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I look forward with great interest to reading more of the thoughts of the feline and canine members of our families. Any more likely to join?
Regretfully I live entirely alone, not even a budgie.
Thankyou Mondrian et al for your encouraging
words re my dodgy blood (1923 vintage).

Dear Navigator - I'm very relieved that you found the life and times of Charlie and myself and The Divine Bubbles of interest. I really thought that maybe we had been a little excessive; it is well known that a single elderly woman with a cat is likely to be slightly gaga and we wouldn't wish to be seen as anything other than maybe just a tad eccentric, in the finest British Tradition. I would recommend you getting some kind of animal companion, but I don't recommend Goldfish or Budgies. Their conversation is too limited. Perhaps you might be interested in reading 'Timbuktu' by Paul Auster as an introduction to the conversational habits of dogs and their relationships with their people. Also, Buster, in his diaries, as edited by Roy Hattersley, makes an interesting case for study on this subject. Cats, unfortunately, are not literary-minded, preferring claw-sculpture of soft materials as a means of creative expression. Sadly it takes a very special kind of person to accommodate this particular artistic endeavour and I feel that I don't always measure up in this department.
Take your beautiful healthy Blood out into the sunshine this weekend and rejoice! Best wishes from Him and me, CH.

HI, Navigator. Thanks to CH for the kind words. I have had both cat and dog at the same time (cat made it her purpose in life to sit above dog height and swipe him on the back of the head if he dared pass by.

I, too, am getting on, and the responsibility of dog walking is now too much. Happily, No 2 son, took Rio, a Pembroke Corgi, to live with him. Both are happy, and cat even more so, since she no longer has to defend her dinner from an ever open mouth.

Cats are independent, and although frequently aloof, are great fun to have around the house.

Hi everybody

Having difficulty this week with the top left corner. Have I got 2d right as a run of five letters from the middle two words in the clue.(giving me an 'I' in 10a)

If so, 10a is not the word for a high pointed women's shoe as I originally thought. Is it therefore the name for something that is put in the heels of shoes to rise your height?

From this you can see that I don't have 1d or 4d either.

Further hints (not the answers please) gratefully received.

Deekay

Yes, you have got 2d right.

Re 10a, first 5 letters is a word for platforms, the next 3 letters is a word for test. Whole thing is something relating to 'footwork'.

Re 1d, It's an element - word for hatched with o for oxygen in.

Re 4d Rake is the whole thing (relates to a person not a tool) and is made up a word for recreation followed by a 3 letter word for ruffian which is then reversed.

Hope that helps

Thanks Crypto.

I've got them all now. I wasn't thinking of this connection with footwork - I was stuck with dance steps.

Thank you Crypto, your clues were most helful to this novice. Although I have my RT delivered I try to leave it alone until Friday and so come in at the end of the posts which are always fun to read.

Good evening all - finally plucked up the courage - have been sucking all your blood, from the the last couple of years - still haven't won a thing
This is the most hiolarious thread I've ever.
Please take me gently into non giveaway clues fold.
I will take on the likes o terry et twonk @ any time - I am yet one more Radio Times full on defender.

Hello all. Managed to complete the grid sometime yesterday after starting it the previous evening. 16a held out to the very end. As ever, I twigged to the full meaning of the clue only after I'd realised the answer.

Nice to see some propriety restored to the thread after the less-than-agreeable interjections of previous weeks.

With the frequent mention of the nation's First Ratter-in-Chief and his ilk in this thread, I wonder if T.S. Elliott was mistaken when he extolled the elegant repose of F. Domesticus as mere cover for extended thoughts on the thought of the thought of his name. Perchance it is more mundane than that: could it be that Felix is completing the entire cryptic in his head without all that messy scribbling we humans have to deploy against cunning anagrams?

Good afternoon Tom Cat - During our quiet time together this afternoon on the sofa I put your question to Charlie and at first he declined to answer. He has always taken the position that the less said on almost any subject the better; however, I pressed him. He finally pointed out that mental agility, to which he assumed you were referring, requires a lifetime of practise and must needs be learnt through strenuous inner exercise and discipline, in the peace which is only to be found behind the closed eyelid. As he also said, how much better to leave crude physical activity to those best suited to it, naming no particular species of being of course [though I think his meaning was clear]. I asked about Larry and the position he found himself in and he made the point that if The Great Creator had meant cats to be purely cerebral He would not have created rats; also that the acrobatic abilities of a cat closely resemble the beautiful exercises of the Chinese, and look at them. But why he mentioned that I'm not sure as he returned to inscrutability and there's no talking to him in that mood.