There are times when you wonder what part of the year you are actually in. The last few days were a case in point. This weekend saw the start of the football (soccer) season. I know this because I am the wife of a third generation Arsenal supporter (he was born within walking and listening distance of the Gunners’ grounds) and Arsenal won their first match 2-0. Now the fact that I have no idea who they were playing gives you some idea of my interest in the game. All I do is to listen to what he says - it goes in one ear and out the other without sticking in my memory at all – and make comments which I always think of as intelligent but turn out to prove my absolute ignorance of the game. But then I just do not understand why, if there is a whole generation of young lads who would like to be a professional footballer that Arsene Wenger (the Manager) is looking for decent players. Anyway, to get back to the point the Football season to me is supposed to be in Winter.

Then yesterday (Monday) our house reverberated with shrieks and bellows on the last day of the latest Ashes. England versus Australia and England could have won (I was told) up to the last ball bowled. Cricket is a game with a huge number of abtruse names and points, none of which I understand. Only an Englishman could. Anyway, at least Cricket is supposed to be played in the Summer, although there seem to be matches most of the year and in all parts of the world.

The shrieks were coming from the sitting room (Husband) and the Stepson’s bedroom. He telephoned at 7.00 pm on Friday to announce that he was turning up at 8.00 to stay for a week. My immediate reaction when I had put the phone down was a panicked mental inventory of what was in the fridge – he drinks vats of milk daily and we were a bit short – but then to realise that it is good that he feels comfortable enough with us to do that. He is an undergraduate, of course, and they all make decisions on what they are going to do at the last minute. He’ll learn.

We had to have to plumbers in yesterday to sort out a leak that was coming through the main bedroom ceiling. The Husband had traced the problem before he rang the plumber – whoever had lived in the house before us had been an absolutely terrible DIYer and this was one of a number of botched jobs we have discovered over the years. I had to keep away from our plumber because she is young and has a couple of school-age kids and, of course, I am still infectious. For the same reason I am not going up to London tomorrow with the Husband and the Stepson when they visit a couple of exhibitions at Tate Britain and the go on to the Proms. I am sorry to be missing the exhibitions but not really to miss the Prom – Berg isn’t really my thing.

Nimrod has been limping around the house for several days. I kept an eye on him in the hope that it would clear up of his own accord but when he was still being a brave little soldier (Ha!) on Monday I gave up and took him to the Vets. It turns out that he has a puncture wound in one of the pads of his left front foot and that it has become infected. So I have to give him antibiotics twice a day for the next five days. Fortunately he is good about taking pills, or perhaps it is that after a lifetime of keeping cats I have developed some experience of putting pills down their throats.

We are not sure how he got the puncture wound but I have a pretty good idea. We have an old climbing rose on a wall in the back garden which has a trunk that is hard and wood like. Nim will keep on trying to climb up it or to sharpen his claws on it despite the many ferocious thorns. Nimrod may be a Mighty Hunter but he is hardly the sharpest of moggies.

Shingles isn't much fun. Apart from its very obvious presence on the face and the pain it also makes you feel very washed out. A deadheading session in the backgarden today was enough to make me very puffed. But then we have a lot of white Cosmos which look wonderful but need deadheading virtually daily and I haven't done any since last week. Oh well, what I've done today should keep them going for a bit. Now I am going to rest.