NOT contented!

Despite all appearances to the contrary, this animal is not contentedly snoozing after a large lunch. Only moments earlier, he had been gazing soulfully at me in a demand for food! The sprawled-out image came in a brief moment of respite from the demands. Even then, of course, the animal refused to turn towards the camera, and if I got up to go to his other side, he immediately leapt up on the assumption that my camera was a source of food...

The humans with the cat, on the other hand, were distinctly replete. The occasion was the annual Pheasant Dinner that ViolaMaths and I try to have at her house just before Christmas each year. ViolaMaths has given an explanation of this Dinner previously (the link is for the 2010 Christmas Dinner, which got delayed until January 2011: things like that happen in the ViolaMaths household!).

So, as tradition demands, we had smoked salmon, roast pheasant, and Christmas pudding, washed down by Pouilly Fumé, a 1985 Givry (in remarkably good condition) and Cognac. We should have been the ones sprawled out (but I hasten to add that ViolaMaths indulged in the drinks only very modestly, as she had to deliver me to the bus, and collect her Wonderspouse from it - and it's definitely as well that I was using public transport).

This is obviously an excellent moment for me to publicly wish ViolaMaths and the Wonderspouse (could be a pop-group?) a very Happy Christmas.