mostly david ephgrave

I said goodbye to my beautiful cat Millie yesterday, which was very painful. My wife and I took her in after her original owner died nine years ago and she was the perfect addition to the household. She fitted in perfectly with our routines and enriched our lives with her company. We were worried at first that she might not be happy to be an indoor cat as we weren’t entirely sure if she had been allowed out previously, but she never asked once; we were also concerned she’d discover the two budgies we kept in the one room she wasn’t allowed into but she never seemed to catch on to it, which saved us from any gruesome Hannibal Lector-like moments. I know it’s still early days, but I’ve yet to process the fact she’s gone. I was out for most of the day, but more than once this evening it’s slipped my mind briefly. I keep expecting to see her then catching myself and remembering; to give her a cuddle and a fuss while you did what you were doing was ...

I’m officially on pet-sitting duties for the week, staying at my mum’s to look after her dog and cat (two separate animals) while she’s on holiday in Rhodes. There’s a slight air of responsibility to the whole affair, although I’ve looked after both in the past and have walked my mum’s dog a lot over the years, so I’m sure I’m up to the challenge. As I type, the dog’s asleep in the kitchen and the cat’s asleep on the bed upstairs, so all’s going according to plan for the moment; I haven’t set fire to the house yet. Hopefully it will make for a nice change to spend a few days here in their company. I’ve got quite a lot to prepare for over the next three weeks, what with two Mostly Comedys and the filming of my show, but there’s no reason I can’t do most of the prep here. I’ve brought my computer, my acoustic guitar and my show notes, so there’s little to hold me back; the change of scenery may even help, plus my mum has a nice garden I can sit in if...

My friend’s cat - who I’ve been looking after for the past week or so - is a bit of a tart. "Draw me like one of your French girls... " To be fair, my cat isn’t much better; in fact, the body language is alarmingly familiar. But I don’t mind; I was more than happy to give my neighbour's cat a fuss when I went to visit today for the last time before her owner returns from her holiday; it seemed only right that I should give her a thorough brushing before her human comes back. She’s actually very good company, and visiting her is no trouble at all as she lives less than a minute away from me. My friend’s flat also makes for a pleasant change of scenery when I’m working; like today for example, when I ran through the vast majority of my new material there while her cat came and went. I’m sure I’ll be looking after her again before long, as I tend to be my friend’s first port-of-call when she goes away. I don’t mind: it’s nice to be thought of, even if I end ...

Today, my mood was sufficiently lightened by an exceptionally well-behaved dog on the bus. He was so quiet I hadn’t even realised he was there, despite being right next to me. His owner was on his mobile for the duration of the journey, but played with his dog’s ears and gave him a general fuss throughout; he clearly doted on him. It was just the thing to see on a dreary day. It never ceases to surprise me how much animals lift my mood, almost instantly. Even now as I write, my cat’s having a scratch and a stretch on my lap, having been there for hours. She’s such good company, particularly when I’m writing; she'll occasionally look at me strangely as I talk through my material, but having her there makes it feel less like work; they should put pets on the National Health. My cat knows my wife’s and my daily routine inside out, often picking up on signals we're barely aware we're giving. She’s an expert on what we do and al...

My cat's on my lap so often at the moment you'd be forgiven for confusing me with Donald Pleasance's Blofeld if she weren't grey instead of white. The fact she's so desperate for attention right now has coincided perfectly with a time when I really crave the company myself. It's nice to have a cat cuddle when you're not feeling your best as it reminds you of what's important. It's like a psychological and proverbial reset button that roots you back in the moment, which is pure mindfulness in action; there's something very simple and real about it, which can be really very comforting, even if she's just sitting on me to steal my warmth. She's also been inadvertently helping me with my writing, by offering uncluttered moral support. In many ways she's my best critic; she certainly seems to like me whatever I do. Either way, I'm grateful for the distraction at a stressful time; aren't we all?

Today, I did just about the most relaxed rehearsal ever, with my cat on my lap (who didn’t laugh once). I try to vary where I do run-throughs, so I don’t get stuck in a rut, or start to only feel comfortable doing it in just one place; sometimes I’ll go through it in my office, which is the most focused space to hand, but the fact it’s in a shared building with people constantly passing my door can make me feel self-conscious if they know I'm the only one there. Rehearsing at home is nice from time to time, though it’s easier to be distracted, particularly if your house is a bit of a mess. That said, it I’m home alone I know I won’t be interrupted, plus I can talk through material at volume without worrying whether anyone can hear. There's a fine line to overrunning stand-up anyway, particularly when you’ve performed the material a lot in the past, as while you do want to remind yourself of it, you don’t want it to go stale; that’s why I decided to keep today’s...

I’m too tired to write anything much of note today, partly because I’ve had a lot on and partly because I keep going to bed too late at the moment. It doesn’t help that I tend to get sucked in by my cat who - like now - chooses to sit on me in the evening and fall asleep on my lap for as long as physically possible if I’d let her. It’s nice to have her company and she’s always comforting, but I do let her keep me up for longer than I should. Part of the problem today was she’d spent much of the afternoon while I was rehearsing my show pestering me to sit down. She’s a creature of habit, who expects things to happen at certain times of the day, and there’s definitely a point late afternoon when she’d expect me to be on the sofa with her if I’m at home; God forbid I mess with the system. Speaking of runs, I enjoyed going over my show today, which was slightly surprising, considering the last time I did it I had an annoyingly crap review. Some...

Kicking a pint glass of water over a pile of receipts wasn’t the most auspicious start to pulling together my records for my tax return this morning, but it was a start nevertheless. I actually managed to get a surprisingly large amount done, after stopping briefly to carefully hang the receipts over a clothes airer one by one. This was my second attempt at drying them out, which was more successful than the first (taking a hair-dryer to them resulted in an improvised leaf-blower effect). The fact I had to cancel a casting today as my vertigo was playing silly beggars may have made for a less potentially lucrative end to 2017, but it did at least allow me to make a self-assessment head-start; HMRC would be proud of me (if I’d had my records in order in time for the end of the tax year last April). One thing I hadn’t accounted for was the Cat Effect; no sooner had I sat on the floor to go through my receipts in more detail than I felt a paw tap me ...

My wife made an illustrative prediction of the scene she’d come home to when she finished work yesterday evening, which was unsurprisingly spot-on. A Study of Man with Cat (© 2017 ‘Her Indoors’)   We have a running joke between us based on the episode of The Simpsons when Bart gives a drawing to Lisa in a sealed envelope, prophesizing the carnage they’d stumble on when they returned home from a Sunday drive with Marge, while Homer cleaned out the garage. “Time to open the envelope I gave you”, Bart says as they pull up to find Homer being repeatedly crushed by the garage door; Lisa does so to reveal a perfect representation of the scene with ‘THIS IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN’ scrawled across the bottom of it. Thankfully, the situation my wife expects to walk into is a lot less catastrophic, though it does involve a cat. Pretty much every day, about an hour before my wife's d...

I went to my mum’s this afternoon to visit her cat while she’s away, which ended up being a nice mood-lifter after a pretty unproductive day. It’s funny how the simple act of spending time with a pet can be good way to clear your head and effectively press the reset button (go on: LAUGH ). I left for the village where my mum lives later than I’d intended, so was already stressed, but all it took was half an hour’s cat-fuss (as opposed to cat-fuzz) to undo some of my frustration at not using the day as I’d intended; it didn’t go completely, but things certainly improved. My mum’s cat is huge - he’s easily twice the length of my cat, though strangely has the same size head*, so I don’t know what’s going on there; perhaps he’s part-liger - and stupidly friendly. It took a while for him to pluck up the courage to sit next to me on the sofa (well, not so much pluck up courage as deem me acceptable to deign me with his presence) but once he did, he wa...

I may have confused my neighbour’s cat by running my Brighton show in her presence this afternoon. The reason she was subjected to just under an hour of my material was I’m looking in on her for a few days and thought I might as well use the time on my own to do a quick run-through of the set as it was in Bath and at last Month’s Mostly Comedy, to see how much I remember before I work on it more solidly over the next few days. I don’t think she minded being forced to listen too much, though she did give me a look early on as if to say “Who’s he talking to and what’s he so angry about?” that I tried to placate with a tickle of the head; I’m a practised cat-whisper, after all. It’s my intention to use the three dates in Brighton to experiment with a few new ideas, though it’s highly likely I’ll keep the first show pretty much as per Bath, instead of expecting too much at once; I think I can allow myself a day to settle in to doing it again first. The...

Most of today has been spent with my cat on my lap. In many ways, it’s been pretty eventful, it’s just that most of these events took place within a five metre radius. I managed to fit in some writing and a little rehearsal of some new material and caught up on admin. I finally had the time to read the latest issue of Private Eye, which I’ve carrying around with me for a few days, but haven’t had the chance to get to grips with it. The furthest I stepped from the sofa was to take out the recycling and do a litte housework; other than that, I’ve been my cat's human cushion for the rest of the day; it’s almost hard to tell where she ends and I begin. I think my cat’s had a nice day too. She’s been asleep for the majority, save and hour or so, when I decided to feed her wet food as a treat. Every time she pops into the kitchen she’d just as sooner come back and sit on me; it seems I’m currently in her good books, though it remains to be seen how long this will last. ...

Today, I mistook my cat’s snores for my mobile vibrating; I lead a lonely life. (Just like the woman in the Ace of Base song.) I heard it just as I’d finished running my show, and assumed it was my wife calling to say she was on her way home. It turns out it wasn’t, unless she now communicates by channelling her thoughts through the sounds of sleeping felines, which would be weird as well as difficult to orchestrate. What gave the game away was the fact my phone is almost always on silent, particularly when I’m working. I like to assert control over when I have to deal with anything the real world throws at me, as it makes me feel less stressed; I’d recommend this technique to anyone who suffers from anxiety, or is simply too busy, as it helps you to take your foot off the metaphorical gas (which I mean in the American sense; not that I want to dwell on the goings-on in that country at the moment). Maybe my cat was trying to fuck wi...

As far as evenings go, yesterday was shit. It started with me cancelling a trip to Prince Charles Cinema to watch my favourite, much referenced sci-fi film 'Star Trek II: The Wrath of (Chaka) Khan', as my labyrinithis had suddenly kicked in, making me feel like I was going to fall to the floor. I’m surprised the vertigo-like condition I regularly suffer from hasn't reared its ugly head sooner, what with it being aggravated by stress, tiredness and feeling generally run-down (all clear byproducts of an EdFringe show). For whatever reason, the Gods of Balance decided yesterday was the day: perhaps they’re not fans of Ricardo Montalban. So it was that, instead of catching the train to London, I went to my sister-in-law’s flat to dog-sit with my wife for a friend; there’s a sentence to savour. This led to a few hours of watching Strictly, tweeting along to it over a couple of cups of tea and the odd stolen biscuit; this was the calm...

Today, I was sad to learn that a friend's cat who I'd been popping by to feed and keep company for most of the week died last night. Inevitably, my first thought was 'was it my fault?'. I knew I hadn't done anything wrong, and there was no suggestion that the owner thought I had, but I still couldn't help but feel responsible. The cat had a heart condition for which she received medicine every day (cunningly hidden in a bowl of tuna), which she knocked back all week like a little trouper. Her twin sister who lived with her is slightly more predisposed to be friendly, but if you settled on the sofa and ignored her she'd eventually come to you, and roll onto her back for purry tummy tickles; I'm much the same myself. It's such a shame that she's gone. I hope her sister won't be too lonely or confused and her owner isn't too upset. On writing this while travelling on the tube, I absent-mindedly flicked a cat-hair from my jacket, before re...

...and so another month passes.  I can't believe it's nearly June. Where does the time go (and all those other such things that old people say)? May's a key month for me, as both my wife's and my birthday fall within it. It's also when the Brighton Festival takes place, which I usually rock up to; either on my own or with Glyn. It's a month I'm very aware of and never expect to actually be, in the same way a child might think Christmas won't come around.  I should go to bed, but my cat's sleeping on my lap as I write. She's been a little edgy all day, so I'm loath to move her, now she's finally settled down. She often brings me comfort, so I like to give her comfort too. Having said that, she just yawned and leapt off me in the direction of the kitchen; so much for comfort: she just wants food.  I should go to bed before it gets late. So long May 2016; you were fair-to-middling. Let's make June a little better, yeah?

I didn't really achieve anything today, which is frustrating. As I intimated yesterday, it's strange to suddenly be in a position where I have less to do, in comparison to the mad panic dash that led to last week's shows in Brighton. That's not to say that I don't have things to be getting on with; I just feel a little purposeless compared to how things were in the last few weeks. At least I've managed to do more today than my cat. She has recently taken to sleeping on the chair closest to my living room window, after having been completely indifferent to it in previous months - and today, she's only really moved from it to (1) check on the food situation in the kitchen or (2) to pester me for some of what I'm eating. I know cats sleep more than most other species, but her lack of effort for anything has to be seen to be believed. She'd snore if she could muster up the energy.

I’m dog-and-cat-sitting for my mum this evening.   It’s nice to have a quiet night in with the animals and ‘the wife’ (in that order), in a proper house, like a proper adult and everything. In some ways it’s unnerving, as my mum’s pets are massively out-sized compared to my cat and two budgies at home. Her retriever Barley could make a solid case for dwarfing Digby, while her cat Chaser is just too lengthy for his own good; he’s the feline Ford Cadillac to my cat Millie's Smart car model. I’m enjoying the time away from work, having spent the afternoon holed up in the office, planning a set for a short spot I’m doing in London tomorrow. I feel my time there was wasted as, instead of running material that’s likely to end up in my show – which was the reason I took the gig in the first place – I found myself vaguely working up something to fit the theme for tomorrow’s gig, which appropriately for me, is ‘The Beatles’. In reality, I could have just stuck in a gag or...

I caught the bus to Stotfold this morning to walk my mum's dog Barley.  I do this most Thursdays when I'm available, which helps my mum out, as it's one day less to pay a dog-walker while she's at work (and my rates are very reasonable), and it's good for me too, as it's an excuse to get some exercise. While I walk a lot through not driving, it's nice to occasionally do it for the sake of it, without having a particular destination in mind (other than my mum's house to take the dog back). Barley is the softest beast you could meet. He's the epitome of friendliness; always pleased to see you and unlikely to misbehave (save gobbling up the occasional bit of rubbish from the pavement, if you briefly take your eye off the game. I once saw him eat another dog's poo, which wasn't his finest moment).  When we got back from our spot of Stotfold exploration, Barley and my mum's cat Chaser sat with me w...

A cat is a useful pet to have when your home has insufficient heating.  They act as a living, buzzing hot water bottle, if that isn't too terrifying a concept. You can even trick yourself into thinking that their sitting on your lap is a display of affection, rather than a ruthless bid to rob you of your warmth. If you died of hypothermia, they'd find another, bleaker use for you; "It's the circle of life," as Tim Rice would put it (and he always bloody does).  I got up early this morning, after having laid awake for what seemed an eternity, unable to sleep. Within minutes, my cat had led me to the kitchen to show me where her food was kept; she's good like that. She then sat  on me for hours, while my storage heating system did its inept, puffy, stuffy, airblowy-yet-not-actually-warming-you- up thing. My flat was built in the late-1970s. I blame Thatcher for i t . S he probably laid the cornerstone ; the coi ffured , pogonpho bic bint.