I don't care about the seeds, I'll poop where I like!

I'm so glad to see some signs of Spring in the garden, even if the cat is less than chuffed to have her hunting and pooping grounds hijacked for seed planting.

We've even had a solid few days of nothing but blue skies and sunshine here, it's great being able to do the school run without bundling up in coats and scarves for a change.


We even have some colour to look at in the garden, although it is only a teensy tiny little bit, but the fruit trees are back again. I don't know why but I'm always a bit of a pessimist about these trees every year so I'm even more chuffed to see the trees completely covered in apple and pear buds just waiting to blossom.


And I know it's only parsley but it's one of the brightest greens in the garden and one of the precious few things out there which is ready to eat. The poor thing's been a bit savaged by us lately, but it's nowhere near as bad as the chives which are in two fat bunches and the grand total of 4 inches long. Every time they make a bid for the sky we pounce on them for everything from soups to sandwiches. We're trying to give them a bit of a break, really we are!


And my dogwood isn't just a tangle of pink branches any more, well it is really but there are a couple of little lime green spots in there to break things up.


And finally a little apology. I've not been around an awful lot lately, one thing and another keep cropping up and robbing me of days at a time. I've missed my early morning blog reading, commenting and coffee reading but I'm hopeful that things will start to settle down somewhat in the next week and I'll be back to my usual routine and catching up on what you've all been up to.

Menu Plan 7/9 to 13/9

I'm trying to stick to my plan this week. Last week saw everything shuffled around and chopped and changed so the plan was more of a suggestion really.

Yesterday was a complete wash and we ended up phoning out for food. I dropped Chloe at school and then ran around the town like a headless chicken for an hour before arriving home spending a bit of time glued to the laptop, I did a bit of cleaning and laundry and then rushed down to collect her from school again (those three hours go in fast!).

We came home and had a bit of lunch and I was just doing the dishes when I spotted the poor cat (that I hadn't been able to find all morning) huddled under a tree and soaking wet, so I ran out to bring her and get her dried off when I noticed something weird. A bald patch at the very base of her back just at her tail. I hadn't noticed it before and I assumed that when she's dry the hair above it is long enough to cover the patch, but because she was soaking wet I could see it a mile away.

So I Googled it.

And because Google never fails to return nothing but advice from The Party Pooper, The Bearer of Bad News and The Pessimist when faced with symptoms as search times, I thought stuff that and phoned Assisi instead.

They said it was probably nothing but that it should be checked just to be on the safe side and that because she wasn't my cat and I was just keeping an eye on her until someone (if anyone) claims her, I could bring her down to the centre and their vet would check her over.

Not my cat, eh? When I've ran out into torrential rain, waded through my very flooded back garden, suffered clawings just to get the poor thing dried off in case she would catch a cold and chased off varying sizes of much, much hissier cats than her. Not my cat! Oh but I beg to differ!!! Still free vet care you say...

Anyway, we took her to the centre and they checked for the obvious, fleas, ticks, skin conditions and said that she was clear of any on board inhabitants and infections. I started treating her with frontline a couple of months ago and mentioned that just in case but they said if it was an allergy then she would have symptoms on the back of her neck too as its the dosing site. She was grooming herself a lot during the examination and the vet asked if she does that a lot. She does actually, I've often commented to the husband that if nothing else she's a very clean cat. Well it turns out the cat is stressed.

Yup, stressed!

The vet said that during any big change, such as a new home a cat can remain anxious and stressed for up to a year before truly settling in. There were a couple of funerals in our immediate area right before the cat showed up and we have a suspicion that the owner of the cat has passed away and their relatives maybe don't know about the cat so its understandable really if that's the case then she's likely to have come from a very quiet home to this mad house.

So, the menu plan because I bet you're absolutely starving now after reading that lot!

Tuesday

Vegetable soup and crusty bread. I have a big pot of the stuff bubbling away in the kitchen and Chloe and i will make the bread when she comes home from school.

Wednesday

I picked up ribs yesterday morning when I was out and I'll just put them in the crockpot in the morning with barbecue sauce and stick a couple of big potatoes in the oven for bakers in the afternoon.

Thursday

Fajitas. Easy peasy and I have everything in the house for them already and Chloe and I can make the flatbreads in the afternoon.

Friday

Snack night. I want to try and make pizza pockets. This will end in disaster I just know it will but Robert's disgusted that we can't buy the pizza toaster pockets here. I'll throw some mini sausage rolls and chicken dippers int he oven too so that we won't starve.

Saturday

Fish of some description. I have trout and some cod in the freezer. I haven't really decided whether to just steam some fish along with potatoes and veg or make a fish pie with butter sauce and topped with mashed potatoes and cheese.

Sunday

Cured ham (bought at the continental market) and mushroom risotto and as always Chloe and I will be having a poached egg on top. Robert still needs a bit more convincing that a poached egg on top makes any risotto a good risotto.

Baking

I made a cheapy chocolate cake yesterday just using my basic sponge recipe but subbing 25g of cocoa powder in place of the same weight of flour, I then sandwiched chocolate butter cream in between the two layers and Robert's away to work with a slab of it, on a plate, in his lunchbox. He'll tell me I'm weird for bothering with the plate and fork when he gets home but we're not animals for crying out loud.

Bread, obviously. I'll need two crusty bloomers and about 8-10 flatbreads depending on what size they come out.

Oat and Raisin cookies. I've been meaning to make these for a couple of weeks now and somehow still haven't got round to it.

There may or may not need to be another cake for later in the week, Robert's going in a training course with a colleague and I'm told he gets a grump on if Robert doesn't bring him cake so I'll make one for him to take to the course on the last day.

Wonderhubs Strikes Again

Would you ever take a look at the little cat house my fabulous husband just threw together using odds and sods he had lying around the garage.







I think you'll agree she looks very comfortable and happy in there.

And not to be satisfied with building just your average bog standard box, the husband had to go the full hog with this this. Can I just point out that this particular box features cavity walls, floor and roof and every square inch of cavity has been stuffed with polybead. Not to mention the yacht varnish, non-toxic sealant and tarred base and roof to keep the elements out. This thing has a higher R rating than my own house. Its an ark built for one, basically.

I think I may have lost my title as The Handy One around here.

Isn't he just wonderful.

Ta muchly hubs!

Quicky Kitty Update

So I'm pretty sure the cat lives here now.




She curls up beside me every evening while I get a bit of work done at the laptop, so yes, she is inside the house now.




It took us a while to figure out that she only likes cat food with turkey in it and I've definitely noticed her looking a bit fuller and healthier since we sorted that. I check her occasionally and I can still feel her ribs although I can't see them so she's clearly a good healthy weight.




It' a cat's life isn't it?




I assumed this cat had a bit of fight in her because of her injuries and if I wasn't completely sure that this is her home now she went ahead a proved it on Wednesday.

Another cat dared venture into her garden and let me tell you, our little kitty kicked seven bells out of that cat. I don't think we'll be seeing it around here for a while.

And I figured, since she seems to be happy here, that we might as well give her a name.

Toots has suggested.......

Wait for it.........

Bert!

I'm taking suggestions.

Please for the love of all things holy, give me some suggestions.

Because after spending the first few weeks calling her him, then cat, then kitty I will not confuse the poor thing further by calling Bert.

Besides, I think she might kick my ass if I tried.

The one where she rambles on and on and ...

Houston we have confirmation.

The cat is a girl.

The husband took a deep breath and went outside to check.

I asked if he was sure.

He looked insulted.

The weather here the last couple of days has been out of this world. It shortly after 9am at the minute and absolutely cooking outside. Which is exactly where I am by the way. Sitting on the deck with a good cup of coffee, I actually put the percolator on this morning. So I'm sitting on my deck with my lovely laptop, my coffee and kitty purring away happily beside me.

Cat sounded far too manly for a girl and I'm pretty sure we have a pet cat now. The husband's even in the garage as we speak building her a little outside house thingy. Is it still a kennel if its for a cat. I should really buy a book shouldn't I?

My mum's complete inability to read the size of something clearly printed on the side of the box continues. Yesterday she arrived home with a "paddling pool" for Toots which turned out to be an above ground swimming pool. Seriously this thing is huge, it covers her entire deck and we can all fit in it. Not that we all tried mind you.

Also, she didn't buy a pump to inflate the thing. Have you ever got high huffing on kid's inflatables. Anyway, one last minute, blue in the face, completely knackered run to Argos later and we had a fully inflated pool and no serious cases of oxygen deprivation.

My dad also dug out the old swing ball. People outside the UK might know it as tether ball, I'm not sure.

Now swing ball might look like a nice innocuous child's game but that's where you're wrong. At least if you were raised by my dad, you are. You see to my dad, swing ball is a vicious blood soaked battle and his early teachings wore off on both my brother and I.

Toots looked a little concerned to begin with when confronted with this side of her mother. Teeth bared and angry glare on her face as she smashed the ball back at her own dad, who in turn hammered the ball right back at me.

My dad was never a big fan of the whole "kids should always win" idea. As far as he was concerned you had to WANT to win and be willing to fight for it. It's a fair point really. Imagine your kid grows up and wants to become a surgeon. Is it ok for them to step up to the table every day and have patients die left, right and centre as long as they at least tried. Not really.

Anyway, most games of swing ball between my dad, brother and I usually ended with either the ball flying off the end of the tether or one of us breaking a hole in the centre of the plastic bat.

Good times.

I spent yesterday afternoon making some new jewellery for the shop







I wanted something nice and light and summery for myself, so I decided to make a few extra at the same time. I seem to get stuck in the rut of always wearing the same jewellery, but yesterday in the heat I just couldn't do it.

I'm planning on putting the finishing touches to a few things for a giveaway today. It won't be here, but don't worry I'll tell you where it is once its up and you can run over and get your entries in.

First things first though. I'm off out the garage to make a new scratch post for kitty.

See you all later.

Got Gremlins? Want Mine?

So much for having a quiet couple of days.

I woke this morning just before 6am. Flo's here which probably goes someway to explaining the bad week or so I've been having. I came downstairs, loaded up on paracodol and coffee and settled myself down for a quiet hour at the laptop before Toots woke up.

I pushed the button and ... zip, nada, nothing dead.

screaming quietly on the inside, screaming quietly on the inside

As per my normal reaction to broken electrics (and don't laugh because 9 times out of 10 it works), it went outside, chained smoked for a few minutes, came back in had another coffee and returned to the laptop, greeting it as though the for first time that morning and pushed the button.

Still nothing.

Obviously I eventually got it working again, after a certain amount of crying and begging and swearing. It turns out the battery has taken a sulk because I always work of the mains and decided that a heart attack was just what I needed this morning.

And this after I signed up for Yahoo Messenger last night. The husband has had problems getting Google Talk to work on his Blackberry and this should have been a nice, simple and free way to keep in touch during the day if need be.

But then Yahoo, having no concept of the word "No", proceeded to RAPE by laptop. Yes Yahoo, more like Yee-frigging-Haa as you jumped on board and molested my poor little baby.

Would like Yahoo as you home page? No. Here have it anyway.

Would you like a Yahoo toolbar? No, thank you. Sure go on, you'll love it.

Would you like us to fill your desktop with crappy childish emoticons. I'm not 13, so NO. Here, have them, who doesn't love a smiley face or six.

Well, Yahoo if you're listening. Twenty minutes it took to download all of your spammer crap, but it took me less than ten to delete it all again. Suck it.

Then the mediaplayer died. It still isn't working, but you know how I'll be spending my day. I could cry. My entire backup is on that mediaplayer, not to mention a ton of photos of Toots along with a mountain of music and movies. If I can't get it working I'll have to dig the real live dvds out of God knows where. It will turn on, but can't seem to see it's own hard drive. I'm hoping that's a good thing and only the connection to the hard drive it buggered, but that everything is still nestled safely inside, if I can just get at it.

And it all started out so well too.

The weather's been great the last couple of days and since it's supposed to rain all weekend, Toots and I too advantage. We'll taken some walks to areas of the town she hasn't been to before. We've sat on the grass in the square, eating pokes in the sunshine. It was lovely.

My creativity seems to have reared its head too and I've had some ideas for things to make, for the shop and for my own home, but they'll linger on the back burner until I get everything in the house fixed.

Oh and the washing machine needs to be looked at too. Its getting very close to dandering around the kitchen during the spin cycle.

We have a little friend staying too.








I'm starting to think a huge cosmic joke is being played on me.

We've been considering getting a dog for the last couple of weeks and had finally settled on a firm "yes", when Cat showed up. He's been here for about four days now.

Just to clarify. Its not that I have anything at all against cats, its just that I've never met one who liked me. I've came away from a few feline introductions over the years with a battle scar or two.

I'm assuming this little guy has been starved for attention, because I seem to be his favourite. He curls up beside when I'm outside and loves being scratched on the very top of his head.

Still, its obvious that he's a house cat. He's immaculate and looks to be well looked after so somebody must be missing him.

We're off out this morning to put up a few posters and hope for the best. It isn't entirely obvious from the photo, but he only has one eye which should make him easy enough to identify to his owners.

In the meantime, I'll keep him safe, warm and fed.