Cate is leaving me – again - and this week will be in Korea and Taipei.

She will not be back until late on Friday night so the cats and I have a whole week to play. We are having a meeting tonight to discuss what we will do.

My friend Yum Cha is coming over for a Movie and Pizza night and she is always good fun - but careful planning is required so that I do not have any spaces where I feel guilty about not doing something ‘useful’ - like learning German. Blech!

When we were in Lapland – and before I broke five ribs and lost focus on the more important things in life – we bought a magnificent Reindeer rug in the open air markets in Helsinki. We carted this with us to Lapland and then home to Vienna where it resides in some splendour on the floor of the lounge room.

It was of course immediately adopted by Sissi as her own personal rug and she set about seeing if she should tear it to pieces.

It proved too be far to resilient so it became her own personal nest and is where she spends most of her time - except on sunny days when – with her mother – she follows the sun around the house – moving from window sill to window sill as required to catch the rays.

Since the warm weather has arrived the dead Reindeer has started to moult – in spades.

This is a weird business and the apartment is covered in Reindeer hair which Mr Dyson is busy cleaning up on a daily basis – and doing a might fine job I might add.

Can this be happening? Can dead animals really moult? I know the NSW Labor Party was moulting for some years before Saturday’s debacle but just assumed their own smell was causing that.

I must ask Maalie the Biologist about this. He knows the answers to almost all questions except why the English can no longer play cricket.

I must also ask him where all the Ducks are. The Duck Pond in Stadtpark was almost deserted yesterday? Have all the Ducks gone canoodling for Spring and if so where do they canoodle?