A new addition

Here's a thought to brighten your day: I sleep naked. And when I wake from my slumber on Sunday mornings, I tend to stumble rather precariously down the stairs, minus clothes, to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen. During this rather laborious, energy-sapping process, I usually stub my toe four of five times, mumble an obscenity or two and have a testicular near-miss with the bottom banister.

In my naked stair-descending career thus far, I'm yet to be caught by another person/mammal. However, our house dynamic shifted during the weekend. A creature now lives in my kitchen. She is called Vera and is 12 weeks old. She is an impressionable, slightly timid kitten.

When I woke last Sunday, I had forgotten about her existence - I was still dreaming of sharing a pina coloada with Brendan Sheerin (who is following me on Twitter, by the way, so have some of that) in San Sebastian, just before boarding the coach to embark on our latest adventure (with those other bastard Coach Trippers, unfortunately).

When I opened the door, little Vera's expression was somewhat anthropomorphised - think the fat bloke from Jurassic Park after getting spat at in the eyes by the peacock dinosaur thing. Actually, you don't have to, and that's probably stretching your memory a bit anyway - so I suggest looking at the photograph above. Ahhh, isn't she cute?