A cats got her own opinion of human beings. She don't say much, but you can tell enough to make you anxious not to hear the whole of it --Jerome K. Jerome

If there was such a thing as a Krypton Factor for cats Dave would be a champion. A few nights ago there was a commotion in the kitchen at around 2am but thankfully it was not burglars, it was Dave attacking the cat proof food recycling bin. I put the bin safely out of his way and trudged back to bed. The next morning I came down to find an open food recycling bin and an work of abstract art made from tea bags and crusts set out on the kitchen floor. Dave gave me a penetrating look and I was left in no doubt that he disapproves of cat proof containers. He doesn't eat tea bags and he's not fond of crusts, he was just proving that as far as he is concerned nothing is cat proof. Cats are such wonderful communicators, it only requires a look or an almost imperceptible flick of the tail for Dave to convey absolute contempt. 

As I picked up the debris and then cleaned the kitchen floor I realised how much of my time is taken up attending to the needs of an assortment of animals. We only have three cats, but my mum and stepfather are both frail so I help them with their animals too. Their elderly cat Jessica is beautiful, but she's as wild and unpredictable a tiger and it takes nerves of steel (and protective clothing) to get her into the cat basket when she needs to go to the vet. Shopping for the cat takes far longer than anyone would believe possible because because mum has to examine every flavour and brand of cat food to decide whether Jessica would like it. Then after lots of deliberation she buys the same combination of brands that she always buys!

Lucy is my favourite of mum's three dogs, when she came from Wood Green Animal Shelter she was pathetically thin and afraid of her own shadow, but now she is healthy and happy. One of her parents was a Shih Tzu and the other a Border Collie - an improbable liaison which probably involved a step ladder! She combines the intelligence and behaviour of a (rather neurotic) Border Collie with the build and colouring of a Shih Tzu and despite her difficult past she has a lovely friendly nature. She seems to be especially attached to me, she follows me like a shadow, sits next to me whenever I sit down and when I stop stroking her she nudges my arm with her nose to get my attention - which often results in spilt tea and a disgraced dog! 

Bobby and Misty the other two Shih Tzus are a little younger than Lucy, and completely bonkers. They are brother and sister but Bobby is twice the size of Misty, he is gentle and friendly but Misty is a little spitfire and what she lacks in height she makes up for in attitude. Taking them to the groomers is a nightmare, it's like having chimps in the car, Bobby cries because he has left my mum behind and Misty spends the entire journey telling other road users to go away! She also objects to the car radio, if I turn it on she barks frantically and searches for the people hiding in the car. Needless to say, I prefer not to take them out in the car more often than absolutely necessary! 

Shopping for their food is a nightmare, Bobby is a solid little chap and despite being reassured by the vet that he is the correct weight for his size my mum worries that he doesn't eat. Getting him to eat seems to have become an obsession for my mum, so we loiter endlessly in the dog food section looking for new possibilities to tempt him to eat. Lucy eats reasonably well (as long as no one looks at her) and she is the easiest of the three dogs to shop for. It probably only takes about 15 minutes for my mum to consider every option and then decide to buy her regular brand of dog food! 

The other member of the household is Fred the tortoise who has been part of the family since my childhood. He is probably the most pampered tortoise in the county and there are times when I envy his lifestyle! In October he retires to his winter quarters and sleeps until the spring when the days become warmer again. His summer quarters, an open fronted hutch in a large pen has to be moved around the lawn so that he can enjoy fresh grass and plenty of dandelions (his favourite). Throughout the spring and summer he munches his way through a monumental amount of salad and such like. Mum insists on having a bird net over the pen to stop them from stealing his food and every time it rains my mum covers his run with a tarpaulin so that he will not get wet, then when the sun comes out she adjusts the tarpaulin so that he has plenty of shade. So as you can see one small tortoise manages to dominate the daily routine of the household!

A couple of years ago we made the mistake of buying a multi hanger bird feeder for my stepfather so that he could enjoy watching the birds through the window. It was a success, in fact it was too successful, feeding the birds seems to dominate their lives! They get through unbelievable quantities of seed, sunflower seeds, fat balls and assorted pellets and every couple of weeks I'm dispatched to the pet superstore to buy a trolley load of supplies for the birds! Judging by the amount of food they eat it is a wonder that any of the local birds can still fly! 

I wouldn't be without my pets, but they are not quite as pampered as my mums. If the people who believe in reincarnation are proved right I hope that I will come back as a tortoise because Fred seems to have a happy and untroubled life!

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in. ~Graham Greene

I have been working on a project, it is a rather belated project now because it should have been completed in time for my son's 18th birthday on 20th of December, but I was feeling so poorly that time got the better of me. I am creating a photo scrapbook for my son with photos and memories from my son's childhood. 

I spent ages choosing photos, the hardest part was deciding what not to include. Then when they were printed I had so much trimming and cutting out to do that my fingers ached for days afterwards. Now I am busy arranging the photos and creating the scrapbook - it takes ages to get it looking just right, but he is worth the effort. 

As I look at all the photos I can't help wondering where all the years have gone. How did that angelic looking little chap grow up so fast, it only seems like a few years ago that he played a shepherd in the nativity play at nursery and he walked in swinging his lamb around by the tail!

Here is an extract from my diary dated March 2004 when my son was nine, as you can see life with him has never been dull.

"As we were coming back from Music School at lunchtime my son said "I have my usual maths and English homework, but there is something else this week; I have to catch a worm because Monday is take a worm to school day" 
He went on to explain that they are making a wormery. Surely my life is complicated enough without having to go out and dig for worms! I urged him to wait until Sunday afternoon before collecting his worm, but being a boy he just couldn't wait and when I was working in the kitchen he brought in a large worm and put it into my hand. I was prevailed upon to provide a suitable container for it, and over the next hour or so I was introduced to five or six more worms in assorted sizes. 

At teatime all my efforts to change the subject were
thwarted and we were treated to a lecture from my son on the reproductive habits of the earthworm. His understanding of the term hermaphrodite was rather sketchy, and my memories of `O' Level Biology were too limited to be useful. Sam concluded in his deep and serious voice (which always makes me want to laugh) "I think it really means that they don't enjoy themselves very much!"

We had a bit of a disagreement at bedtime when I realised that the little terror had taken the worms to bed with him. When I refused to allow him to have them on his bedside table. He said "mum, you can't put them outside, they are part of the family now" We compromised and they are spending the night in the shed (in their container). I must remember to thank his teachers for completely disrupting our weekend."

My son has always loved animals, so our pets all have a place in the scrapbook. I thought I had got all the photos for the album but Dave the cat had other ideas, I think he wants to make sure that he will be included. He posed for this photo (he is wearing my son's hat) and it is so cute that I have to include it.

If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.  ~Tom Stoppard

One cat just leads to another - Ernest Hemingway

According to my husband I have some sort of 'weird magnet' that makes me an interesting target for assorted 'odd bods'. He does have a point even when I visit new places I seem to attract the 'square pegs' of this world. Last autumn I visited the Severn Valley Railway for the first time, as I stood in Kidderminster  Station chatting to Robbie a little man (he was considerably shorter than me) entered the station area from the platform and marched straight up to me, shook my hand and launched in to a long explanation of why steam trains are better than diesels. Suddenly he stopped talking about trains, informed me that he had important things to do and marched off in the direction of the refreshment room. Robbie thought it was very amusing that the man singled me out when he had a whole crowd of people to choose from. 


I had a similar odd experience earlier this week. I gave my daughter a lift to work, on the other side of town. Her office is located in an area that was once a village but it got swallowed up by the town many years ago. I dropped her off, turned the car around and I was just about to pull away when a middle aged man approached the car and knocked on my window. He didn't look like a mad axe man so I opened the window a little and he asked me if I would like to take him to town. I was rather shocked, I am not in the habit of picking up strange men especially before 9am! I told him that I was not going to town, he said "never mind, I didn't really want to go to town anyway". It may not be a village any more but clearly they have at least one contender for the position of village idiot! 


I don't know why I have such a well developed 'weird magnet' perhaps it is because I find people interesting. A friendly smile costs nothing and makes everyone feel better, very often you find that people who seem a bit odd at first are very interesting when you get to know them. The trouble is I seem to attract the waifs and strays of the animal kingdom too. Looking back through the blog I am reminded that we have had a parade of uninvited guests over the years. A toad once came through the cat flap to visit us. On two separate occasions birds have fallen down the chimney - and lived to tell the tale because I went to to considerable trouble to rescue them. One was a collared dove and the other was a huge and rather stupid pigeon. Then there was Dave the cat, he turned up ill and exhausted and set up home in one of our recycling boxes - he is still here! Now there is 'Bernard' the cat who kept coming in and hiding in the utility room, she is still here too.


The problem is that I don't have infinite resources. When Dave found us a few years ago we were strictly a one cat family, but he was so poorly and so much in need of someone to care about him that before I knew what had happened we had become a two cat family. I had no idea how much time effort and money it would take to restore him to health. He is now very much part of the family, in fact he thinks that he runs the house. He and Oreo are good friends and we love them, but they are expensive to to maintain and looking after them is time consuming. Bernard is really sweet and she is becoming less timid but we really can't cope with a third cat. I can't turn her out and all my efforts to find her original owner have proved fruitless, so we really have to find a new home for her.
According to the vet she is about 3 and in good health. She is very clean, we haven't had a single accident since she moved in. She is timid but she enjoys attention, she just needs gain trust in the people around her. She is scared of other cats and she tends to hiss if they go too near her, but she is not vicious, she just keeps out of their way. Please contact me if you know anyone who can offer her a loving home.

Feed Me Now!

Sometimes I feel that life is just one long round of feeding people! Often we are not all at home to eat our evening meal at the same time, so there is the added difficulty of producing something that can be cooked or served in stages. Then I have to think of the vegetarian option and take account of assorted food fads. No wonder it takes up so much time! In comparison you would think that the animals would be easy to feed, but they are a demanding bunch too. Meg the dog likes food and she is not especially fussy, she will eat whatever she is offered as long as it does not contain peas! She hates peas, but she will make sure she licks any gravy off them before spitting them out. Dave the cat lacks teeth but he can eat almost anything and he seems to think that food stolen from the bin tastes even better(I guess that is because he was a stray). He can tell the time perfectly and he gets very annoyed if he is kept waiting for his meals. Oreo is the greediest cat imaginable he will eat absolutely anything and every time anyone goes into the kitchen he rushes to see if there is any food for him but Shadow the guinea pig is the loudest and most demanding of the pets. If she hears a plastic bag rustle or if she hears the fridge door open she shouts for food, curly kale is her favourite, but she makes sure that she gets her '5 a day'. People sometimes say that in the future we will just take a tablet rather than eating a meal, it doesn't sound very exciting but it certainly has it's attractions!

Vanishing Act!

Dave the cat had a late afternoon appointment at the vet on Monday, as his infected eye was still looking very uncomfortable. The cat box was put in the kitchen the evening before and Dave took no notice of it until about half an hour before his appointment when I bathed his eye again, he wasn't too impressed by that and when I touched the cat carrier he vanished. After a frantic 15 minute search Laura and I found him hiding in the furthest corner under Emily's bed, he swore menacingly when we found him, but he got to his appointment on time. There are no scratches on the eye so he has some eye drops and the infection should clear up in a few days.

I forgot to mention Robbie's random comments on Sunday, he just can't help himself - wrong time wrong place! He woke me up to tell me about a chap from some railway company or other who has exceptionally long service with the same company (why would I need to know that!). He waited until we went to visit my mum in the afternoon to discuss his favourite pair of pants and why they were such a wonderful fit - some things are best left unimagined!

Finicky Felines (and Others) 07.03.08

A few days ago a friend delivered some car magazines that he had been saving for Laura. He had put them in a box, the sort that fruit is packed in; the magazines were soon spirited away leaving the empty box which was quickly taken over by the cats. Robbie put the cat blanket over the box and the cats became a permanent fixture in the hall. One day Dave the cat even moved it closer to the radiator! It was getting on my nerves so I bought them a cat igloo made of a nice cosy brown fabric I hoped that they would like it and then I could put the box out for recycling. The cats had other ideas, they have refused to use their new bed, and every time I try to take the box away they look at me with such sad eyes that I can't do it

Sam needed new school shoes - again, so last week we headed to the shoe shop to look for a new pair. It is not one of my favourite jobs at the best of times, but Sam was finding it especially difficult to stay 'on task'. He tried on several pairs, but the ones he liked didn't fit and the ones that fitted didn't suit him, finally we settled on a pair that he liked and I could tolerate and they seemed to fit very well. Suddenly Sam's eyes settled on a pair of Sketchers that he absolutely had to have. I am not sure why my children have a weakness for Sketchers, I can't see the attraction - maybe it is an age thing! Like Robbie, Sam and the girls have a passion for footwear. Anyway Sam was focussed on a pair of trainers that were hardy more substantial than plimsolls, but they possessed a price tag that made my eyes water. I explained the difference between 'want' and 'need' and as he already has two or three pairs of trainers he doesn't need any more. I don''t like having to say no and Sam doesn't like having to hear it, but it is a learning process and a necessary part of life. We bought the school shoes and Sam was not a happy chap on the way home, but when he recovered his temper he seemed please with the school shoes. He wore them for a couple of days, but now he is back to the old shoes 'because they feel better'. Why is life so complicated?

What Will 2008 Hold? 01.01.08

New Year is the traditional time for taking stock of our lives and making resolutions. I have never really enjoyed the New Year celebrations, it always felt sad somehow, perhaps because it brings the Christmas holidays to an end and the dreary routine of work or school stretches ahead as far as the eye can see. Last year was the first time that I can remember consciously making any resolutions and like most people I was not completely successful in achieving my goals. I am no thinner than I was last January, the only crumb of comfort is that I am not substantially fatter either! This year will be different and hopefully by next January I will be able to report greater success. I was a little more successful in my other resolution, we have reduced our global footprint to some extent, but there is still much more we should do.

Along with the media preoccupation with reviews of the past year, we are treated to predictions about what the year ahead will bring. Generally I don't take much notice of either, why would I we interested in the ramblings of the various self absorbed navel gazers of the media world, and our politicians are incapable of basic honesty when dealing with fact, so their promises and predictions will be about as reliable as a promise from Network Rail. I think I could probably do a more accurate job on the prediction front, so here goes.

Arsenal will continue to be the best looking and most amazing football team, and Manchester United will remain the ugliest!

Network Rail will excel themselves and replace the CSA as the most incompetent and ineffective organisation in UK.

Gordon Brown will age visibly as he lurches from one disaster to the next.

The Liberal Democrats will survive a whole year without a leadership election, but it will make little difference because no one remembers the name of their leader anyway.

Alistair Darling will be offered a part in Dr Who and he will terrify viewers - no make up required!

As usual the railways will grind to a halt a number of times and Network Rail will claim to be surprised by snow, rain, wind and falling leaves and they will wheel out the usual brainwashed androids to convince the world that it really was 'the wrong kind of snow' or that leaf fall could not possibly have been predicted. I wouldn't have thought it required a crystal ball!!

Bristol will retain it's tittle as traffic cone storage capital of the UK with extra cones brought in from the length and breadth of the country to ensure total chaos in the holiday season.

my last item is a wish rather than a prediction, I really hope that the private use of fireworks will be banned and their use restricted to properly authorised organised displays. It would make such a difference to so many dogs, cats and other animals. Meg is absolutely terrified of fireworks.

Pampered Pets 26.08.07

Someone asked the other day if Robbie knows about us writing about him. The answer is that he does, he encouraged me to start the blog, he always reads it and very occasionally he edits it. He used to come home and tell me about his colleagues laughing at his weird ideas and the random things he talks about so I jokingly said I would have to write a book about him and the blog was the result. One or two other family members are not very keen on being written about so they only have 'walk on parts' in the blog.

Bank holiday Monday proved useful as there were still lots of jobs to do. I reduced the washing mountain to a small hill, and the ironing mountain is a manageable pile. It was nice to have Robbie at home for an extra day, I don't want him to go back to work tomorrow, but I must admit that there were a couple of occasions on holiday when I was considerably keen on that prospect!!

Laura came with us to feed my mum's animals. It takes longer to prepare their food than it does to produce a family meal! The tortoises have an extensive menu and it all has to be cut up exactly to mum's instructions. I have included a photo but they proved surprisingly camera shy.

There are three cats, two of them are fairly easy to cater for but Amber is about 16 and she cant cope with chunky food anymore so I have to call her in and tempt her with softer food. She is a lovely cat but she seems to be constantly moulting.