Back home for one night before the holiday and the cats seem to have switched personalities whilst we've been away. Lion-o was pleased to see us and Smithers a little aloof and confused. Perhaps they are in the middle of a vice-versa knockabout film comedy. Or perhaps Smithers is just a bit thick and has forgotten us.
Last year we'd arrived home after a difficult Fringe to a house in chaos: all our things in boxes and builders putting the finishing touches to our home improvements. This year the Fringe had been a lot more fun and the house was tidy and we had slightly indifferent cats to reacquaint ourselves with (Smithers has remembered me now - he is currently playing with my feet under the table and purring as I lightly kick him in the neck, the weirdo). There's no point in getting too friendly with them again as we're away for the next fortnight too, but I was pleased to see them and that they had survived in tact without us (Smithers had jumped out of the bathroom window and slid off the kitchen roof into next door's garden, but aside from a temporary limp he was fine - the fucking, feline clown).
It feels like home now, even if a lot of it seemed unfamiliar after all this time away. We had dinner with my wife's brother, who has been looking after the cats and house very well (apart from the nearly killing Smithers incident) and watched the Great British Bake-off whilst getting a little bit more drunk than I've managed lately (it's been the first night that I haven't had anything major to do the following day for quite some time). We then watched Back To The Future, a film that was made very nearly as long ago as Marty McFly travelled into the past (hoverboards have just two years to be invented). I would be amazed if someone wasn't planning a 2015 remake of the movie with someone heading back to 1985. It won't be as good as my Goodnight Sweetheart remake, but it surely has to be done. McFly has his clunky walkman and his beeping digital watch to confound the people of 1955. Imagine what a youngster of today would have to blow the minds of ths stupid 1985 school-kids.
You always notice something new when you watch a familiar film and this time I spotted that one of Biff's gang is played by Billy Zane. He doesn't seem to get any lines, but he does get covered in manure, which is satisfying. And always worth watching this enjoyable song from Biff whenever you watch the film.
And even better to be back in my own bed for one night. But even better that we will be on holiday for the next couple of weeks.
