Saturday 4th February 2006

Well diary, it seems that Misskin the cat thinks I have an easy life, the cheek of it. She didn’t have to sit patiently for half an hour in the car while the Master went to have his hair cut and with the car alarm going off! Easy life indeed! I’ve spent much of the day trying to find things to roll in to get my smell back, it’s been fairly successful but I have a way to go yet.

No news from my lawyer about whether I can take legal action against Santa yet, but I did a bit of research on the internet earlier and although not relevant to my case I found some very detailed regulations on what constitutes a pair of pyjamas for VAT purposes, it just goes to prove that there really is legislation that covers just about everything. My owner was a little taken aback when I told her this morning that I was unsure whether her Miffy pyjamas would count as ‘constituent fabric’ and may in fact not have been a pair of pyjamas for VAT purposes at all. The regulations actually say they should be ‘designed to be worn together by one person’. It would have been much more fun if they had said they should be ‘designed to be worn together by two people’ or even by one person and their dog! Besides is it possible for one person to be ‘together’? I thought about the poor person spending his working life, sitting in some windowless office, dreaming up bizarre wording for VAT regulations. I guess you have to end up using terms like ‘constituent fabric’ to feel there is any value to what you have written. A document which said ‘A pair of pyjamas shall be deemed to be that garment that normal people would call a pair of pyjamas and wear in bed’ doesn’t really justify the salary!

On a more mundane note I have developed a taste for oak leaves to go with the acorns, and yesterday polished off (if you will pardon the pun) half a cleaning cloth. Being a cleaning cloth do you think it was any nicer for my Master to clean up this morning, when it had worked it’s way through me and came out the other end to be deposited in a neat pile just inside the front door when he had taken his eyes off me for five minutes?

I have found a number of acorns buried in the wood and have started digging them up to bring home so that I have enough to get me through to next season. It is slow progress but if I carry them carefully I can bring back a few at a time. It never ceases to amaze me that other animals leave them so poorly hidden.

Well my tea beckons so I am off to pester them until I get fed.

Alfie with a little help from Rosemary J Kind