Merriman Meanderings: Of cats and damage and extensive expensive garment repair .....

This household supports two cats. Both have been rescued in their own ways and could not be more different. Raisin is an elderly lady and Tiny is an intelligent wilder-beast of the "doha special" variety.

Raisin came to us already well loved for a goodly portion of her life. She continued on happily establishing her spots and showing a delightful tolerance for Teagan. However, she has a fettish for electronic cables having eaten through two Bosh and Lombe headphone cable sets, two apple iPod headphone sets and a variety of other cables - when will I ever learn not to leave them lying about. Overall, however, she is a tidy and compact wee soul establishing herself during the day in the same room as me and moving when only absolutely necessary.

Tiny, on the other hand, came to us from the side of an expressway, aged 3 weeks, riddled with worms and with a great spread of ring worm. He was a mangey and mankey piece of life.

After a good dose of love and an even larger dose of money, Tiny has established himself as the king of the household. One can never describe him as compact as one couch is simply not big enough for "himself". Tiny has also displayed an extreme fettish with yarn. A fettish that has me incredibly furious!

As the Merriman's Meandered around the Orkney Islands. One purchased some North Ronaldsay Island yarn (seaweed eating sheep). It is coarse and not high on volume. Accordingly, I knitted up a rather complex aran weight jacket called the "Kelmscott" by Carol Sunday. This jacket took some weeks to knit in the hot summer nights in Doha.

One evening rather recently, I was readjusting the button placements and left in on the dining table overnight. Seven chewed holes later, I sat repairing those "said seven holes" for nearly three hours. My method was that of creating a ladder across the row using orginal yarn and a basic darning technique. Using the ladder I crocheted the correct style of stitches. Had the yarn been more fine or less "hairy", I doubt that I would have been able to patch repair it!