Find the Meerkat.

Last night a great, old fashioned, mountain thunderstorm. With the electricity out we huddled in the upper hallway listening through the interference to a crackly St.Saens concert on our battery powered radio and trying to read by candlelight. Outside the rain plummeted down, the lightning wove patterns in the dark and what appeared to be a Jamaican steel band thundered away uninterruptedly in the attic. All we needed was Lurch from the Adams family to appear and we would have had the perfect gothic evening.

While 'the font' sat close to a candelabra, determined to reach the end of Tony Blairs memoirs, Wilf and yours truly set about playing touch rugby and rug surfing. Within ten minutes we were being firmly told that this was 'ridiculous' ( something to do with the dark, naked flames and breakages) so we reverted to that old standby - 'Find the Meerkat'. Usually, amid much nose down , zig-zag activity, the game of hide and seek takes three or four minutes. Last night , distracted by the raucous elements, Wilf took forever to find his latest squeaky toy. After twenty five minutes of fevered sniffing, barging into doors and tripping over furniture in the dark he finally found it. The next time I looked he was on his back, meerkat in mouth, snoring contentedly away and completely oblivious to the mayhem outside. A happy PON is guaranteed to generate laughter.