Cats can work out mathematically the exact place to sit that will cause most inconvenience.

We have become a society where the artist is regarded as a self-indulgent superfluity, and the person who juggles stocks and shares is an essential part of the economy.

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

A younger sister is someone to use as a guinea-pig in trying sledges and experimental go-carts. Someone to send on messages to Mum. But someone who needs you - who comes to you with bumped heads, grazed knees, tales of persecution. Someone who trusts you to defend her. Someone who thinks you know the answers to almost everything.

Odd how much it hurts when a friend moves away- and leaves behind only silence.

Human beings are drawn to cats because they are all we are not — self-contained, elegant in everything they do, relaxed, assured, glad of company, yet still possessing secret lives.

When sisters stand shoulder to shoulder, who stands a chance against us?