My Diary Saturday 22nd September 2012 by Kate Wills. Of cats, stars, and slugs...

Looked to the skies on my way to and from feeding the cats near the homeless shelter, which I often do on these excursions, as news reports mention people across the nation having spotted a meteor shower. The skies are crystal clear with an unusually generous sprinkling of stars. Some I recognise, such as Orion and his belt. Returned and doled out another helping for our own Desmond and Jeremy and went to bed, where night-time reading is Bill Bryson's Notes from a Big Country, to the accompaniment of a variety of respiratory noises from Martin.

Saturday resumes at about 9:30 for me, with Martin getting ready to pay a social call on a friend who is not well. He asks me to do something while he is out. "Have you got that?"

"Yeeess" I mumble in a semi-vegetative state, and drift off again to Brahms German Requiem on Building a Library on Radio 3. I haven't slept well again this week, so happy to be snoozing. Emerge into consciousness to discussion of Debussy's wonderful Preludes. Don green trousers, and red and white striped T-shirt. Good late summer weather shines through the windows.

Breakfast is a mug of coffee, slice of wholemeal bread and dark marmalade and two ageing bananas, consumed to Debussy and Beethoven on Radio 3. Tiddle around doing a few oddments, then do something similar upstairs in the bathroom. While seated, recall Martin asked me to do something while he's out. What the hell was it? Come to think of it there's a card by the front door...A sudden burst of inspiration!! Funny, this often accompanies a trip to the loo.

What's the time? 12:19 Ah, thank goodness. Finish what you're doing Kate, and hotfoot to the Post Office.

Slippers off, trainers on and a few minutes later I return home with a bubble-wrap envelope whose lumpiness indicates another element for the Northampton tram model that Martin is building.

Satisfied to have escaped a lecture from my nearest and dearest, I put the kettle on when he arrives home half an hour later.

"Thanks for getting the post. Who won Brahms German Requiem this morning?" I say I was too tired to notice. I make tea in a glass pot with loose leaf Assam, and consume it while engaging with the wider world via pc, and listening to Radio 4 news, Any Questions and Any Answers, which elicits much huffing over the airwaves on the pros and cons of capital punishment. One caller makes the not unreasonable point that it is hypocritical of successive governments to quash calls for a national debate on the reintroduction of capital punishment when they are quite happy to send our soldiers off to war knowing that many innocent lives will be lost in the resulting mayhem.

Biscuits going down at an alarming rate. The Malted Milk bought yesterday are two thirds gone.

Not much amongst the e-mails (despite there being around 18 new arrivals). Log on to the Great War Forum, clear the new registrations validation queue and post this in the social section called ‘Skindles’:

Reading Bill Bryson's Notes from a Big Country (published in the USA as I'm a Stranger Here Myself) he recounts how he insisted on buying a house with a screened porch, where he whiled away the summer evenings. However, he failed to notice a gap in the mesh until the cat joined him on the porch one night - then he noticed a skunk had joined them too. He related how neighbours (neighbors) were obliged to burn all the soft furnishings in their house in an attempt to eradicate the smell when their visiting skunk took fright.

When I visited New England many moons ago I expressed a wish to see native animals such as beavers, raccoons and the like, and one night my hostess took me off on a walk in search of skunks, which she said was quite a perverse thing to do really. We didn't encounter one (or beavers, raccoons, moose etc during my stay), but Bryson's tale made me Google skunks, which led (to my surprise) to this

http://www.petskunks.co.uk/Home.html

Where I learn:

"Domesticated skunks can legally be kept as pets in the UK. However, the Animal Welfare Act 2006[13] has made it illegal to remove their scent glands (it is considered to be a cosmetic operation), thus making them impractical as pets. Many owners abandon skunks in the wild when they discover that vets will no longer perform the operation to remove their scent glands. Without its scent glands, a skunk will have difficulty defending itself from predators"

Now, I have to say I have no intention of joining the ranks of pet skunk keepers (the reaction of my cats and husband (note order) being prime considerations); however, I do envisage some benefits of becoming a social outcast in my own home, imaging no more bills as the postman won't come near; no more representatives of wandering religious groups, guaranteed seats on buses and trains etc etc

Your thoughts and experiences please.

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Also log on to Northampton Past, my only reason for frequent visits to Facebook, where my recent post has attracted nine 'likes' from kindred spirits:

“It took a lot of cajoling from different people to get me on Facebook. Initially it was disappointing. Do I really need to know that Jim has just opened a bottle of ketchup, or that Jane has just emerged from Primark with a pair of tights? Yes there are good things about Facebook, like keeping in touch; best of all is Northampton Past - a shining beacon on a lapping sea.”

Martin departs again to watch Saints v Worcester. I decide this is too good a day to waste indoors, so at 3pm depart for a stroll across The Racecourse to have a rummage in the Kettering Road charity shops. It is my theory that at any one time, one particular title will be found on the bookshelves of every charity shop in town. It used to be Hilary Mantel's Fludd (which I have never read). Now it seems to be Lynn Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves, which catches my eye in the Shelter shop. This should mean that lots of people are reading it to the betterment of written English. Actually the proliferation of copies and continuing abysmal standards of written and spoken English seems to indicate that it was either bought by people who cherish our language and agree; or by people who haven't a clue what the fuss is about. Also on the shelves is another once in vogue bestseller Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

There's a nice pair of new shoes my size on the footwear shelf, but not nice enough, and my finances emerged unscathed, which is often the way in the Shelter shop. I seldom find anything in there, and sustained research shows that some shops seldom yield finds, whereas others nearly always house something that says 'c'mon, buy me - it's for charity' and out comes my purse.

Next stop, the yellow-fronted charity shop just below the Music School on the corner of Clare Street. There, on the 50 pence rail, I find a new pair of Next trousers, a shirt in shepherd's delight dusky rose, a pair of navy shorts and a purse. I ask to try these on (except the purse) and go to their combined loo and changing room. Great! A Cinderella moment. Everything fits; but due to the main purpose of the room have a Pavlov's Dogs moment too. The sight of a loo triggers a need to use one. Something to do with my age, or bladder.  Probably both.

£2 splurge complete, I cross the road to the Samaritans shop, where a customer in the changing room needs a tie for a school-themed party. I help the assistant by finding two items on the tie-rack that fit the bill, one of which, a short maroon with gold stripes affair, could well be a school tie anyway.

Look at the CDs, nothing doing; and the books. Decide against spending 50p on a little-used copy of how to get your head around MS Vista. The original owner seems to have parted with £18, and here it languishes for 50p. Time and computer programs move on. Do however find another purse, and a more serviceable one that purchased 10 minutes ago, for 75p. Also deplete their stocks of photograph albums for my postcard collection. Total bill £2.80.

Return home well laden, noting skip at the corner of Hood Street containing a carton which seems to indicate installation of a new toilet. Honestly, what is wrong with people nowadays! Throwing rubbish into skips!

The Racecourse was busy, with plenty of kids in the playground, on the swings and playing basketball. A family seems absorbed looking at something on the path. It turns out to be a baby hedgehog, and they tell me there is another one nearby.

"Well, if they are out during the day at any age something is very wrong", I say, and we agreed they may come from a disturbed nest. The father nips off and returns with the other hoglet. Looking at the comings and goings along the prom, and the kids nearby, I decide to take them home, and place them inside my bag with another cotton bag on top. A Bush-make TV stands in next door's front garden, with a note that it is free to take away. Better to say it's £10, I thought. It would disappear quickly then.

Arriving home, head straight for the garden and dole out some well-mashed meat catfood, and place hoglets either side. They both lose little time tucking-in, then decide to inspect their new location. Desmond (our white cat) appears and shows much interest. The hoglets gain confidence by the minute and scuttle about with the speed and velocity of radio-controlled cars. Desmond is aghast, indeed affronted. Shouldn't two rodent-like creatures dart way in fear? And he jumps away from an oncoming hoglet. The robin shows close interest too.

Martin arrives, pleased with a Saints 37:31 win though disappointed it wasn't the demolition it promised to be. He's advised to tread carefully and we take some pictures. We leave hoglets out awhile to continue with the grub, and to arrange a box. We devour some pre-cooked sausages and slice of Bakewell tart, and a cup of coffee. I notice the bag of dates I bought yesterday is well down.

8.41 and it's high time I went out to see Josie and Sandy and the others again. Gather my cat-feeding bag and go. Also gone is the TV from next-door's garden.

Josie is awaiting my arrival, and wraps herself around my legs and the bag. I tell her that tomorrow's weather will not be as agreeable. I often talk to the cats of such things, of the passing seasons and life in general. If I had to be a stray or feral cat, then Josie's situation is about as good as it gets. Bid goodnight and head across the Racecourse.

I've always been against building on the Racecourse, but I can see how the Dragon Mounds might fire a child's imagination. Its silhouette stands humpy and monster-like in the darkness. Pop music resounds from the Bat & Wickets.  Two men, probably foreign, are smoking outside newsagents; meanwhile business seems slow at the takeaways opposite. Daresay it will be a different once the pubs close. Further on I witness a private jive by two youngsters through an uncurtained window at the corner Oakley Street, to some appalling rap-cum-reggae noise. Cannot abide rap. Glad I don't live nearby.

Tonight's sky is quite unlike the one that overhung my entry to the day. This is laden with cloud, the moon diffused as if seen through a bathroom window. Mrs Feisy the black cat emerges from her hedge and I give her a handful of biscuits to enjoy while I wash her dish. Mrs Feisy's cavortings are the chief reason for Maureen Cook's Save the Strays daily activities here. Her identical triplets appear, and three others too. Having washed Mrs Feisy's dish, espy a slug underneath and seek a stick to dislodge it. I'm always stamping on slugs and snails around here. Everybody tucks in, and I bid goodnight. Tell Mrs Feisty to expect rain tomorrow. She probably knows anyway, and enjoys supper from her clean dish.

Martin occupies the pc driving seat, delaying further work on this diary, while I watch TV news and listen to Poetry Please on Radio 4.

Midnight news (and other news bulletins throughout the day) carry report of last night's sky, and the unusual lights that prompted phone calls to the police and fire brigades across the nation. It seems there was no meteor shower, but a mundane pile of space-junk burning-up as it entered the atmosphere.

At 00:39 Mick Cox posts on Northampton Past, encouraging participation in the Diary project with the pithy message "Why not join in?"

If I'm typical, because they are still all busily tapping away. Log off, and so to bed, and Martin, and another session with Bill Bryson.

How did people like Virginia Woolf manage to churn out novels and literary criticism and write copious daily diary entries? Perhaps because she didn't feed strays, rescue hoglets, visit charity shops, Google facts, join online social networks, run errands, chomp dates, visit skips, impart weather reports to felines....