Six days later however a large and alarming lump appeared above her hip

Six days later, however, a large and alarming lump appeared above her hip. I rang the vet, who said not to worry, it was probably one of the metal pins that had come a bit loose. But I am a reasonable woman and accepted his assertion that these things sometimes happen, and therefore did not say what I was really thinking, which was: "Shouldn't you have been more gentle? She's only a kitten." Nor did I complain to him when she came home, looking far more pathetically mutilated than before: the scar from the neutering operation on one side; a larger, more livid scar along the other; and a plastic contraption around her neck to stop her pulling her stitches out, which also stopped her being able to eat or drink with any comfort.Stroking a cat in this condition causes nothing but guilt; for how could I have allowed her to end up like this? But the vet said she'd be fine; and that she'd be up and on her feet in no time. But she was no better the next day, so her leg was X-rayed, and then pinned with three metal rods in a lengthy operation. How, you might ask, does a vet come to break a cat's leg? He couldn't actually explain why: though he admitted it might have happened when she was put in what is alarmingly known as a "crush-cage", after she resisted his attempts to anaesthetise her in a more conventional manner. Not that the vet had noticed her leg was broken: when I pointed out that she seemed to be dragging it in a most peculiar way, he said that she was simply making a fuss about nothing. But I comforted myself with the thought of all those medical studies which showed that pet-owners were smiley, happy people who lived longer than everyone else. It's something to do with stroking a furry animal, apparently.

And, indeed, the summer passed happily enough, though the studies say nothing about the mildly stress-inducing effects of removing cat poo from the back garden But at the beginning of September, disaster struck. Lizzie (for that is her name) was sent to the vet to be neutered, and came back with a fractured leg. It was rather more expensive an undertaking than I'd imagined (pounds 20 for her; pounds 25 for her litter tray and other accoutrements; pounds 50 for her vaccinations and various flea and worm treatments). after three-and-a-half years of persistent pleading from my eldest son, I finally capitulated in May and bought a small, black, sweet-faced kitten.

If anyone refuses your advances after a drive in a Morgan, they aren't worth your while in the first place.. You are startlingly near the road, conscious of every grain of gravel and with the wind in your hair you feel like part of the machinery, not just its operator.Not only does it seem to make everyone who sees it smile, but it has to be the most romantic car in the world. He stood by to listen to the glorious roar of the engine starting and smiled longingly.Every time I left it parked (a terrifying thing to do with a car which doesn't lock and is worth a year or two's salary), I would come back to find it surrounded by old people standing in silent contemplation of how we came from this to a Nissan Micra. The fact that a Morgan is so exclusive, entirely hand-made and yet has a powerful engine with the latest electronic fuel injection system makes driving one feel as though you are actually doing something - actively conveying yourself rather than being conveyed.

One of the admirers, a trucker with a skin-head haircut and tattoos, bumped into me while I was struggling with my crisps and biscuits and said: "Sorry, Miss."I have never been so flattered, especially since I have noticed that builders have now stopped shouting "All right, love" and started yelling: "All right, mate" instead, in what I assume is an insulting attempt at being politically correct. People ostentatiously hang back to let you in, offer to help you with the hood when it starts to rain and rush to tell you about their old grandpa so-and-so who used to drive Morgans back when cars were cars.I leapt out to get some petrol (the doors are so tiny and the whole thing so near the ground that it is easier to leap in and out rather than clunk the door open from the inside) and a few people came over to stroke the chrome side-lights on top of the undulating wheel-guards as I was filling up. They are so taken aback by the old-fashioned shape and the understated English beauty of the thing itself that they forget to hate you for forking out more than pounds 20,000 and waiting from five to eight years to own one (there is a much fought over waiting- list). If you drive any other kind of sports car, passers-by will sneer viciously at you, narrowing their eyes and getting their keys out ready to ruin the paintwork.