boing goes another brain cell

A week of weather - but then everybody seems to have had that. 

The snow wasn't worth commenting on till Friday night when it was the kind of big flakes that

• make you dizzy when you look straight up
• make you want to taste them
• make you run a bit, even though you might slip.

So: Angel had her hair cut after this photo on Thursday and because of that she wasn't collecting huge snowballs on her leg feathers, but was still collecting some and I took her collar off when we

got back on Friday night, so that I could dry her properly and sit there and thaw out her snowballs - she has such good insulation that they don't melt. I use my fingers to thaw them and she helps by licking the puddles out of my hand.  Not a bad way to spend 10 minutes even at 11 at night to be honest.

You can see her collar in the pic above - the one round her neck, not the trophy one that she collected from a nearly caught cat (about three years ago, but she still gives it the occasional chew in memory, as it were).

So here we are on Saturday morning - the snow is deep and white and calling and Angel is still on the bed because I haven't put her collar on and after four+ years of getting to the gate and then me having to go back for it, she has finally learnt not to get up until I've becollared her.

So, in the kitchen I gave the collar a shake and her collar bling tinkled and she came pelting downstairs and I put on my socks and boots and fur hat and coat and pick up lead and shitbags and gloves and birdtable seed and birdfeeder seed and shovel to clear bird table and we're off.  Feed the birds, get to the gate

NO COLLAR.

After looking around the kitchen and living room I decide to use the harness that I got for the car. That's not part of this story but with it a ten minute visit to the paper shop took half an hour.

I looked and looked.  Yes, including in the microwave and the freezer, just in case.

NO COLLAR.

She coped well with the lead in a loop but it was odd that she didn't jingle and I wouldn't let her off because her collar lets me know where she is and if she did stray would let her finder know my mobile number.

I looked again before the teatime walk- this time I moved the sofa and checked under the bed

NO COLLAR.

I looked again before the bedtime walk including all the bags I keep things in.

NO COLLAR.

Incidentally it was raining and she didn't really want to go paddling in freezing slush.

This morning the snow had gone.

And there it was, THE COLLAR, lying on the path where I fill the bird feeders.

The brain cell that was storing my putting it there had obviously gone pop while I filled the feeders.