Thief in the Night.

Because I dislike cooking for one, as a general rule when I am home at the weekend, then I will cook something to last me through the week. So, a chicken might be sacrificed or, this weekend, a succulent ham. I had bought this on Saturday and cooked it that night with a view to a week of ham sandwiches for lunch (mmmm, delicious).

I wasn't actually particularly hungry on Saturday night so rather than cooking said ham for my supper, it simmered away whilst I was watching a film and I left it out on the side to cool overnight when I went to bed.

The next morning I stumbled downstairs, bleary eyed and in need of caffeine. My eyes travelled across the kitchen counter in search of the coffee. Something registered as being 'off'. The brain cells were moving slowly (lack of caffeine remember?) so it took a couple of seconds to realise that my succulent ham, left in all its burnished glory on the side, was a shadow of it's former self. Where there had been ham for a week, there was now a small nugget of ham about the size of a scotch egg.

I blinked, blinked again. Did I sleep eat? I looked at the Loyal Hound. He gazed innocently back. He had an alibi - it was me. Plus, he couldn't reach it and in all fairness he wouldn't have left a scotch egg sized hunk of evidence on the side to condemn him. Bewildered, I looked closer. The ham was no longer on its plate so I ruled out mice, unless I have some uber strong 'Dangermouse' style rodents at home. The whole thing had been gnawed on all four sides, eroding it away to the small piece left before me. This took some evil genius with a big stomach and sharp teeth. Eeergh. Could I have rats? God, please no.

Fearing the worst, I took the loyal hound for his morning walk through the mist. My stomach was revolting at the thought of rats in the house. Surely they wouldn't venture into the territory of the fearsome loyal hound, and wouldn't there be other evidence? I had left the top window open in the kitchen, as I usually do so they could have got in through that but I have never ever seen a single rat here. Ferrets, stoats, owls, crows - endless other predators. But not rats.

On the way back to the house I saw a leisurely movement on one of the tumbledown walls next to the house. There, licking its lips and stretching luxuriously in the sun, was a vast and very full cat. I had been robbed by a genuine, bona fide cat burglar. It showed no shame. In fact it smirked. It would have run away faster when the loyal hound spotted it but it was too full to manage more than squeezing through the fence and mocking him from the other side before sauntering off the mile down to the village, no doubt to rob some other poor sucker.

I wonder what else it got up to while it was in my kitchen? Had a snooze on my sofa? curled up by the embers of the fire, flicked through my magazines? copied down my pin number and card details? Cats. They aren't to be trusted. And now I have no ham for my lunch today. I wonder what cat tastes like?

Does Tesco carpark hold the Mystery of Life?

I'm not sure it is possible to be more tired than I am right now. Last night it was imperative that I had an early night as I had to be up at half past four in the morning to take my parents to the airport. The urgent need for sleep naturally meant that I had a bought of insomnia that kept me awake until 1.00 o'clock in the morning. 3 1/2 hours sleep followed by a 160 mile round trip today has not left me in the best of states.

Having got them to Manchester airport at some filthy hour of the morning I then had two hours to kill before I could go to my first meeting. I ended up sitting in a Tesco carpark dozing intermittently whilst listening to the radio and desperately trying to finish reading one of my book club novels. I can now say that Tesco car parks have very little merit on any front at all, other than their proximity to a supermarket that is.....

I finally staggered home and made it to the computer to discover that the book club for tomorrow night has been cancelled. This is intensely vexing having gagged my way through The Little White Horse (due to the vast quantity of mothers in the book club we have a childrens book section as well as a grown up book section), and also waded my way through 'What a Carve Up' whilst half asleep in the aforementioned car park. As this was a book which I thought was extremely irritating, badly plotted and massively overlong this was no mean feat. All that for nothing. Darn it. It is quite definitely going to be one of those days.....

During my tossing and turning in the depth of the nights there was a programme on Radio 4 about living in the moment. According to the guest they were interviewing, we should all live in the moment rather than constantly looking forwards, as it would lead us to discover "the wonderful mystery of life". Really, truly that is what he said.

He then went on to illustrate this point; apparently he once set off to go for a walk. He drove to the start of said ramble but when he got to the car park, he decided to 'be in the moment' instead of looking forward to his stroll. He promptly got so distracted being 'in the moment' and by the deep, meaningful beauty of a tarmaced car park that he never actually went for a walk but instead stood about like a loon, being overcome by the 'mystery of the moment' before turning round and going home.

Is he deranged? Is the mystery of life really going to be solved or even glimpsed in a car park? I spent two hours in one this morning and didn't even get a glimpse of a tiny Nancy Drew style mystery, let alone a mystery that affected my view of 'life, the universe and everything'. Perhaps he has found a better quality of car park than I have?

It did lead me to think though. It is incredibly hard not to have all your thoughts dominated by what is happening next, rather than what is happening now. (At the moment I am wondering how soon I can go to bed and get some sleep). I suppose that he did have a point about appreciating the now, rather than constantly planning for the future. There is one flaw in his plan though (ok, more than one flaw); he was forgetting that sometimes it is only the prospect of the promised sleep / cake / caffeine injection in my imminent future that gets me through the now..... Without that prospect I could quite possibly give up entirely and never leave the Tesco carpark......