Holy Catrimony

Hello Dear Reader

Since switching off my telly a few weeks ago, and giving the world online but a cursory glance of a morning, my life has been much improved. The news has, of course, continued to news, but your correspondent refuses to engage except for when reminded by the emails she subscribed to from the build-your-own-bunker company in Nebraska. Has anybody bought our Prime Minister a hairbrush yet? If so, has he perchance lent it to his colleague Michael Fabricant? If so, does anyone have pictures? I’ve never seen the two men in the same room…which leads one to wonder: are they in fact one and the same or simply time-sharing the same wig?

Who knows? Not I. Ignorance is indeed blissful.

The only bit of news I did stumble upon was about Deborah Hodge, a woman who married her cat India, after having to surrender her dogs Siri and Starshine, and was sadly parted from her other cat - Jamal - because of heartless landlords. This all happened in South East London, a former neighbourhood of mine, but it is sufficiently close to Brighton for it to make sense. (Sadly no cat of mine would ever let me marry them - what’s in it for them? I’m already their slave and deluded if I think I’d get the house.)

I don’t even know why I am writing to you this week, although I’m sure there’s something important I’m supposed to be telling you. I must confess to being otherwise engaged but I’m sure you’ll forgive me when I tell you that my parents and my sister and my toddler nephew - who I was desperate to meet - all arrived from Australia the day before my birthday this week and any moment not spent with them feels like a moment wasted. We have waited so long to be together, and for the first time in twenty seven years, I spent my birthday with both my parents. My favourite birthday present was when the plumber arrived to fix the shower in my sister’s room which I had broken just as she announced she was turning in for the night after being awake for forty hours. We hastily assembled a bed on the sofa. I then spent the night waking every two hours to make sure that while Niagara was in full flow the rest of the house wasn’t flooded. It was a brilliant way to come down with jet lag in sympathy - like flying long haul but without the plane food.

My second favourite birthday present was when my cat Dave finally gave me the urine sample I’d been needing from him for a week and I was able to proudly present it to the receptionist at the vet’s who just didn’t seem as enthusiastic about the whole business as I was. Clearly she’s never had to chase a cat around a house to get it to piss on demand. But I can herd a cat and get it to pee at will - send me to Moscow and I’ll sort this war business out in no time.

In other news non feline or urinary, I recently announced UK tour dates to go with the new album that is coming on June 17th and which can be pre-ordered here. And, as summer still seems a very, very long way off, the first single from the album, ‘Cold Places’, is still seasonal and so for those of you who like that kind of thing, here is a video we made of footage from the studio control room the day we recorded the string section on the song. Conducting the strings is the arranger and bona fide genius Sally Herbert without whose arrangement ‘Cold Places’ would never have happened.

I wish you all a wonderful Bank Holiday Weekend.

With love,

Nerina x

P.S. Dave + Fridge = Cat in Cold Places. Do please feel free to share photos of your fridge and your cat, or another cold place and member of the feline family. All pics of snow leopards gratefully received, for example. Any photo of a snow leopard next to a fridge eligible for a prize.* **

*Not photoshopped.

**Or next to the cold drinks vending machine at the zoo.