We have a regular house-sit within sight of the Pyrenees.

On stay-at-home days, slow is the name of the game.

Caramel, the cat without a miauw, scratches furiously at our bedroom door, clawing the wood. I can almost feel it splintering, as I lie there, eyes wide shut, hoping he’ll stop and grant us a little more rest. Nelson, his brother, attacks the scratching post downstairs. I hear it rocking back and forth on the terracota floor tiles. When I come out, Caramel winds himself lovingly around my legs but there is no apology in his action. ‘Hurry, hurry, quick’, he seems to say.

Habit.

Bella, the border collie, always moves from her bed to the doormat early morning. She waits for me at the bottom of the stairs, stretching and audible, little yelps somewhere between a whine and a wuff. She will never go out. Every morning I open the front door for her, and put on the outside light – but we both know she’s not going to go. Too early, too dark, too wet, and never before toast. We cuddle a bit, and Caramel stalks back into the kitchen, with a ‘Come on, what’s taking so long?’ look. If he could roll his eyeballs he would. He runs back to the garage, jumps with one great spring onto the white plastic table to join Nelson, where they both pace and arch their backs, tails held high, curled at the tip. I measure out their biscuits and for a moment there is silence, satisfaction. Then it’s Bella’s turn – biscuits and medicine, which we call her gravy. She never eats until I tell her to. Then it’s head down, a tail-wagging, dancing-round-the-bowl, non-stop-licking ritual until I take it away again.

The cats are by now long gone, out through the cat-flap to sit on the other garage roof, and sip water from the drainpipe, or to lie on the water butts under the Tibetan prayer flags, or to hang out on window-sills, washing paws, or to walk over the car and lick the windscreen, or on wet days, to simply come back into the conservatory, where they curl into balls on chairs under the table, creating tell-tale bulges in the tablecloth.

Ritual.

I make myself a coffee. loving the ritual of whipping the milk, the hum of the machine. There is something about the first cup, a re-acquaintance, a deep enjoyment. This cup is the beginning of something. If we’re not going out, I sit with a book for an hour, a hand in Bella’s fur.

We are both waiting for toast. Jim is toast master. As he moves to the kitchen, Bella moves with him, plopping herself down with her legs going from under her, a Bambi-style crash. She watches his every move. When it’s done, he hands me my plate and says to Bella ‘Here’s your toast, Bella’. She sits by me. She bobs up and down. Her head turned slightly away, her eyes flicking towards me, and though she tries hard not to, occasionally to the toast. She gets the crusts. It’s not that I don’t like crusts. But I like sharing with Bella. I love her enjoyment. Great jaw-snapping gulps as she crunches and big exaggerated swallows. Bella thinks toast is the best thing since the invention of sliced bread.

Comfort.

I love these lazy, long starts to the day. I lose myself in them when the weather is bad and we don’t go to the mountains and I become a house-mouse, never wanting to step foot outside.