introduction to the English legal system

I am brain-fogged and chilly. This is probably a combination of September squalls and the fact I forgot my pills, leaving me with a cumulative effect of feeling a little translucent and washed-out, as though the light is passing through me. I'm being held to earth by the expedients of sharp claws and the newly-discovered art of caterwauling. I took a bath, leaned back into the water, and listened to an ice-cream van go past playing "Greensleeves", the rain hitting the wrought iron in the garden in manner of arthritic gamelan, and the racket outside the bathroom door. "Betraaaaaaayal!" wailed kitty. "You're in that roooooooooom! You don't loooooooove me!"

It's not what I expected, I must say. I expected a more, shall we say, businesslike and companionable relationship with this cat. I am a dog person. I like dogs, I'm used to dogs, for preference enormous solemn-eyed dogs who, if I am crass enough to take a bath in the middle of the afternoon, do nothing so ostentatious as howl or scratch on the door but rather arrange themselves in attitudes of mute, hopeless devotion, occasionally shifting their paws into better silhouette for the sculptor who is no doubt on his way. Kitty, on the other hand, demands food and shoelaces and love, vociferously. They tell me she will grow up to be a dignified and serene tabby-cat. I will believe this when I see it. In the meantime she gets stuck in the bookcase and goes to sleep between my crossed legs and attempts to steal the bootlaces out of one's boots. The jury is out as to whose boots she prefers, or indeed if she has any concept of us as individuals, even the-tall-one-who-smells-of-dust and the-smaller-ones-who-smell-of-gin.

(Apparently the way my hands move over the keyboard is very threatening. My forearms are getting ripped to shreds.)

In other news, being an unemployed layabout continues. I had a job interview yesterday - well, I say interview; it was more in the way of an assessment day, consisting of five hours of fairly horrifying set tasks. I was, shall we say, terrified; Shim spent much of his morning talking me down from the tree I got myself into beforehand, and then I rang for a taxi and it didn't come for ages and blah, blah, glaaargh, it was at nine and I got there at 8.59 and honestly, I could have started better. As well as an interview, I had a written test, a group exercise, a quite awful exercise in verbal reasoning, and I had to give a fifteen-minute presentation on "challenges facing the legal profession", which I had practiced on many inanimate objects, as well as chiasmata and sebastienne, who, to my surprise and joy, found it interesting. So that went all right, actually. The rest of it, I have no idea; I just did it, so we shall see. I would like this job very much; I was the youngest person interviewed by a long chalk, so I don't know. Again, we shall see. (As an aside, I really do like living in this house. It's comfortable, well-lit, warm and cosy. I get home exhausted and all interviewed-out and am made tea and told that watching Doctor Who is the best possible thing to do with my afternoon, and we all watch "Utopia" and it's marvellous. It feels like home to me.)

I'm in two minds about whether or not I want term to start. Because on the one hand, back-to-school terror, and while I can afford to jettison an afternoon on acount of brain fog now, I won't be able to do that in a couple of weeks, but on the other hand, not-doing-much is not a look that works well on me. It's ludicrous, really, but there's nothing for thinking you're wasting your life when your housemates and your boy are off at work all day while you're vaguely bored, doing the washing-up while you don't have to and Pierre, your resident itinerant Frenchman, asks you, in tones of mild disbelief, "You don't work?"

"No," I said, "I am the stay-at-home-mum-of-cat in this household."

He looked confused. I added, "I'm a baby lawyer."

"A lawyer?" There was a long pause. "But you're nice!"

Oh, I don't know. The cat is eating the ficus. I should not forget my pills.