Marathons and Moggies

We have had two enormous treats this morning.  I was looking out of the bedroom window down on to the wasteland we overlook and spotted what I thought was the white and ginger cat which prowls the seafront in the evenings.  I was not wearing my glasses so found them to ensure I had not spotted a white plastic bag and discovered that what I could see was a kitten.  After about five minutes Mummy cat and another two kittens came out to play and it was absolutely lovely watching them gambol around.  There is a tree in a corner which still has some Christmas decorations on and one of the kittens had a fine old time trying to knock them off.  As long as we stay behind the glass they don't know we are there and play happily until Mummy comes and holds them down to wash.  It is the first time in two weeks that we have seen the kittens but Mummy is a regular visitor to the land which is a sort of enclosed patch about thirty or forty feet in a squarish irregular shape.  Our balcony overlooks it and until this morning I was not particularly impressed with the view but now I have entertainment I am quite happy.

The second treat was the Malta half and full Marathon which has the finish only a couple of hundred yards from our apartment.  We went down and spent a happy hour in the sunshine watching the end.  The first half dozen or so returning runners were fairly widely spaced but then they started to come home in bunches.  The highest number I saw was 3580 so there were at least three and a half thousand people running this morning.  Only the later ones were dressed up in silly clothes, there was a bunch of hairy blokes in blonde wigs and white dresses a la Marilyn Monroe and a whole gaggle of girls wearing coloured tutus over black leggings.  There was a Scottish pipe and drum band giving it some wally and lots of people cheering and clapping at the end.  The sea is a bit choppy this morning and the final fifty feet or so of the route meant that people were treading in the sea water which had been washed over the wall.  Still, a nice cold foot bath at the very end would perhaps be very welcome.