I knew that would happen

Cats and boxes, we know about. Cats and padded envelopes - well, those of us with cats, we know about cats and padded envelopes.

High places? That too.

Put all of these together - a box full of padded envelopes, set in a high place - and we have Barry's perfect place.

We had it.

The box, alas, was a little wider than the shelf on which it sat. Which wouldn't have mattered at all, if it had been left to itself.

But it wasn't, of course. It was occupied by cat. And sometimes by Other Cat, who cannot resist anywhere that Barry is. Sometimes - as, f'rexample, this morning, when I would've photographed it if there had been power in my camera - one of them sat in the box and the other sat outside it, each veiled from the other by a single envelope standing high and proud between them, and they biffed at each other around it. It was very funny, and seemed to amuse them too.

Now? Alas. Barry turned round in the box once too often. The box is now on the floor, as are all the envelopes that I had so laboriously gathered together into this useful box-thing.

The impressive thing was watching Bazza leap from the box even as it fell: from that most insecure tumbling object, he leaped to another high shelf, and thence to a computer monitor, to a filing cabinet, to a desk, to ground, and away. In about half a second all told. A cartoon would have illustrated him as a blur. Barry Blur: he should probably be a strip in Viz magazine. Chris always said that the best ideas were alliterative...

Comfort cooking

It has been said, I am not as other men. Others have comfort food, which is familiar, unchallenging, reductive. I have comfort cooking, which is - well, rather the opposite.

Today I made a gorgeous horseradish sauce from my own grown horseradish root, my own chives, my own mayonnaise. Somebody else's Dijon mustard, which I can't replicate on account of not being in Dijon; somebody else's sour cream, which I can't produce on account of not having a cow. Nor, frankly, wanting one. I would adore the fresh dairy that comes with, but animal husbandry is not for me.

And now I am cooking tripe. I have never done this before; but there's a stall in the market that sells four different kinds, and I need to know. So. I have four different kinds of tripe, which I have washed and soaked and parboiled with salt and washed again, and then fried with onions and garlic, then sizzled in red wine vinegar. Then I added tomatoes and herbs and a dried chilli and some smoked paprika, and it's all in the slow cooker now. I'll give it a taste before I go to bed, but I may leave it going overnight. And we shall see. If it's nice, there are cannellini beans soaking to be added tomorrow, and some pork and smoked bacon too. If it's horrid, well. I can do something nice with beans and pork and smoked bacon.

[ETA: I should explain, the horseradish sauce and the tripe do not go together. No, no. The horseradish is for the beef sandwiches, for lunch. The beef is from the brisket that I simmered in the stock. The stock is for the beef-and-fennel risotto that I shall eat tonight while the tripe is slowly cooking - tho' I neglected to mention that a little of that stock has also found its way into the tripe.]