experience of moggies than us was showing me some advice on a veterinary website last week.

As it so accurately puts it in the section on feline oral health: "Minimise dental disease by feeding a food for which the teeth of your 'hunting creature' have been designed.

"Cats are little hunting creatures. No hunting creature hunts jelly or gravy." They may like those things – but they don't hunt them.

And it goes on: "Give your cat mouse-sized chunks of raw meat twice a week as a meal. Raw chicken wings are ideal.
Don't feed cooked bones."

So, that's a new treat in store.

The "little hunting creatures" are getting into everything. And the bedroom window sill is no exception. Right behind the bed, it's very wide and covered with a wooden blind. Every cat we've had has enjoyed climbing into it to look out at the garden or, more accurately, a bay tree and a little bit of the garden. The kittens are no exception and both of them can now manage to get themselves up and behind the blind.

On Sunday, when we were having a pleasant lie-in, Otto got himself up there. And then had to get down. During which process he slipped. Straight onto my face. I got lovely cuts on the bridge of my nose and cheek from kitten claws that are like razor-sharp needles. Fortunately, they're clean and will heal without any problem, I think. If they don't, I'll go all romantic and claim they're duelling scars. Very Prussian.

Not that I could be remotely cross – for some reason or other, I have the patience of Job when it comes to cats.

Of course the development of my little gourmet raises one or two ethical questions. When Mack was first ill at around 16 years, the vet first announced that he needed dental work (which we had done) and that we should give him a diet of dry food only – to be bought from the same vet, of course.

We tried. He didn't like it one iota. Was it better to feed him what he wanted or what the vet said was best for him, but which he would just leave? Better to let him get to starving point before giving in and eating what he didn't like? I did the former.

As it happened, he had kidney disease. I've sometimes wondered if his favourite treat of all – tinned tuna, but only in brine – had helped cause that problem because of its salt content. I've never served it to any cat since he had a saucer of it on his last night alive.

We tried to convert Boudi to dry food only, but while she likes biscuits, she quite clearly doesn't believe that they constitute a properly varied diet. Indeed, after Mack died and she became a lone cat, we found that a few weeks later, she started to develop ways of making it crystal clear that meat was required. Mack – and before she died eight months before him, Trickie – had always been the ones to do the demanding and organising of their human slaves, but suddenly she had to learn to do it for herself.

Interestingly, the woman from whom we got Otto and Loki is a veterinary assistant – and she told us that they were used to having two meat meals a day, plus biscuit. So there's no veterinary consensus.

But a few bits of cheese? Is it bad for Otto? What if he really likes it, though? Is it cruel not to limit them only to strictly cat food? Shouldn't we all eat just exactly what is strictly nutritionally perfect for us? Or would that not be just a tad boring – a tad anti-life?

As it happens, a bit of checking suggests that the odd bit of cheese will do no harm.

And I get pleasure from it too – it's fascinating and funny to see what cats decide they like. Mabel liked to sit on The Other Half's knee and be fed tiny bits of Scotch pancake. One evening she even ate fried onion out of a sandwich he'd made himself.

Mind, how many domestic cats eat anything like a natural diet in the first place? I've never seen Whiskas offering a range of mouse patés or Felix retailing sparrow chunks in spider gravy. I could be wrong, but I'm not aware of cattle as ever having been the natural prey of small felines.

Perhaps I shall discuss this with Otto when he gets older. I'm sure he'll say that a little bit of what you like does you good.

'You're going to pay for bringing kittens in here'

Boudicca has decided that we owe her. Big time. And she has now decided just how she is going to collect.

We will play with her. With her fish-on-a-stick toy. And we will do so far more often than ever before.

Boudicca came to us five years ago last November – the fifth, to be precise. It was a Saturday and she was utterly unconcerned by fireworks going off. She didn't even seem particularly worried by cars passing as I walked home with her in a basket.

She was a tiny ball of fluff with a lot of attitude: only six weeks old – although we didn't realise quite how young she was at the time.

We already had two cats at the time – Mack and Trickie. Mack had been with us for around 13 years. His sister, Mabel (yes, they were named after the Broadway show) had died suddenly a few years earlier and, convinced that he was lonely, we'd adopted Trickie from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, within a couple of months of Mabel's death.

Trick was a soppy thing of around 10. She'd lived with an old man until his death, when his son took her to live with his family. But she didn't get on with the children or the dogs and they'd had to make the decision to take her for rehoming. She'd been at Battersea for almost five weeks – close to a record – and as we walked between the 'kitty cabins', she leapt up and drooled over the top of the door in a desperate attempt to get our attention.

She passed the 'cat test' (to check whether cats get on with other felines), although I strongly suspect that she deliberately faked it as part of her plan to escape from Stalug Luft Battersea. That, and her obvious instant affection for The Other Half did the trick, and Trickie came home with us, even though we'd set out with the intention of getting a much younger cat.

Mack was appalled. He threw hissing fits – but never anything more – retired to the bedroom to sulk for days and went through a stage of what the books call 'inappropriate urinating'. This was one pissed-off cat being pissy.

We had followed the Battersea advice on introducing a new cat to a household: shut them in one room for a a couple days while they get used to that. Trick loved the kitchen, while Mack resented not being able to go in there.

He got over it and they learnt to rub along. And then, just over two years later, I was in my local pub just as the landlady had agreed to take a kitten from one of her regulars. There were further kittens left in the litter. I told The Other Half later – we'd always felt a bit cheated with Mack and Mabel, since the colleague who gave them to us kept them until they were 12 weeks old (even though we'd booked them well before they were born). We never really felt that we'd had that tiny kittenhood experience. This seemed like a good opportunity.

We sat down, discussed whether we could cope with three cats in our flat and also whether we could cope financially. We concluded that we could – and I got in touch with the kittens' owner to say we'd take one.

We actually took Boudi on approval – not that there was ever much risk of us changing our minds. She leapt out of the basket and straight into a bookcase, hiding behind a few books, emitting little kitten hisses when either of us tried to coax her out. Some hours later, I managed to encourage her a bit, using a finger dipped in cat food.

Over the coming days, she gradually came further and further out of hiding. On the second afternoon, she was creeping around the corner of the sofa, when she spotted Trickie, sitting nonchalantly in the basket, which we'd left out in case our newcomer wanted to use it as a sort of den while she got used to the place. She sped towards the basket – possibly thinking it was her mother – and then ground to a halt just in front of it, spitting and hissing, before running away.

To say that Trick wasn't impressed would be an understatement. It set the tenor for their relationship. Trickie, despite being full grown, was constantly irritated by the bouncing kitten that would leap up in front her doing the 'look at how big I am' pose. With Mack, she was an a bit of awe, as though he were a worshipped big brother – and he never seemed remotely bothered by her arrival.

In the meantime, Trickie would land on The Other Half's should, wrap herself around him and complain that she was being made to spend time with cats. I'm convinced that she was telling him that she wasn't really one of them – but a small person in a fur coat.

So that was Boudi's introduction to the household. And one has a certain sense of karma that after teasing Trick, she's finding herself bemused by miniature furballs. Loki simply cannot resist following her: earlier today she went to sit in a window. So Loki followed – clearly convinced that it would be A Good Thing to join her. Much hissing and growling, plus a clump or two, followed. He's also intrigued by her tail too.

Otto doesn't seem as determined to wind her up – but when she's decided to clump him, he falls into classic cat submission position – and then gives a little hiss back. It's like telling her that she's not really scary – and he's going to get bigger and bigger as the days go by.

So, we are starting to pay. Her choice of payment is being made clear by greatly increased attempts to open the draw containing her favourite toy. And then sitting and staring long and hard at whichever of her servants is around at the time.

The Queen B is working hard to reassert her authority.

The pitfalls of feline investigation

We had our first little kitten 'accident' today – no, not a case of forgetting where the litter tray was, but of coming a cropper while investigating the toilet.

I was busy at the computer when I suddenly heard a mad scrabbling; the sound of claw against ceramic. By the time I got to the bathroom, the only evidence of anything untoward was a sopping wet toilet seat and a certain rippling in the bowl itself.

The Other Half quickly found Loki, who, apart from his head, was sopping wet. Fortunately, he was quite placid when it came to being picked up, wrapped in a towel and gently dried off. Although he still sat on the floor looking a little sorry for himself afterwards. I'm not going to say: 'I told you so', but there are reasons that I said, before their arrival, that remembering to put the seat down would be A Good Thing.

But they are now comfortable and confident enough in their new home that every day seems to bring opportunities to try something new. Bed is a case in point.

After we stopped shutting them into the living room at night – not least because The Queen B had started trying to open the door (closed internal doors are verboten to cats, it seems), they popped into the bedroom briefly at night and would arrive again after breakfast for a play and a cuddle if we were having a lie-in or a read.

Last night they decided that coming to bed to sleep would be a cool idea. In Loki's case, he's already decided that scrambling into bed is really good. Otto is perfectly happy to try to balance on some stray limb and purr himself to sleep. You start feeling as though you're trapped into a scenario like that of the whore in the story about King Solomon, when she rolled over in her sleep and suffocated her baby. Fortunately, I seem to have spent quite a lot of the last 17 and a half years learning how to change position in bed without disturbing a cat.

They're chattering more too: chirrups and tweets now pepper the quiet, where none existed when they arrived. We're getting told when they need food and when they need fuss. Furry alarm clock syndrome will not be far behind. Mack was a genius at that – if all else failed, he'd bite my septum: never hard enough to draw blood, just hard enough to get my attention. I long ago learned that, where cats are concerned, giving in quickly is usually the easiest option as well as the quickest one.

Otto and Loki are lucky – we're already well trained in many ways. Although I have little doubt that they'll manage a few more in the coming years.

Beginning to relax

It was around 9.30am this morning, after I'd stretched deeply in bed and let my body sink back once more that The Other Half observed: "You're all relaxed now Christmas Day is over."

Well, it's not quite that simple: I felt relaxed last night, after dinner was finished. And then we'd also decided, given that the living is still knee deep in wrapping paper and a box that's large enough for kittens to be able to jump in and out of, not to shut them in that room, with food and litter tray, for the night. Boudicca has been objecting anyway for the last few nights – objecting at least to an internal door being shut.

They did wonderfully well on the first night in their new home where they could ramble around if they so wished. Both came to bed at various points and licked and nuzzled and kneeded us. And Otto slept for a while on my arm. And none of this really seemed to bother her majesty, who is looking more and more relaxed with each passing day.

Christmas Day – well, Christmas morning – wore them out. Boxes and paper are just perfect for kitten fun. After something like three hours of lunacy, they curled up to sleep it all off. It was a joy to watch them.

St Delia of Norwich had been right – lists (and then more lists – do help. This was probably my most organised and, therefore, easy, Christmas Day catering thus far.

I even bothered to do something I haven't done since the last time I spent Christmas with my parents – showered, blow-dried my hair and dressed in tidy fashion, before breakfasting on thin toast and goose foie gras with truffle.

There is an element of truth to The Other Half's observation. Although he'd forgotten that I've also been getting up fairly early this last week to feed kittens. With their way unblocked, if they were really hungry, they could find Boudi's food in the kitchen.

But yes, it's my big cooking event of the year and it might only be for the two of us, but I like to get it right. And whilst obviously I create the meal with more than half an eye to The Other Half's tastes, he's never set me any targets to achieve – I set those for myself.

The menu was, I'm delighted to report, well balanced. The salad of thinly sliced fennel, red onion and orange was made an hour before eating, and because it wasn't leaves, I dressed it then too. The dressing was supposed to be red wine vinegar, virgin oil, Dijon mustard and honey. However, I'd forgotten to pick up any Dijon, so some made Coleman's had to do. And when I'd gone to reach for the red wine vinegar, it was to find a sediment in it. So I substituted with raspberry wine vinegar. No sacrifice there, methinks. Indeed, the dressing proved zingy and fresh – a success, I thought.

Part two of this culinary epic was roast sirloin of beef. I'd started that off with a quartered onion under the meat (thank you, Nigella) and with plain flour patted into the fat on top (Delia again). A bit of a mare to carve, but lovely meat. It was served with a "confit" of whole shallots and garlic cloves, which had been simmered merrily for an hour in red wine and raspberry wine vinegar (again, the emergency substitution did no harm to the taste). That again was Delia – although research in my copy of Larousse this afternoon, while prepping today's sauce, showed me that it was not a confit: that is specifically a way of preserving meat (hence duck confit, which is stored and preserved in duck fat). But that's not to say that it wasn't gorgeous.

I'd done a few roast potatoes and a few sprouts – sautéed and steamed – and we opened a very decent bottle of red wine, having started with a glass of chilled white Banyuls, brought back from Collioure in September, as an apéritif. I'd managed a little gravy for the meat and, all in all, I was pretty satisfied.

And so to the sweet: the pear tarts baked in 17 minutes and were lovely – moist fruit and perfectly crisp pastry. The stem ginger ice cream – my first ever attempt at ice cream, and without an ice cream maker – was, though I say so myself, excellent (thanks again, Delia). The Other Half has already started hinting about making more ice cream – particularly vanilla, his favourite. Somewhere in the back of mind is an idea that more exotic possibilities exist.

We exchanged gifts. It's The Other Half's half century next month, and after seeing a TV documentary on the subject, I'd booked us a March trip on the Orient Express to Venice, where we'll spend five nights. So I'd piled in to Christmas by buying him books about Venice itself and a DVD about the train. There was a new lens for me, plus photography books.

And then it was the pleasure of flopping in front of the TV. Dr Who proved excellent entertainment (my mother never let us watch sci-fi, so this is a recently acquired taste, thanks initially to re-runs on cable) and then the newest Poirot on ITV, with the wonderful David Suchet as the eponymous Belgian detective, and a really rather chubby Tim Curry as an archeologist and peer of the realm. What happened to the Tim who flounced around in basque and stockings, pouting at the camera in The Rocky Horror Picture Show?

It was, as you might have gathered, a most pleasant day.

But yes – now the rather more serious relaxation can begin.

Walking in a winter wonderland

You know you're getting old when you get excited about receiving a teapot as a Christmas present. Now admittedly, it is a Rocha. John Rocha teapot – I'd never really considered the idea of designer teapots – so that diminishes something of the image of an elderly spinster sipping tea, knitting a tea cosy and surrounded by contended cats.

Okay, the cats are part of the scene, but I'm no spinster (despite my mother's insistence on always addressing post to me as 'Miss', rather than 'Ms' or simply leaving out a title at all) and I don't knit. Well, not these days, at any rate.

It is fair to point out that My Favourite Things does include "whiskers on kittens", but it doesn't mention slate grey teapots – although "bright copper kettles" make it, and after all, what's the use of a teapot without a kettle?

It's not that I don't like coffee, but I have been drinking more and more tea in recent months and, when my mother asked what I wanted for presents, just days after my old teapot had broken, it seemed a sensible idea.

The kittens seem to like tea too. On their first morning with us, there was nearly a fight to see who could get their head into my mug to drink what was by then rather cold Lady Grey. It was removed from temptation's way, since I don't suppose that caffeine counts as a good supplement to the diet of baby cats.

The teapot was christened this morning, as we sat in bed and cuddled the latest additions to the household.

I received it yesterday, during a brief visit to my parents, who live just beyond Croydon. It's only around 12 miles as the crow flies, but it takes long enough to get there – and yesterday it seemed to take a veritable epoch to get back.

We have been having snow. Very pretty to look at, but the transport system around the capital in particular struggles to cope with wintery conditions. Mild winters for much of the last decade or so have made this situation even worse.

I caught the bus as usual to London Bridge station, and boarded a train. Just before it was due to leave, we were advised to get off, as it wasn't going where it had been scheduled to. A bit of asking around produced the sole explanation that there was "frost on the rails". On that basis, I hopped back onto the diverted train and got off as near to somewhere I knew as possible – East Croydon – and got a cab the rest of the way.

With the inclement weather, we'd already agreed that I wouldn't stay for an evening meal, but when snow started falling in mid afternoon – and sticking on damp ground – it seemed sensible to leave as early as possible. My father returned from taking a funeral at around 4pm, so we scrabbled through the annual gift-giving and then he went to call a cab for me to go to the station, since the older he gets, the less keen he becomes on driving at night – let alone in such weather. No cabs were available.

I said I'd catch a bus – and told him that he didn't need to walk me to the stop. Wrapped up and having had the common sense to wear my Doc Martens, I waddled carefully down the snowy street to the main road and the bus stop. It was the start of the rush hour, but nobody was rushing anywhere. A mere centimetre of snow – much of it already turned to slush on the road itself – had brought chaos. Traffic was hardly moving and, after a good 20 minutes or more, I had yet to see a single bus on either side of the road.

My geeky iPhone came into its own again, with the app for the rail network informing me that trains were still running (and on time) from nearby Wallington station. There seemed to be only one thing for it. I walked. It usually takes about 10 minutes, but that's in good weather. Hobbling along on impacted slush, worrying about falling and breaking my brand new teapot and trying to relax my muscles, it took around 20.

I had five minutes to spare before the next scheduled train to London Bridge. It arrived on time – and I managed to grab a seat. Then, between West Croydon and Norwood, it stopped. After a few minutes, the driver announced that, due to the weather, there was a train tailback all the way into the city.

Initially, he told us that this would delay us by around 45 minutes to an hour. And then, fortunately, we were diverted to Victoria. After that, it should have been plain sailing as I got a can from the station, and waved jauntily – as I always do on that route – at Thomas Thornycroft's statue of Boudicca in her chariot as we turned onto the Embankment. But we had to take another minor diversion after the road was blocked by a road accident. That proved only a brief hiatus in the final leg of this epic journey.

It's a long time since I've had such a snowy adventure. When we lived in Mossley, the top of the town used to get cut off by snow an average of twice each winter. The first time it happened when I was at school just outside Manchester, the bus only got as far as the top road, before being completely engulfed in drifting snow. There were a few of us returning from schools outside the town and a woman marshalled us to walk the rest of the way, taking us into the pub at the top of the town, where we were partly thawed out with hot blackcurrant drinks. By the time I made it home, for my mother to let me in at the front door, I looked like the abominable snowman – my gabardine mac covered in snow. But the only thing that worried me was the time and whether or not I'd missed Top of the Pops. Nearly, but not quite. I was still in time to see David Soul sing his chart topping Don't Give Up on Us at the end of the programme (which dates it as either January or early February 1977).

After that episode, the school would send us Mossley girls home at the first sniff of the white stuff. On another occasion, when no traffic could get up to a nearby farm, my mother sent me on foot, to buy eggs. I tramped up a hill, relishing the deep, pristine snow – and fell part of the way down on the way back. My mother was concerned – but only about the eggs. Which – fortunately for me – were unscathed.

Anyway, I made it back last night in time to catch the Victoria Wood celebration on BBC2. Which was good – at one point on the stationary train, with a loud Afrikanner telling the entire carriage that Sarf Efriken Rayalways would do it better, I was thinking that I'd miss it all.

Once I got home and changed and sat down with a cup of tea, and having said a proper 'hello' to The Queen B, I had to cuddle Loki and Otto, who continue to love cuddles and fuss.

Boudi has been progressing well – and is now spending much more time in the same room as them, watching as though utterly fascinated. She still hisses a bit if they look too much at her, but seems to have decided that they're not being allowed to take over all her home.

Christmas Day, when there's shiny paper aplenty around, could be a riot.

All kitted out

It's been just a fraction over a year and four months since Mack died, leaving Boudicca as our lone cat. Past experience suggested that it would be best to leave getting another or more cats for a while, so that she had the chance to really blossom. So we did.

But a few months ago, we started targeting this Christmas as the time to add further feline joy to our lives. Christmas, because we could – as long as we had managed to hit a load of deadlines in time – take a whole fortnight off: ideal for bedding in new members of the household. And we knew that kittens would be easier on Boudi too, rather than bringing another adult in.

Unfortunately, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home had no kittens at this time of year, so I started regularly browsing gumtree.com, an online marketplace where a great many breeders, amateur and professional, advertise. And while it might strictly speaking be the end of the kitten season, if you look at that site, you wouldn't know it.

But looking and getting something sorted were two very different propositions. I rang a couple of people, essentially promising to take two of a litter (and pay the requested amount) – if they only keep them until Saturday, when we'd both have finished with work for the season.

'Urr, umm ... but I have people coming to see them later'.

'I'll ring you tomorrow' – only for the call never to come, although the same kittens were then re-advertised later that day.

And so it went on.

Then I hit gold, with a woman in Barnet (pretty much the far reaches of north London) who had two little boys of seven and a bit weeks that she wanted to see in good homes. She was, it materialised, a vet's assistant. Which was heartening to start with, since it suggested she knew what she was doing. After a fairly detailed email conversation, in which I sketched out our history with moggies, she offered to bring them to us on Saturday afternoon.

Better yet! She had a car, but we don't.

Saturday morning was a sort of manic affair. I had to shop, while The Other Half did a bit of floor cleaning. I'm not sure that kittens worry about the state of bathroom and kitchen floors, but I wasn't going to disabuse him when such a mood was in full swing.

At around 1pm – a good hour after she'd told me that she'd aim for and ring/text us when she was on the way, the doorbell rang, just as I was pacing around, finding that her phone was off and wondering whether we'd been dumped for some reason or other.

They're utterly gorgeous – as, of course, are all baby animals.

Otto (left) is so skinny and really quite scrawny, that one presumes that he was the runt of the litter. Not that you'd know it. He has no sense of inferiority or fear. When he arrived, he was popped straight into my arms, scrambled onto my shoulder and curled around my neck, purring dozily.

Loki (below) was handed to The Other Half and was also perfectly happy to stay and cuddle and purr. But Loki was also the first to start exploring – hopping down from the comfort of the sofa and starting to sniff everything around. So Loki – the Norse god of mischief – seemed a perfect name.

Otto (so called because I love the name – and it's seems to continue a naming style) stayed sleepily put for an age. But even he eventually woke up enough to start feeling inquisitive.

I'd ordered some sachets of kitten food in my bulk online shopping order – to arrive tomorrow. But I realised that they needed some before that. And it had also occurred to me that it might help them feel at home if I got them one of those fluffy sort of covered 'boxes' to curl up together in.

So after a grabbed lunch, I left The Other Half to cat sit, while I nipped to Islington to the nearest proper pet shop that I know. A bus ride and then a short stroll amid Christmas trees shedding their needles and spreading their fresh scent, with seasonal music playing into the street over speakers as crowds hunted down Yule goodies, brought me to the shop – and the rest was the business of a few minutes.

As the evening progressed, I fed them the suggested amount – suggested on both the varieties of kitten feed I'd bought them. They wanted more. I gave them biscuits and they scoffed those too. So I put out a few more biscuits. They bounced and rolled and played and play-fought ... and Otto discovered that curtains are fabulous.

And they enjoyed more fuss. Otto will curl up with you and lie still. Loki gets so excited and will squirm and roll in your arms. Both like to nibble fingers and hands with tiny, pincer-sharp teeth. Both enjoy nuzzling and kneeding faces and necks.

In the meantime, Boudicca sulked. She'd looked on them in shock at first – trying to stare them out. When that failed – they'd spent the first weeks of their lives with other, older cats, plus a couple of dogs, so not much is likely to intimidate them – she retired with indignant hisses to the bedroom. We shared our attention carefully. I made sure that, when at the pet shop, I brought her a new catnip toy. She doesn't seem to blame us, but isn't impressed. On the other hand, she knows that they're babies and can't do anything more than hiss at them a bit.

They stayed in the living room overnight: it was lovely and warm, they had cushions and other things to sleep on – plus their litter tray and some biscuits in a bowl. It allowed Boudi to feel that she had the bedroom – and us – to herself for the night. We heard not a squeak, until I got up at around 9am – later than I'd intended – and got them some breakfast. They're used to specific feeding times of 8am and 6pm – presumably sandwiching the vet's assistant's work schedule.

Well, I stuck with the same recommended amounts again – they scoffed that in no time and made it perfectly clear that they wanted more. On the basis that Otto quite clearly needs to put on weight – there's no danger of either of them being overweight at this juncture – I put out an adult sachet. They scoffed that too. And then spent the next two to three hours romping around, playing and play fighting and discovering Boudi's cache of toys – and proving wonderful entertainment.

They also started venturing beyond the living room into the rest of the flat.

Boudi continues to sulk a little. But she's branched out of the bedroom and has come to sniff everything, sit with me in the kitchen – and here, while I'm writing – and watch them from a safe distance.

She'll get there. And we're making sure to give her fuss and tell her what a good girl she is. In the end, she'll have other cats to run around with – and she's young enough to still love boisterous playing herself.

But in the meantime, if they tell you that Christmas is about children ... well, they may be right. In this case, it's about cat children. And I don't think it could get much better.

Broad beans – but no Chianti or liver

The first broad beans of the season were purchased on Good Friday in Borough Market. Well to be accurate, they were Spanish broad beans, imported: I have had no confirmed sightings of British beans yet, but it won't be long. And basking in the glow of the pleasure that the sighting of the first Jersey Royals of the year had created, I bought some anyway.

More were selected from Broadway Market yesterday: I suspect they're also Spanish, but they were in a plain box so I couldn't tell and will thus not reproach myself too much for such an unenvironmental act.

I remember picking fresh broad beans many years ago. It was during one of the peculiar family 'holidays' that we endured at the time. Clergy of my father's denomination were not particularly well paid, and he combined that with a talent for being able to let money trickle through his fingers like sand. Cars and booze accounted for quite a bit, I imagine. But it meant, after my maternal grandfather had died and his widow moved back to share a house with her two sisters in St Helens, we often went without an annual holiday, having no further relatives to stay with.

But on at least three occasions that I can recall, we ended up being loaned the use of a cottage for a fortnight by some well-to-do acquaintance of my father (probably a booze buddy). The idea was, of course, that it was simply essential to "get away". Thus at least one 'holiday' was spent in Todmorden, a small town on the Pennines.

It's bleak and there's bugger all to do there. We were in a cottage right up on the hills. For at least part of the holiday in question, my father did his being-ill routine.

He'd had massive surgery in the 1950s, before I was born. Around 10 years later, he started to become ill – he'd get home at night, from whatever meeting or pastoral visiting he'd been doing, and effectively collapse as soon as he got through the door. My mother would have to haul him up to bed. He'd be flailing around like the most drunken drunk you can imagine, speech slurred to total meaninglessness.

My sister, three years my junior, would lie in her cot and cry. I'd lie in my bed, rigid with something that I cannot find words for. Fear? I don't know that I felt personally threatened by it, but I hated it – it was simply horrible. I'd get up sometimes and attempt to quieten my sister. But it doesn't surprise me, looking back on it, that she later needed a night light to be able to sleep. The darkness was when those awful disturbances would come.

It was some years before doctors eventually worked out what the problem was – all the brain scans, all the tests: and all they eventually needed to do was actually look at his medical history and do a simple blood test. He had pernicious anemia and needs injections once every few weeks.

But while they were still trying to fathom such matters, one imbecile prescribed him barbiturates: Seconal. He got rather fond of it. Black and orange capsules. He'd have them hidden in his study and, when he was out, my mother would have me help her search for them. Then she'd carefully unscrew them, empty the things, replace the drug with sugar and put them back where we'd found them.

Of course, he wasn't refraining from booze at this stage. Or driving. Goodness knows how he didn't smash the car up (more than he did) or do more damage to himself or anyone else. In the end, a prang saw him sent to a different doctor, who worked out what was wrong – the medical history and the blood test did the job.

But on that holiday in Todmorden, he'd obviously got himself some Seconal, was drugged up, was angry and aggressive. We needed food, though, so he was insisting that he'd drive us all into the actual town. My mother had hidden his car keys and told me I'd have to go. He was screaming and threatening, both my mother and me. Ranting and raving.

My little mission was to get the bus and go into the town and get the food my mother needed.

That was Todmorden. On another of these magnificent holidays, we ended up in Ravenglass on the northwest coast. Father heard horror stories from local fishermen (while in the pub) about what they'd fished out of the nearby sea – this wasn't far from Sellafield nuclear power station – and we were banned from going in the water.

I don't recall any particular outbursts from that holiday, but there was a vast kitchen garden, with dead moles hung up on the wire fence around it. We were able to pick and eat what we wanted and that's where I remember picking peas and runner beans and tomatoes – and broad beans.

They're known as fava beans in the US – the sort that Hannibal Lecter might consider an apt accompaniment to human liver, together with a good Chianti, of course. I can't say I've tried them that way ...

They are, apparently, the bean of Jack and his stalk; the bean in 'full of beans' and 'spilling the beans'. And they are darned tasty and an absolute joy in summer. You need to buy about double, because the pods are quite large and weighty.

It's a short summer season and, unfortunately, a lot of Brits don't eat them, so many ordinary greengrocers don't carry them. There was also a day, a few years ago, when I spotted some on a stall in Bethnal Green, but then refused to buy any. I had asked the stallholder for 500g of his lovely broad beans, but he'd refused, saying that he'd only serve people if they asked in old, imperial measurements. He was actually breaking the law, but doubtless considered himself to be one of those pathetic 'metric martyrs'. He didn't get my trade.

I'd have actually had difficulty ordering in anything other than metric. When I started school, we were taught imperial measurement – and then one week we were suddenly taught metric measurement. But the British being the British, we have never actually put a date on stopping using the former, so this crazy duel situation has continued.

Personally, I'd never really needed much in the way of measurements – until I started cooking around eight years ago. Then, needing kitchen scales and opting for a set of old fashioned-styles ones, I had to make a decision – what weights to buy for them: metric or imperial. It seemed ridiculous to opt for anything other than metric – and that's now the only way in which I can think when it comes to weight.

But I'm getting sidetracked again.

Pod your broad beans. Put some boiling water in a pan and, when it's bubbling merrily away, pop the beans in. If they're very small (the size of your thumbnail or smaller) they'll only need three minutes. Give them four or five minutes if the beans are larger or older.

Drain and then let them cool a little. You can eat the skins, but it's worth the slight hassle to remove them. Simply take a bean, nick one end of it between your fingernails, and squeeze gentely. What pops forth is a beautiful little emerald.

There are many ways to use them. They're lovely in salads – brilliant with a good, salty feta or lardons of bacon, fried to a really crispy state. Some years ago, I saw the latter done on the Two Fat Ladies cookery programme. I think it was the late Jennifer Patterson who cooked it: bacon and broad beans, topped with a hard-boiled egg that was pressed through a sieve onto the dish.

Taking that on board, I've just had some. Cooked as above, and then popped out onto a plate with some cooked fine beans, some diced Cantaloupe melon, thinly sliced celery heart and some wonderful Paleta Iberico (a wafer thin Spanish ham, matured for at least 20 months), and all dressed with a light mix of virgin oil, orange juice and black pepper. The Queen B decided that the jamon was good too – indeed, she assumed it was really meant for her and was really quite piqued at being denied.

But whether you eat them with ham or bacon, or feta, don't forget broad beans – they're well worth enjoying for the entirety of their short summer season.

A busy day in the court of The Queen B

The Queen B is having to do some quite serious resting now, after what seems to have been a really very exciting and tiring day in her court.

As if the spring chorus of birds twittering isn't enough to make her nearly distracted, including one small bird actually landing half way down the Pyracantha inside the garden to tease her (it just escaped), she had the extra special thrill today of seeing a squirrel pottering around in her domain.

As far as we know, this is a first: there are plenty of squirrels nearby, but this is the first time we've ever seen one right on our patio, although I suspect it's the same one that I saw a couple of weeks ago, climbing onto the first floor balcony of one of our neighbour's flats in order to get at the bird feeder that was hanging there. Convenience food for squirrels.

Boudicca's reaction was an initial double take: standing in the middle of the living room, staring out of the closed patio doors; a sort of shake of the head and dramatic blinking.

Then she hurled herself at the window, muttering something about there only being "one bushy tail allowed around here!"

At this, the squirrel spotted her and, suitably chastised, took flight over the fence.

She ran through to the bedroom to check from that window, and then back to the living room.

She's not much bigger than a squirrel, but size isn't much object in The Queen B's world. Perhaps it's a result of naming her after the legendary English warrior queen who gave the Romans a spanking, but she's quite happy to take on bigger critters than herself.

A case in point is Basil.

Basil lives in a little block next to ours. One female human constitutes his entire staff, and she's pretty dismal at the job too, leaving him outside for long periods of time.

Basil is rather large – and very soft. He stands in the carpark behind our garden and cries. And indeed, there is something about him that makes me want to give in and call him, using my best Prunella Scales as Sybil voice from Fawlty Towers. He only wants attention, food and slightly better staff. Occasionally, he feels so desperately in need of this that he'll struggle over a couple of fences to come into our garden and sit in front of the window, hoping to be allowed in.

Boudicca goes beserk. And if she has the opportunity, loves nothing better than to chase this cat, almost twice her size, right back over the fences. Remarkably, Basil's memory seems to be rather short term, since he never seems to recall the last time his furry ass got clawed as he scrambled for safety.

So, all in all, it was an exciting day. One can quite understand why she needs to put her paws up now.

The Queen B finds cause to fret

A lovely story cropped up the other day about Santino, a male chimp in a Swedish zoo that has been collecting stones and stashing them away, so that he could later use them to throw at visitors.

Researchers have said that it’s evidence of non-human animals planning for future events – precious little of which had been found previously.

But I’m sure many pet owners see amazing behaviour on a regular basis.

The Other Half and I got home rather late yesterday evening – to find that the Queen B had decided to break with her usual habit and not come to greet us.

The routine is that we have to go into the bedroom, where she jumps on the bed and we all say ‘hello’.

We walked into the bedroom, sans the cat, to find that there was debris all over the floor. A little glass lampshade that we’d bought years ago, put on top of a bookshelf and then forgotten, had crashed to the ground and shattered into smithereens.

Boudicca likes getting on top of that particular bookshelf, so it seems reasonable to conclude, in true Holmesian fashion, that she had been up there while we were out and had knocked it down.

But what is fascinating is that, on the basis of her out-of-character reluctance to engage in our usual greeting ritual (and cats love routine), it seems that she realised that she’d caused it to fall down and was worried in some way about it – possibly even worried what would happen when we got home.

We had to go into the living room, where she was crouched down watching us from behind a chair, to tell her that everything was alright before she came out to get her usual ‘welcome home’ fuss.

The idea that non-human animals are not really sentient has been taking knocks for some years now. Although anecdotes don’t count as scientific evidence of anything, personally witnessing such behaviour is absolutely fascinating.

I'll let you into a little secret

The Other Half is out of town this weekend – well actually, he's out of the country.

So, having arrived in the office very early this morning, I took a slightly extended lunch and popped down to Oxford Street to look at the Russell & Bromley bag I mentioned yesterday.

I shall be able to take it home without any questions this evening – without any questions or raised eyebrows and, by the time he sees it, it'll be 'too late'.

It is a thing of beauty – a mix of matte and patent black leather, with chains and studs (oh what a kinky minx I am).

And as if that weren't enough, it's actually very roomy – thus practical too.

I'll take a snap this weekend, when I embark on a spring clean of my wardrobe – possibly accompanied (or followed) by one of Irene's cocktails and certainly by my own music.

Doubtless the Queen B will be around to help, as is her feline wont. Or at least to sit and watch in the way that cats do, with an expression that you know means that you're doing it wrong.

And I'll relax – possibly with a suitably girlie movie or even a few episodes of Sex in the City, which I only managed to 'discover' at the end of last year.

Reports will follow, I promise.

Of Printemps and patent pumps

Perhaps it was the mere act of contemplating matters sunny yesterday, but the weather has changed.

No … not the weather: the season (fingers crossed).

Lunchtime yesterday was fine enough to sit out at the café in Russell Square and drink frothy latté.

Today has been better yet. There is warmth in the sun and the light has lost the brittle quality of wintery days.

So it seems perfectly in keeping to have turned to the Mediterranean for culinary inspiration today.

A chicken is already in the oven for a long, slow cook, à la one of the River Café cookery books. The bird is stuffed with garlic, sage and rosemary and is sitting in a tight dish with 200ml of water in the bottom at around 80˚C. After three hours, it’ll have butter rubbed on it and Vermouth added to the dish, before being returned to a hotter oven for a final half hour (or until it browns).

I’m going to serve it with good bread and with zucchini scapece – courgettes, thickly sliced and then salted for half an hour, before being dried and fried in vegetable oil with mint leaves.

The body has already been ready for the change of season for a couple of weeks: I’ve been binging on salads most evenings; ludicrously simple things such as plate of lamb’s lettuce, with a few baby beets and some smoked mackerel. Delicious.

At lunchtime today, I borrowed some more inspiration from River Café, cooked myself some broad (fava) beans from frozen and tossed them over a sliced pear, some goat’s cheese and toasted walnuts, dressed with nothing more than a drizzle of virgin oil.

As snowdrops display their beauty in the planters at the front of the flat, these are the tastes to go with it.

It’s been so pleasant sitting out that, when I finally got around to getting the camera out and taking a picture of the Marc Jacobs patent pink pumps for Irene, I was even able to take advantage of the natural light. They’ll go brilliantly with the dress from Monsoon, that I found on my Thursday shopping jaunt.

I feel soothed and relaxed. Chores are out of the way and I can sit out in the garden for a little longer. The days are drawing out and buds are just beginning to peak through on the bushes and trees that I passed alongside the Regent’s Canal as I wandered to the market this morning.

Looking up, you can see silhouettes of the first blossom against azure skies. The birds have been tweeting away all afternoon, driving the Queen B into a frenzy of chuntering and chirruping to herself.

We’ve had a good winter – a real winter. The cold has exhilarated and cleared the senses.

But now it’s time for spring, and everything seems to be reaching out for it.