Posting days: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

They say mishaps always go in threes. They don’t. Sometimes they go in fives. After Tuesday (when the shower pull switch comes off in my hand, the Co-operative store is on fire alarm alert when we arrive to shop and the car breaks down in Lidl’s car park) we have Thursday.

In the morning, Isis and I walk and run all over Kings Heath Park for ninety carefree minutes. When we return to the car the keys are missing. I say some very, very rude words. There’s not a cat’s chance in hell of finding the the keys since I have no idea where I dropped them.

Attempting to be sensible, which does not come easily, I return to the part of the field we have just left and peer around pessimistically. I see what looks like a daisy chain lying in the grass about three metres away. I know it can’t be the keys. But it is. What undeserved luck. What a relief.

This morning I  retire at about two, despairing of The Hairy One who has just flown into a rage after finishing her Dentistix. Soon there are vicious snarls and loud snapping noises from downstairs. Then silence for fifteen minutes or so. Then more snarls and snaps. This continues intermittently until about three. I go down to fetch her as she usually becomes calm once upstairs. Rigid as a block of concretes she glues herself to the futon. I prise her off, and ignoring the rising volume of indignant yaps and snarls, take her upstairs.

But she is very angry and it’s another thirty minutes before she settles. Unfortunately I have to switch the reading lamp on and off she goes again. It takes another thirty minutes for her to relax. I, of course, lie awake worrying about her and fantasising that the vet would say she should be put to sleep.

In the morning she does her usual happy, ‘Hello pack’, greeting. Thank goodness for that.

Later, as we walk in the park, she suddenly goes into a rage and attacks herself. Soon Gra. notices smears of blood around her mouth and left side. The tip of her tail is bleeding. She has bitten it hard.

At home I feed her. As soon as she has licked her bowl clean she lurches into a spin. As I attempt to pre-empt her biting her leg she snatches at the base of my thumb, leaving teeth marks. Over the next half hour or so I pre-empt another attack. Then another. Then another.

Feeling very miserable, I reluctantly remove the Buster collar and replace it with a plastic cone.

She hates it of course and, like a bucking bronco, rushes off into the kitchen trying to remove it. Apart from checking that she is not hurting herself, I leave her to it. Soon she is running up and down the hall playfully. Later she appears to enjoy her walk.

This evening she has raged and attempted to bite her feet, legs and tail numerous times but, of course, she can’t. Thankfully. For the past hour or so she has been sleeping peacefully.

Looking on the bright side, two amazing things happened today. Isis scented Gra. who was walking a couple of hundred metres off and tracked him down. And I replaced the shower pull switch without electrocuting myself.

Now, someone is certain to have noticed that I haven’t yet related the fifth mishap. This occurs as I finish my post. As I aim for ‘save draft’ the whole page disappears. After much cursing and raging I rewrite it.

Good night.

Isis came from the Aeza cat and dog rescue and adoption centre in Aljezur, Portugal. For information about adopting an animal from the centre, contact kerry@aeza.org or  www.dogwatchuk.com