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Monday, September 22, 2008

Attempted suicide by cat

We were very excited to find a shop that sells things for fires. We need a screen as when we had our first fire last week a 'log' rolled out and nearly annihilated the cats who were sleeping too close. They are not really wood logs - I think they are made out of compressed ducks - but they burn well and are supposed to be environmentally friendly. I think they probably would be if you didn’t set them alight. Of course the shop was closed (this is the default status for Viennese shops) so we will go back next week. The shop is in the wonderfully name Gumpendorfer Strasse.

Furniture buying was a failure so next week we will have to go once again to Shopping City Sud .(Shriek!)

Bill tried to strangle himself by putting his paw through his collar and cutting off his air supply. He went quite furry in the face until we cut off his collar. He recovered well without mouth to mouth resuscitation – which was not in fact an option. I am not sure if this was an attempted suicide based on the quality of his life as I thought he was quite happy since we started feeding him the best Viennese steak - which I carefully cut into small bite-sized cubes. I have now removed Muffin’s collar so that she does not have this option. If they want to merge with infinity they have the same opportunity as all the other occupants of the building to jump from the terrace. It’s not supposed to be easy and they will just have to tough it out like the rest of us.

You can shop online here and have your groceries delivered – well you can if you speak German. After some considerable effort I managed to register with the Billa site so am going have test run soon. Theoretically this should not be too hard but there are built in safeguards with most things Austrian that prevent them from being too easy. This would only encourage people and they would do more of whatever it is they want to do – and this would annoy the hell out of everybody else.

Having been thwarted in his suicide attempt Bill is now getting up very early to chase imaginary rats around the bedroom. He hurtles over and under the bed, along the central heating ducts and up and down the bedroom hallway. This can last for half an hour and is very wearing for all of us – Muffin included. Fortunately after a while his few remaining brain cells lose focus and he goes to sleep again.

Will and Kris were just here and in about 48 hours explored Wien from top to bottom. They are indeed intrepid explorers and now know more about Wien than we ever will.

Geoffrey and Carmella are with us now and take a far more relaxed approach to these types of things. Geoffrey has the same view as I do that all old buildings have one thing in common – they are all old – and that they are all much the same. Darryl formed this view about castles last year in France and now breaks out into a rash whenever he sees one on TV. Liz just can’t get enough of them – I think it’s a girl thing.

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