Cat flap

We got word that our house in London was infested with fleas as we drove north on holiday in glorious weather through the borders into Scotland. Sid, who very kindly and conscientiously looks after our cats while we are away, sent a series of increasingly alarmed text messages, in which he informed us that he was suffering flea attacks of unbridled savagery on his ankles every time he went into the kitchen or sitting-room. He is not the kind of man to take that sort of thing lying down, and he requested an immediate transfer of funds so that he could buy a full suit of protective clothing and launch all-out chemical warfare.

One imagines that a protective suit of the kind Sid required can be bought quite cheaply off one of our heroes returning from Iraq, but I am so mean that I decided, in-between admiring the sublime landscapes of the borders, that I would rather deal with the fleas myself when I got back home.