Battle wounds

My free computer time has been somewhat limited this week, for two furry little reasons that installed themselves in our spare room over the weekend. Yes, after all my lengthy soliloquies about the joys of dogs, and when would I have a dog, and oh, could I please have a dog, we now have two little kittens instead. They are, naturally, the cutest kittens in the world, with heads and eyes too big for their bodies, and spend their time napping, wrestling with each other, and trying to kill the furniture.

Girl Kitty was the runt of her litter (a batch of Norwegian Forest Cat and Persian crosses), and has a slightly lazy eye - in fact, I'm not sure that she can see out of it. She's certainly less willing to join in games of "bat the stuffed mouse with your paw" than Boy Kitty, who will engage in for hours on end, if we were willing to keep dangling the toy in front of his face. It makes me wonder if her depth perception is not quite there. The mouse is attached to a stick with elastic, and Boy Kitty keeps capturing it and trying to trot off somewhere to make sure it's thoroughly dead, only to have the elastic haul the toy out of his grasp. We laugh at his astonished expression.

We have been spending our evenings with them playing with them and occasionally scooping them up as they gallop past for a cuddle, which they're happy to submit to as long as they're not busy trying to capture each other's tails (important kitten business which is not to be interrupted by big bumbling humans).

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On Monday I made the mistake of glancing down at my mp3 player (which had unaccountably paused while playing me a chapter of Lion in the Valley by Elizabeth Peters) while walking down the steps of my office building, causing me to misplace my footing on the very last step and collapse ungracefully to the ground, twisting my ankle in the process. In fact, I don't think I've ever sprained it so badly before, so I was quite annoyed that I had done so on a single step in such an undramatic fashion.

I sat on the ground holding it gingerly for a little while, before limping my way to the bus, sending a plaintive text message to the Prince. By the time he met me at the bus stop, it had stiffened enormously, and I was lurching along like an evil mummy risen from a tomb, although without the trailing bandages. I had to get myself some crutches the next day, as I was going to court, where I made a rather pathetic appearance instructing a barrister who had a terrible cold. He sneezed and coughed, I limped and clashed my crutches about. A very impressive performance.

The ankle has improved wonderfully over the last few days, although it is still rather puffy, and the doctor has confirmed that it is merely a sprain. The Prince called me as I was leaving to ask me if my leg was in fact broken, as I had been at the doctor's for an entire half hour. It is apparent that the Prince rarely visits medical professionals - I had in fact spent most of that time seated in the waiting room, reading elderly magazines. (Even though I had a book in my bag - for some reason, I quite enjoy reading magazines while in waiting rooms.) Most of the rest of the appointment was spent sitting in the room with the doctor while he typed on his computer. Time spent poking at my ankle was minimal. Although I had been wearing stuffy shoes and stockings all day, which may have been a contributing factor to his disinterest in further examination.