Introduction

Meet my two cats, Ruff and Tumble, two brothers, adopted at 5 months of age and now aged two and a half. Ruff is ginger and Tumble is strawberry blonde, seen here with black-and-white Rosalía de Castro, who recently died in a tragic accident that I can't bring myself to write about for the moment. Ruff and Tumble are generally well-behaved, prone to sleeping for most of the day, as cats are. Notoriously spatty on a twice-daily basis, with profuse spitting and flying fur. We're just back in Madrid after two and a half weeks on holiday in Castelldefels in Barcelona where we have what I consider to be our real home.

Up to now we have usually travelled up to Barcelona by car, my car being in the possession of daughter Helen and her boyfriend (I didn't use it in Madrid and they needed the use of a second car), so they travel up to Madrid the day before I start my holiday and then we strap the pet carriers in on the back seat and embark on the 5 and a half hour trip to Barcelona. Ruff is a real treasure and happily snoozes for the entire journey. Tumble, however, roils and claws and miaows and yelps for the entire journey, even with the prescribed half a tablet in him.

This time, I decided to come back on the high-speed train (2 hours and 40 minutes), so we travelled to Sants station in the car and I bought two tickets for the cats. Can anyone explain to me WHY my own ticket cost me 49 euros and the cat tickets (with no entitlement to a seat or anything) cost 62 APIECE????

The intention was that if nobody was sitting in the disabled seats, we would park there with the pet carriers on their little trolley, but what do you know? For the first time ever since I have been taking the AVE the disabled seats were taken.

Anyway, as luck would have it there were not many passengers at all, so we got a two-seater space by the loos and I put Tumble's carrier on the seat and Ruff's on the floor. Initially Tumble was very stressed and panted a bit with his mouth open in the kind of grimace that you see on photos where cats are miaowing, but he soon settled down. Ruff, of course, I was soon able to take out of the carrier and sit on my knee and stroke (if anyone had objected I would have put him back into the carrier, of course). They were showing the film "Flawless" with Michael Caine and Demi Moore, and it was quite enjoyable, just sitting there with the earphones plugged in and Ruff on my lap.

Anyway, if it weren't for the stupid, stupid taxi driver who wouldn't let me have the cats on the back seat, it would have been quite perfect, but he made me put them in the boot, the b**t**d. Still, we got home in one piece. The fight was then to get them up four flights of stairs (no lift!) as they weigh over 4 kilos each now. Anyway, up we went and by the 3rd. floor they were quite excited (I suppose they could smell "home") and shot out of the pet carriers the minute I got them inside and opened the doors for them. After a protracted tour of the flat, they decided that the best place to be (in view of the fact that the pet carriers were still in the hall) was under the bed. Tumble did not rest easy until he saw me take them apart and store them for the duration.