Meet the Neighbours

Fred, from two doors down, and Isla have a history. They don't really get on, with each occasionally holding sway over the other, with the fractious relationship often involving hissing and growling, with the occasional flying paw. Seems that Fred doesn't like Harris either.

The wee one saw the giant* ginger ball of fur and proceeded to run from window to window chirruping. Fred, for his part, ended the encounter with a teeth-baring hiss, and stalking off in disgust. Harris continued his running about trying to work out where Fred had gone. If Isla had seen it all then maybe (in her anthropomorphised version in my head) she'd decide Harris wasn't so bad after all, and could give her the permanent upper hand over Fred.

I challenged some of the official lines on working from home (or not, as the case primarily is) with our comms team today. They passed me on, and I ended up getting a response from the UK CEO, with the NL CEO, and Global CEO copied in for good measure. In the end I've offered, in a number of months time once this all blows over, to lead them through how the staff read the situation, and the work interpretation of different government statements (amongst other things, being very reactive, rather than proactive in the main; and interpreting "work from home unless it's essential you are in the office" as "come into the office unless you have serious concerns about doing so").

*Fred is huge. This photo, much like others with Isla, doesn't really show just how immense the part-Ragdoll is in comparison to our two. Despite everything we do actually like Fred - he can come across all soft when there are no other cats around, then rolls over on his back, and within ten seconds is in full-on bite mode. But you can't get beyond just how magnificent he is, and I've got so many photos of the tiny-eared lump that before Christmas I gave his owners a calendar with some of his escapades in our garden (and kitchen).

p.s. that little ring of light was an entirely unintentional, non-filter, happy accident.