The separation of church and skate

It occurred to me last night, in a brief moment of relative tranquillity, that I haven’t written a blog for ages. Admittedly, my devoted followers (hi again, Stuart) haven’t had to wait as long for my latest post as the many fans of my fiancé’s work – after six posts in one month, her blog been a graveyard of ambition since early September. I’d love to say that our increasing bloglessness is due to our whirlwind social life and endless bouts of sex. So I will say that. It’s up to you whether or not you believe me…

Anyway, my neglected Blogspot profile can also be attributed to a lack of time. The weeks are running away with me at the moment – November has gone by so quickly I haven’t had time to cultivate a moustache (i.e. it grew so slowly that I gave up after a fortnight and shaved it off), and suddenly December is looming large like an obese knitwear manufacturer. My day job as an award-winning copywriter™ is the most hectic it’s been all year, our social lives really have been populous of late, and the other minutiae of daily life has collectively gobbled up most of the free time I previously had to rage about things that don't fully push my buttons and leave me partly depressed.

The scary thing about this accelerated passage of time is how quickly far-off events are now approaching. In four weeks’ time, I’ll be emptying the contents of Santa’s sack all over the living room floor. In four months, I’ll be married. And ten months from now, I could be living in a disintegrating country, depending on the results of next autumn’s independence referendum. For anyone who’s been living under a rock since 2011, Scotland is considering packing its bags and walking out on its three siblings, boldly making its own way in the world after 307 years of grumbling co-existence. Quite how the separation of these conjoined nations would work in practice is currently unclear, despite this week’s publication of a 670-page independence manifesto that claims to have all the answers, while actually posing far more questions than it resolves. Regardless of the endless waffling and posturing by both pro- and anti-independence camps, it’s come as an unwelcome shock to realise quite how close this potentially seismic vote actually is.

Although I’ve just used the word seismic, in reality, I doubt it’s going to be much of a surprise. Despite my famed inability to predict anything correctly (especially the EuroMillions numbers, or who will be voted off MasterChef this week), I am slightly tempted to break my self-imposed lifetime gambling ban and place a tenner on a decisive No vote. I only know one person intending to vote Yes next September, as opposed to 30 implacable No voters. And I’m not talking here about 30 Union Jack-waving pro-monarchy Westminster apologists, or 30 Subaru-driving shotgun owners, or 30 Guardian-reading tofu-munching left-wing ALF pinko freaks who knit their own muesli and smoke things that make them happy and anxious at the same time. I’m talking about a representative cross-section of society – entrepreneurs, suburban housewives, office workers and pensioners alike. As bettable events go, the Scottish independence referendum is the most one-sided two-horse race I’ve seen since One-Legged Jack O'Hopper tried to win an arse-kicking content against a quadriped from Chernobyl with double-jointed knees and the ability to levitate. So, that’ll be a decisive Yes vote next September, then.

Anyway, at the rate time is passing, I should know by tomorrow morning whether I can look forward to billing G75 Media’s clients in pounds, Euros or groats, and whether my car will be searched by border guards at Gretna for contraband vegetables and people who say “yah”. It really makes you think. Or it would do if I actually had any time to think. Now please excuse me - I have 7,456,000,000 things to do before teatime. Which is an hour ago.

Heartwork

I have recently become a parent, in a manner of speaking. What I’ve actually done, in tandem with my fiancé, is adopt a cat. Now normally I wouldn’t dedicate a blog to waffling on about my personal life, because quite frankly, it would make you all feel jealous and inadequate. However, this story bears repeating, because I think everyone should experience the jolt that your life receives when an animal becomes part of the family.

I should stress at the outset that I’m hardly a shrinking violet when it comes to being responsible. However, our one-year old adoptee has just recovered from major surgery that prevented her from enjoying her youth properly. As a result, things like climbing and running around after toy mice appear to be new and exciting beyond measure. She is, in effect, a one year old semi-longhaired kitten, who wakes us up at 5am by licking our faces, and treats any limb unwarily extruding from a sofa or bed as a monster that needs to be bitten. Even in the middle of the fucking night.

It’s remarkable how many things in our lives have changed as a result of introducing a four-legged friend into the family. The windows stay shut to avoid the outraged yelping noise that invariably results when a cat unexpectedly descends twelve feet onto grass. Used butter knives go sharp-end-down into a mug, lest a little tongue be sliced in two while enjoying a tasty snack, rather than leaving said knife on the worktops in the hope that wind erosion will clean it. Hairs turn up in the most unexpected of places, and I have never spent so much time anxiously looking at curtains as I have done in the last month. Then there’s our new entry procedure when arriving home, which involves inching the front door open before squeezing through sideways and shouting “back back back”, in an attempt to prevent escapology acts. It’s quite a challenge with four shopping bags in your hands, but the neighbours must find it hilarious, and the cat probably quite enjoys it too.

Life has just got a whole lot harder, and I’m only able to type this now because I spent the last hour creating monsters out of straws, tinfoil and various other mundane household objects that apparently adopt magical qualities when viewed through a cat’s unblinking eyes. I’m tired and a bit scratched, our formerly pristine home has disappeared under a fine layer of brightly-coloured toys, and the cat has six times as many beds to choose from as we do. But despite all these sacrifices on the altar of Bastet (Google it), I reckon everyone in the land should adopt a cat, or a dog, or a rabbit, if they can offer it a decent home. I haven’t laughed as much in years, playing monsters is brilliant fun when you’re not half-asleep, and there is something quite wonderful about everyone settling down for a kip at the end of a long evening.

If you already have a pet, you'll know what I mean. And if you don’t, you really should.