My embroidery club started up again for the autumn term. I forgot to take photos there – again.

It felt so nice to get out of the house and meet people I don’t see every day. It’s like coming out of covid quarantine.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been doing much of my work like this: in a sofa, with a cat in my lap, and my laptop balanced in front of me. The ergonomics have not been great. The alternative of listening to a crying cat has been worse.

Now with Nysse’s recovery getting the physio’s approval, I’m trying something new. Since climbing to and from low, stable surfaces is OK, and walking on soft, wobbly surfaces is even encouraged, I’ve converted the bedroom into a cat-safe space. Sofa cushions all around the bed to give him a safe way up and down, and all other high surfaces blocked off.

More freedom for both of us. Nysse is happy about it, and so is my back. Win-win!

Crayfish party at work. I like crayfish, and fresh ones are even more delicious than the ones you buy in a plastic jar.

Before the party I spent the entire day in the office with my teammates and colleagues, and that was actually even more fun, after barely having left the house for anything but short walks and supermarket trips.

Nysse had his post-op physio appointment today. Everything is looking good and healing well. Which unfortunately doesn’t mean that his cage rest will be any shorter than the 6 weeks originally estimated – just that it probably won’t be any longer. I’m not sure which one of us is more frustrated with the forced confinement by now. At least we’re done with the medication schedule, which makes life simpler.

We got a list of exercises to do with him daily – stretching, walking over low obstacles, walking on soft surfaces, standing on unstable surfaces, etc. He’s been getting more and more snappish towards me, so we’ll see how much of that we can make happen.

In positive news, he’s approved for (controlled!) leash walks and (controlled!) climbing up and down low, stable surfaces with good grip, as long as there is no jumping or pouncing, and especially no jumping down from anywhere.

Nysse is recovering well. Cone time is over, the wound has healed, and we’re done with two of the three meds, all of which makes everyday life a bit easier. On the other hand, he’s got more energy and less patience with being confined. He’s as slippery as an eel with claws when he wants to get out of my hands. Hence the harness – to give us something to hold on to when he tries to give us the slip.

The season’s first red leaves.

Slugs are bastards (together with deer) and they’re the reason why we can’t have nice things in the garden.

Another floofy neighbour came for a visit. Young and skittish, and clearly getting less food from their humans than they would want – they found their way to our recycling station and dug out the empty, rinsed-out cat food wrappers, and licked them even cleaner than they were.

First week of school. New school, new classmates, significantly longer days. By the end of the day, Adrian is knackered.

Four years after getting a new kitchen, I still think happy thoughts about it at least monthly. I’ve got well-organized storage space, I’ve got comfortable counter space, I’ve got outlets everywhere. And I’ve got pretty things in the kitchen: salt jars and utensil jars and towels and pot holders.

There is just one ugly thing in the middle of all the nice stuff, and that’s the folded-up paper towels under the oil bottles to catch any drips.

Well, now that ugly thing is finally no more. Instead I have decent quilted coasters under them now. I happened to look at the paper towels and couldn’t stand them any more, and made coasters out of scrap fabric then and there. It would probably have taken me less time and fewer mistakes if I hadn’t undertaken the project late at night, but I just wanted the problem solved.

With some careful measuring and piecing, I got two double-sided coasters out of an eight-centimetre strip of a curtain fabric sample. That almost deserves some kind of prize.