Meg The Cat

I had intended to go along to Out of the Bedroom's (OOTB) Acoustica tonight, the first one since last July's when I backed up Jamie on his full live debut. The venue where we (I was on the committee of OOTB at that point - no longer though) used to hold Acoustica (Cabaret Voltaire) kicked us out because we weren't commercial eough for them so we'd moved to the Cafe Royal instead - then that venue lost their amplified live music licence and Acoustica has been homeless since then - but it's now got a new home at the Caledonian Backpackers at the West End of Princes Street. Big Jim, The Victorians, Lindsay Sugden and a fourth unconfirmed act were playing.

Anyway, the reason I didn't go is that Anne and I went to our chum Julia's house out in the wilds of West Lothian and, in keeping with our pathetic navigational skills which we showed off so adeptly in the outback of Andalucia, we got well and truly lost in the fair city of Armadale.

We stopped and asked a local for directions. "Do you know the way to Bathgate Road" we asked - "Yes" he replied. There was a rather long pause and then I offered "Can you tell us how to get there?". "Who are you looking for?" he asked....

20 minutes later we arrived at Julia's. Late last year she suffered some flood damage at her cottage and had to move out, so we took in her two cats Meg (The Black One) and Pandy (The Fluffy One) for December, giving her them back while we were in Barcelona at New Year. We then had them back from early January until our departure for Nerja earlier this month.

Julia had advised she intended to give them away once she moved back to her house (last week)and so, after much soul searching we decided to take on Meg (The Black One) in the hope that Julia would then keep Pandy (The Fluffy One) as the latter is less of a handful. We still hope she will.

Meanwhile, after a couple of glasses of Red Wine and a fair old natter (one small one for me only due to my driving), we left her house with Meg in a cat box and brought her to her new home - of course she's quite used to it having lived here for the best part of the last four months but now it's official and so Meg (The Black One) is now the house cat here following our wee Crispy the Cat who lived with us for nearly 18 years until she died in January 2002.

Meg is a funny character. She was abandoned in a house with a dog when she was just a kitten and has some distinct dog characteristics e.g the way she lies with her legs folded and her chin on the ground rather than the usual sphinx-like cat postion; and her short dog-like yelps she utters rather than normal cat miaows.

So we're looking forward to having a full time cat again although Crispy will never really be replaced.