Excited cats and rain

It’s a dark, dark start to the day, a spattering of rain, not the drizzle kind of stuff or even the ‘get you wet’ kind of rain, no, this is my favourite kind, the warm, big, satisfying heavy drops; the drops that don’t seem to make you wet or cold, I like to think of this rain as tropical rain.
Tropical Cornish rain threatens, the Paynes Grey sky broods with a heaviness that weighs down the fragile landscape with an impending deluge.
The rain will wash away the hot summer pressure in twelve hours leaving behind a fresher, brighter, lighter Cornwall.
And I hope it does because it’s our daughter’s birthday tomorrow.
Katie will be eight.
And Katie is excited.
You know the kind of excited I mean, that exuberantly, can’t sleep, won’t sleep, manic, thousand words a minute at the top of your voice excited, the kind of excited that gives you goose bumps and limitless energy, the kind of excited that you can only experience at the magical age of eight, well, seven (until tomorrow).
A girlie sleepover with “my bestest friends from school” has been requested.
Katie’s ‘bestest friends from school’ are also excited, and so is Katie’s brother Tal, who although being eleven and therefore far too cool and ‘whatever’ is just as excited as his sister.
Even the cats are excited.
Especially Tabby, Katie’s “awe, fluffy little boy, come ere, awe Tabby just winked at me mum” cat.
Tabby’s sister Teasa is under the impression that it’s actually her birthday, while their older stepsister Lily the Tortoiseshell simply looks down from her drowsy garret with disdain.
I retreat to the sanctuary of my studio to work on a painting of Fowey.