things that have happened this weekend:

• suzi’s not come back, nor been found, nor is there any sign of finding her; i suspect that barring a miracle, i shaln’t be seeing her again. i have no idea what happened to her, but being a security person i can imagine more, stupid and gross explanations for her vanishing than most normal people – including at least two full-blown but semi-plausible conspiracy theories.

  she might still be alive somewhere, but something does not feel right. it’s probably easiest and best for me to assume she’s gone permanently.

  so, there it is.

  a vet once told me that with her weak heart, she’d be lucky to reach six years, so 10.5 is a pretty good run.

  i had a bit of a cry about it earlier in the week, but i stand reassured by the certainty that i did everything feasible to find her, plus being chipped, tagged, collared, belled, and instilled with as much paranoia as i could manage (traffic, strangers behaving oddly, etc) – so short of locking her in a padded cell there’s not much else i could have done.

  a friend told me that they could never have a cat, lest they got attached to it and it got run over, or went missing — in which case, what’s the point of forming any relationship? they people whom you love could die any day. life is sweet, fragile and precious – you should respect it as such, but don’t coddle it or you’ll miss the point.

• i have received the most recent edition of the most dangerous document known to british man, viz the screwfix direct catalogue; hundreds of powertools and builders consumables at your fingertips. family history dictates that i gravitate to the carpentry section, but i forsee submitting an order for about 200 quid, RSN.

• my tax code for 2003 arrived; for the first time in over 10 years, i do not have a “K” code, which in UK taxation means that I am not automatically in debt to the taxman; i can actually earn some untaxed revenue! it has only taken two and a half years of planning, graft and careful organisation in order to get to this state. it’s not a great achievement, but with a little more planning it should help eradicate my mortgage in relatively short order.

• i drove to flitwick trip to see alison and rhun; they are the couple whose wedding i attended a few months ago, and they seem to be doing well – rhun studying for some exams, and alison prepping for a move between universities.

  it was a marvellous excuse for escapism – we watched the gloucester v munster rugby match, had much beer, stilton soup and warm rolls, beef stew and dumplings, and chocolate orange and brandy cream. i wired my laptop to their tv, and we watched wedding videos (amusingly embarassing) and some dvds, and crashed-out after perusing photo-albums.

…and today, back to work.

i have a brief personal to-do list for this week:

1. planning of garden raised bed; must visit timber yard to cost-up
2. ikea run for wardrobe, depending upon availability
3. attend at the aldershot vintage motorcycle trials

…plus endless odds and ends at work.