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Fits and questions of independence

Ever since we moved here, almost twelve years ago, we have been visited almost daily by a large thick-coated, stripy-tailed and therefore probably feral, mean-looking cat. Once upon a time, we had a delightfully gentle, rescue cat, called Useless (husband has never liked cats!) who lived outside, loved having her head tickled, was great at catching mice, but hated being picked up. The feral brute would saunter into the garage, hiss a bit until Useless moved and then help itself to her cat food, or milk, and he used much the same technique to gain her bedding, an old pillow in a wooden wine crate at the back of the greenhouse. I became used to a skulking shadow edging away whenever I went to do the watering. Even though Useless had gone to cat heaven, the monster still treats our garden as it's own and on Sunday, nonchalantly strolled past the kitchen window. This resulted in such a frenzy of heckles, barking and leaping at the back door that poor Four-legged-friend stumbled and proceeded to have a full blown grand mal fit on the path outside.

So we have an epileptic dog. In retrospect, he probably had a petit mal fit last summer after falling onto a wall that he was trying to jump over to get at some food.

Our laid back, but sensible vet reassured me that fits are relatively common in dogs - he may never have another one, or he may go on to have them frequently in which case he would need medication. However, it is apparently not normally considered much of a problem "because he will never have to operate machinery or drive a car!"

Guess the holiday game of chasing stones into Scottish lochs is probably a thing of the past though.

Thinking about Scotland for a moment - on what planet is a question starting "Do you agree ..." considered balanced - it's like asking 'do you agree that everyone should have a piece of this cake that I have spent all afternoon baking'- of course everyone is going to say yes, either because they genuinely want a piece of cake, or because they fall into the group of those who aren't sure, have eaten already, or don't want to hurt your feelings and have picked up on the hidden aggression in the 'do you agree' part of the question. It's almost as bad as that other favourite of politicians and bullies everywhere who follow an expression of their opinion on something with 'don't you think?' It is extremely hard to say 'no, I don't think' and actually if you break the question down, what they are actually saying is 'don't ... you ... think' i.e. a rather aggressive 'don't think!" - meaning don't dare to contradict me. So - without expressing any opinion on whether my country of birth should be independent ... or not (note the balance!!) - I hope that the baker of the great cake that has been cooking in Edinburgh for the past few years will have the good grace to ask fairly, "Would you like a piece of cake or not?"
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