I forgot to mention, I got cat-saulted by Fila earlier. Which is to say, I was assaulted by her – she’s the ALIF cat.

I was just sitting getting some reviewing in before class, and suddenly she was next to me on the bench, mewing. I am not a huge cat person, and I though it would be best to ignore her. Then, cool as you like, she plonked her bum down right in my lap. I was too scared of claws to move her so I just sat and stroked her for a good five minutes before Evan came and saved me by picking her up. I spent the rest of the time with my bag on my lap so that there was no space for her.

It’s not that I don’t like animals. I love dogs, although when I was little I was terrified of them. To aid this, Mum and Dad got us a dog. At the time we were living here in Morocco, and he was a pet of a friend who didn’t think he would make it through quarantine (he was old) and so we took him in. Originally his name was ‘Sidi’ which means ‘Sir’ in Arabic, so we changed it to ‘Rover’. Much more British, much less offensive. He was a lovely little dog, some kind of crazy cross between a terrier and a kangaroo. He could jump so high that if we’d trained him he could probably have perched on your shoulder. He stopped me being scared of dogs.

Since then, I’ve loved dogs. The boy has a beautiful little dog called Fallon, and one of my best friends has a dog called Hurley, and they are the two loveliest little things you’ve ever seen. Except that Hurley is huge. Whatever. And Fallon is probably my favourite dog in the world, she makes me smile so much. The point is I love dogs, but I still haven’t got the hang of cats. They have those scary extendable claws that just turn up when you least expect them. They even go right through jeans.

Not a cat person.