4 More hours...Then I'll know whether the report that will be sent to the Home Office HR department will be favourable or not. I'm hoping, praying even, that I won't be disappointed. I've looked at my performance in the assessment every way I could this past week, and apart from some minor points, I can't think of any reason why they would not recommend me. I carried out the tasks they set me, I answered their questions honestly, I dealt with the stress. I may have been rather nervous, but under the circumstances, that was to be expected, wasn't it? Of course, I don't know how the others did, whether they did better in the tests, or had more of a poker face than I...

I took Leila to the vet's this morning. That cat -- if it's not one thing, it's another. She appears to have somehow injured her hind leg. Poor Leila; it would seem that the washing machine is not such a safe place to hide, after all. I did the laundry 2 days ago, and somehow Leila managed to get herself drenched in soapy water. I didn't think anything of it, but when she'd dried out and her fur stuck every which way, I decided to give her a bath. She fought me tooth and nail. The next day, she still looked a fright so I bathed her again, this time noticing that she only started to yell and claw her way out of the sink if I touched her right leg. Last night, I noticed she wasn't putting any weight on that leg, and this morning, when she almost ripped me to shreds as I was trying to get the last of the soap out of her fur, I noticed that the leg was swollen and hot to the touch, as if an infection had set in. So I took her to the vet's and sure enough, it seems she must have got stuck, and in trying to free herself twisted her leg, and pulled one or two muscles. This is probably when she fell in the water. My manipulating her to get her cleaned up hasn't helped either, and now she's on a course of anti-biotics and painkillers. It should clear up within 10 days; if not, we'll have to have her x-rayed.

I told the vet all about our excursion to the outlet centre yesterday, and she told me about her shopping trips to Lille (Northern France); and this conversation reminded me that I hadn't shown you the best of my loot. Well, here it is: my gorgeous coat






</a>


Also, that last picture gives an indication of how and where I store my shoes. Yes, there's shoe boxes littered all over my place, though I do tend to keep most of them in my bedroom.