Medicines may be necessary. Flowers lift the heart. But your smile is the best restorative of all.

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.

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?"

If there is a heaven, it's certain our animals are to be there. Their lives become so interwoven with our own, it would take more than an archangel to detangle them.

The baby rises to its feet, takes a step, is overcome with triumph and joy - and falls flat on its face. It is a pattern for all that is to come! But learn from the bewildered baby. Lurch to your feet again. You'll make the sofa in the end.

Dads are most ordinary men turned by love into heroes, adventurers, story-tellers, singers of songs.

The trouble with sharing one's bed with cats is that they'd rather sleep on you than beside you.