It must just be happenstance, but...

It's one of those viciously bright, viciously windy days out there; boys on mopeds are driving with their booted feet stuck out like trimaran hulls, ready to catch themselves when they blow over (no exaggeration: I've just seen this).

Mac is sitting on the top step, just where the low winter sun should be warmly shining.

Except.

Baz is sitting in the window, just exactly blocking that particular angle of sunlight that would otherwise be reaching Mac.

Snigger.

(But they are good boys. Sometimes. They have been sleeping one either side of me, these last few nights - and for a discussion of the particular awkwardnesses of this arrangement, I could not do better than to point you to this post by ursulav - but this morning, I found them both on the same side of me. At a couple of feet's distance - just out of striking-range, I fancy, perhaps a hint beyond Barry's growling-perimeter - but snuggled down and snoozing quite untroubled. I have no idea how to make it any better than that, but that's good enough for now.)

Science! Facts! In this journal!!

In short, 100 means nothing on the Fahrenheit scale, 96 used to mean something but doesn't anymore, and 0 is colder than it ever gets in Denmark.

There are times when I could wish to be a historian of science. Love this stuff.

Is that a scribble on my manuscript, or are you just pleased to edit me?

Barry has taken to interrupting my work on a regular basis, to claim some heavyweight petting. He is, of course, welcome - it's the only known instance under which he can be induced to commit a little brief near-inaudible purring - but it does apparently demand that he sit on the manuscript I'm working from. Couldn't possibly sit on the other side of the keyboard, where the desk is clear, no sir. Bottom must be planted firmly on papers, thank you. And then there is a fair amount of shifting around, as my hand pays its proper tribute to his ears and under-chin areas; and then he leaves, and I turn back to my work, and--

Oh, did I strike that word out? And that line? I wonder why? Oh - no. That's not a pen-stroke, it's a black cat-hair. So's that. And that. And...

Nature, what are you thinking...?

Blue sky, vivid pink sunset. It's ... quite shocking.

I'd take a photo, but the camera is out of my favour. It's inadequate, Mr Spiggot. It's quite elderly, as digital cameras go - I must've bought it eight years ago, and it was second-hand then - and it's just too slow to immortalise the cats. You press the button, and by the time it fires they've got bored and dashed off to do something even wickeder somewhere else.

Investing in a new smart camera seems extravagant, alas, when all I ever want to do is photograph the cuter doings of my cats; but it may be the only option.

(For those of you who are thinking "Yes, Chaz, but come on: the sky isn't about to dash off and do something wickeder elsewhere," you are of course entirely right, and even this camera might be swift enough to capture it; but I said, it is out of my favour. I am unwilling to grace it with the offer of work.)

(I'm quite unwilling to grace myself with the offer of work, either. Which is why I am posting quite so much to quite such small avail. I'm supposed to be reading Dracula, in a worky kind of way. I've been putting it off all day, and lo...)

(But I have just a couple of hours still to fill, before I must leave to have dinner with novelists and poets and suchlike in a lighthouse, its being Burns Night tonight; it's ideal reading-time, and I have wine and a fire and a very comfy chair. Perhaps...)