Just a short update to my Pussie’s Galore blog. As you may or may not know, our cats sleep out in my craft, come cat room at night :O) As cats will, they find places all over the room to sleep so we lay soft blankets in all the places for them. Unfortunately, all those blankets laid out all over the room make it look a real mess and not very inviting for my crafting moments. If we allow it they would happily take over the whole home.

We were doing our washing yesterday and the container we use to carry the washing down was laying on it’s side and Sukie was darting in and out playing. I said to Mo. “That would make a brilliant cat bed, I’m sure they would love them” Today I went out in my craft room and saw that Mo had been busy. She had taken all their cat beds away and was washing them, there were three neat tunnels with soft blankets in the bottom, all lined up like prefabs :O) Look at the pic. The room looks so much tidier now. All we hope now is that the cats will love them.

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I decided to do a blog on my cats after reading Sindie’s :O)

Here is our poor old lady - Livvie who, no matter how much I called her name, wouldn’t even look at me for the photo. Livvie who, when young, thought she was a dog and did lots of clever tricks. Sadly, the awful accident she had put pay to that. The only cat I know who refuses to drink from anything but the running tap in the kitchen, and who’s mewing could wake the dead!

Next is Chicken’s sister, Mitzi, who I woke up and made her look at me while I flashed away on macro setting, straight in her face. Bless her she just yawned a few times, curled up and went straight back to sleep. A refreshing change from the banshee we called Livvie, Mitzi doesn’t have a voice box - well that’s how it seems. I have never known such a silent cat! If she wants to go out she will just sit patiently waiting at the back door until someone happens to go by and see her. I’m not sure I have ever heard her make a sound, although Mo says she has. She is more loving now than when we first got her I’m glad to say.

Hmmmm….. Sukie! Well what a noisy cat Sukie is. She runs around the house making all sorts of very strange sounds. She seems to have a complete vocabulary all of her own! Extremely funny and extremely loving. We couldn’t have picked a better kitten. Mind you every now and then she gets into such a playful frenzy that you dare not attempt to pick her up, not if you want your hands left in tact :O)

She has a habit of going to Mo for some love then very suddenly rushing across the room and flings herself in my lap for strokes and kisses, then back to Mo, then back to me, then back …….. This can go on several times until she finally settles down somewhere, all loved up :O)

This photo is of Sheba just before she got ill and when she was about 16 years old. Aside from the eye colour Sheba and Sukie are identical to look at!

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Last year we bought Sandie some plants (for her birthday or something). At the same time we also bought some for us and planted them in our little tubs around our new decking. They died :O(

Sandie sent us a photo of how well hers are doing this year - and they are! We noticed that Sandie’s plants all thrive so well and ours all die so we asked Sandie why hers do so well. Sandie’s reply was “Nothing really, except feed them regularly”

I can’t believe how stupid we were, and that we didn’t stop to think that plants in containers need feeding! How else are they to get all the nutrients they need?

We were both in a state of dismay that we could forget something as basic as that. We had been such keen (and good) gardeners with all our other gardens. I think that because we were disappointed with the garden in this house, we hadn’t bothered for a few years and forgot all the basics ha ha! We are feeling more like gardening again now though so it should start looking good again soon.

What we really need is to find a gardener that can come and do the digging and weeding as that’s the bit we can’t do any more.

Today Mo went out and bought me this :O)

How cute is it?

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No photos with this blog - you’ll see why!

I came down this morning and opened the back door to let the cats out. Sukie came rushing into the kitchen, choking her little heart out. After soothing her and rubbing under her neck to ease it, I gave her a saucer of milk and then went out into their room - well I didn’t go right in as I was faced with quite a sight! Cat biscuits all over the floor, piles of sick everywhere (including in a food bowl) and bits of something I couldn’t make out strewn around.

On closer examination I realised it was the remains - and I mean remains - of a creature. I felt sick so decided to close the door on it all until I had something to line my stomach!

When I felt able to, I opened the door again and decided that I should start somewhere. I laid kitchen roll over the various patches of sick and reached for our wonder sweeper to collect all the biscuits up….. I felt really sick now! Right on the top was a blob of what looked like strawberry jam. I immediately put that down and was faced with a decision. What should I tackle first? I decided that maybe the bits of ‘Whatever’ should be the first thing. The quicker they were gone, the better!

As I got close I realised it had been a bird as there was a single tuft of about four feathers laying close to a lump (about an inch square) of flesh and then some smaller pieces. It was doing my stomach no good I can tell you! I quickly gathered it up into kitchen roll, after dropping it a few times, and rushed it out into the bin. I then did the really brave bit of getting rid of the strawberry jam :O(

Now the sick….. That wasn’t too bad. Then I got rid of all the biscuits and sprayed the floor with ‘Vanish’ and cleaned everything up along with cleaning the sweeper with anti-bacterial cleaner - All done :O)

We had a pile of sheets ready for the washing machine and I decided to get that done. I picked one sheet up and then had a horrible thought…… I shook it and it was fine :O) I picked the next one up, shook it, fine. Then the third one, which had been underneath the other two…. you’ve guessed….. out rolled a tiny little birds head! I very quickly got rid of it, trying not to think of what I had in my hand :O(

I only hope I don’t find any more surprises .

It wasn’t hard to guess why Sukie had been choking. Mitzi must have brought it through the cat flap and then had a free for all chasing it around the room with Sukie. Poor little thing. Worse thing is Sukie now has a taste for birds so will obviously follow Mitzi in that horrid habit :O( None of our cats have done that before, and now we have two hunters!

The cat flap is staying firmly closed now and they will have to ask to come in.

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Our little ‘Under the cupboard’ light broke, and as we are keen on conserving energy, it is the only light we have on in the kitchen. It’s just where we make our cuppa so that’s about right :O) It was important that we get a new one fitted so Mo promptly popped to her favourite (cheap) warehouse and bought one.

Here are some pictures I took of her putting it up! I started taking them for fun, but soon became aware that it wasn’t really funny! It took her ages to turn over in order to get down.

The colour of her face when she finally got down really was as in the photo, and she felt physically sick for ages afterwards.

The sad thing is that we are not getting any younger and we have to accept that we can’t do these things any more. The other alternative is to ‘Get someone in’ and that works out too costly. That, I suppose, is where ‘retiring with a little nest egg’ becomes important :O(

Actually, on a lighter note. I discovered that he broken light had bowed slightly and only worked when straightened. I suggested that Mo screw it on to a piece of batten to straighten it. That done, we put it up under the other cupboard in a jiffy using ‘No Nails’

There’s life in us old gals yet :O)

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As promised, a list of some of the things I can remember. I’ve missed out the things that are mentioned in my other blog.

I remember…

The steam trains being in full service.

Butter being cut to size and patted into shape with ‘Butter Pats’, placed into grease proof paper and weighed on the scales.

When all food was organic.

The lovely smells when you entered a grocery shop. Before food was pre-packed in layers of plastic.

When Woolworth’s had wooden floors and a smell all of their own.

When you could spend a farthing - For those of you who don’t know, a farthing was one quarter of an old penny. Twelve old pennies made one shilling which is the same as 5p now. Divide 5p by 48 and that’s a farthing :O) Judge for yourself how little we needed to spend when we were kids.

When Guineas were a monetary value.

Hot poultices

Polishing the floor with rags on our feet

When TV didn’t transmit on a Sunday except for religious programmes.

When there was no TV!

Journey In To Space

78’s and gramophone needles

Tin Soldiers

Button ‘A’ and button ‘B’

Canonbury 8343

Sweeping carpets with a broom

Washing by hand being the norm

Stove irons

The ‘Hoover Twin tub’

Trolly buses

The bus conductors ticket machine with rows of different colour (for different price) tickets. He would pull one out and stamp a little hole in it.

When Cliff Richard used to dribble

Skiffle and Lonnie Donegan

Rock & Roll

Teddy Boys

The Jive

The Val Doonican Show

Radio Luxembourg

Transistor radios

Six, Five Special

I’ll give it five!

Chubby Checker and “The Twist”

Popper beads

Pie & Mash shops

Laying in the bath with Levi’s on to shrink-fit them

When jeans stood up on their own!

Pony Tails

The ‘Beehive’

Drip dry shirts

Permanently pleated dresses

Flower power

The first Mini-skirts

Hot pants

Stereo record players

The emergence of Laura Ashley

‘Evening’ dresses

When men wore suits

Creases in trousers

Dancing to Ray McVay and his orchestra

I could have gone on, and on, and on…..

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I have posted this blog (below) mainly because my short email brought back fond memories for Leeta. I wrote this a while ago and thought I would give it another airing. I will follow it up with another ‘Memories’ blog soon :O)

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We set off for Skegness today with a picnic. After travelling for at least an hour and realising we were at least another hour and fifty minutes away we decided to go to Cleethorpes instead.

We had been some years ago with friends and Emily but hadn’t really seen the beach. We are not ‘beachy’ people but it was a beautiful beach, miles of fine, golden sand, and so clean - not a pebble in site! The tide was out and, as you can see from the photo, it went miles out too. It was ideal for sand sculptures and castles, although I didn’t see any. When I was younger I would have loved a beach like that. I would have donned my “Jockery Bockers” and had great fun playing Jockery , followed by a stint of sand sculpture :O)

We came across a point at which the beach came to an end. I haven’t seen that before. The photo shows the grass growing on the beach. It gradually became ‘Land’ instead of beach, but not before it formed a lovely area of higher grassy patches and little pockets of sand. A lovely spot to sit or picnic.

We both said that we wouldn’t mind a short holiday there as it has everything, including parks, lakes etc. Well I said it has everything but it didn’t! Can you believe, that complete stretch of beach and not one ice cream cornet to be had?
We even went on a caravan site in the hopes of getting one but, no! I had to have a Bounty ice cream and it was so sickly I wished I hadn’t eaten it :O( Not an ice cream van anywhere - we were amazed!

We had a lovely time though - ice cream aside, and decided that it was definitely worth the trip.

We decided to start back and pressed “Home” on our Sat Nav after about five minutes the sat nav just died on us! We had no idea how to get home. We almost went up to Scotland! We eventually followed the signs for Leeds and saw a sign for Barnsley :O) It was a longer journey home but, it had been a nice day so we didn’t mind.

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Mo had another one of her baking days. She is getting too cocky for words lately :O)
She baked sausage rolls with flaky pastry. I don’t eat sausage rolls normally, but she made these with our favourite ‘Turkey’ sausages and the pastry was delicious!

I also noticed a baking tray with lots of fairy cakes laid out in little cases. This time they really were fairy cakes, the lightest sponge you could wish for. So light you had to put a lid on them to hold them down ha ha!

She decided to decorate them. Well Mo and creative stuff just don’t go together. She iced them, but unfortunately she made it like water and it had just poured down around the paper cases. She also sprinkled tiny little flowers on, which looked like they had been dumped on any old how (which they probably had). Bless her, she has said that next time I get to decorate them ha ha! They are deliciously light and fluffy though :O)

Clickable photos :O)

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I know I haven’t blogged for a while. It’s because I have been very busy creating a music DVD. I thought I would post this photo of our new daisy plant we potted last week :O) Doesn’t it look lovely? I so hope it comes back next year as lovely.

It’s the largest one I have ever seen. It must be almost 2 foot across.

I’m hoping to have a fuller blog soon as we’re going off on one of our famous “Treasure hunts” Tuesday evening. It is usually such a laugh - except when we took Emily on the first one we ever did, and got lost on the moors, in the dark ha ha! Poor Emily was a lot younger then and was just a tad frightened.

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