Merde, merde and thrice merde: my alternative bunting didn’t arrive, despite me paying an eye-stingingly expensive delivery charge to have it in time for the weekend. So I guess it will have to wait until the next noteworthy royal event, and luckily it’s the kind of timeless design that will keep.

Cat Daddy: “Is it the kind of thing that’ll draw attention to our house?”

You could say that, yes.

At least the platinum jubilee is over now, although its efforts to drive me insane worked a treat. Last week I was so far gone that I swore I could see Boris Johnson’s face in Louis Catorze’s bald patch. You can see it too, right?

Cat Daddy thinks the bald patch is expanding, yet I think we’ve had some regrowth since the above photo was taken. I don’t really care which of us is right because the most important thing is that it doesn’t look like Boris Johnson anymore. It now looks like Ghostface from Scream or Edward Scissorhands, depending on the angle and the light, but either of those would be far preferable to Boris Johnson.

In any case, it’s still not bothering Catorze. And I’m happy to just leave it for now, but I’m ready to whisk him back to the vet should I spot any cuts, soreness or changes of temperament/habit.

Parmi les autres nouvelles, we were given a flower bouquet recently which contained evil lilies. Lilies are highly toxic to cats so, if we ever receive them, we gently fish them out of the bouquet and dispose of them, leaving the cat-harmless flowers in place. On this occasion, Cat Daddy put them into the garden waste recycling bag in an unobtrusive corner of the garden, far from inquisitive Catorzian paws.

Naturellement, despite never usually venturing into this part of the garden, Catorze suddenly decided that the green waste recycling bag was the most interesting and attractive item in the world. Luckily we were able to whisk him to safety and Cat Daddy rearranged the bag, rolling it tightly like a Swiss roll* and placing a few bricks on top to seal in the contagion until the next collection (although no British person has the faintest idea when this will be, since the double bank holiday has stuffed up our bin days).

*Younger followers: don’t bother asking your Swiss friends. Ask your older relatives who lived in the U.K. during the 70s or 80s.

I had hoped that, in his advanced years, Sa Maj might show SOME sign of stopping all his nonsense. But it’s no real surprise that he hasn’t.