Kittens are wide-eyed, soft and sweet. With needles in their jaws and feet.

You are asleep. Deep, deep asleep - and then the world caves in. The cat has leapt from the top window onto your stomach. He is saturated. He is hungry. He taps you into full wakefulness with a sodden paw "Could you open a can?"

A cat can maintain a position of curled up somnolence on your knee until you are nearly upright. To the last minute she hopes your conscience will get the better of you and you will settle down again.

For every person who has ever lived there has come, at last, a spring he will never see. Glory then in the springs that are yours.

The work of a garden bears visible fruits-in a world where most of our labours seem suspiciously meaningless.

A friend is the only person you will let into the house when you are Turning Out Drawers.

Becoming a grandmother is wonderful. One moment you're just a mother. The next you are all-wise and prehistoric.