A taste of today...

Today I bought myself an Easter egg.  It is to replace the last one I bought, which I ate.  And that one was to replace the first one I bought.  And ate.  I may have to hide this one from myself....

TC and Summer are loving life on the sofa.  They lie next to me and if I get up, slowly move towards each other.  Which means when I sit down I often sit on their tails.  It's not my fault, my beloved Tinker lived with me for 17 years and she had no tail to sit on. Or stand on. Or shut in doors.  I'm very sorry cats....

Demon left the lid off her tub of pompoms.  After polystyrenegate, we now have pompomgate...Demon, you've got a lot of tidying up to do tomorrow.  

Demon was given a sticker at school.  

Me: Was it rectangular?

Demon: No, it was round.

Me: Was it silver?

Demon: No it was red and white.

Me: And did the teacher put it over your mouth?

Demon: No Mum, we weren't gaffer taped.....

New ball please!

Today we went to the field.  It was a bit cooler and that led me to the decision to avoid the water.  That and yesterday's antics...

So we went for a bimble, and passed the brook.  As usual, Stella took herself off into the brook, stood in it....and you could hear the cogs turning.  Hmmm, bit cold is it Stella?

A nano second later she was back out of the brook and we went for a walk.  Stella played with her new ball quite a lot today.  It hasn't popped yet, despite her best efforts, but as it has lost its coating, it tends to collect bits quite easily.  Today's collection was mud, leaves, twigs and a random feather.  We had time to take a new path, which unfortunately led us to the water.  No worries though, Stella isn't as daft as she lets you think she is, and stayed well clear of the water.

Until we got to the stagnant, stinking, putrid mudhole.  Yes, you guess it, straight in.  Thankfully, it's only knee deep.  The Ball got to have a play too.  It must have tasted as badly as it smelt, because Stella took it straight into a pond.  Well I say 'in'.  She threw it into the water while she dipped her toes in.  Then it was time to grab and dash.  

Back in the field, she was deliberately winding me up by not letting me kick the ball, and I got fed up of my 'Mr Miagi's school of karate' poses in front of bemused teenagers and told her we were going home. 

As not enough flying through the air had taken place, the ball had still retained all of it's detritus, and Stella decided she was going to clean it.

By wiping it down my legs.....repeatedly.  

I now have the smelliest, slimiest jeans known to womankind.

Cheers Stella....

Water calamity!

OK, own up!!  Who let Stella sniff the blue smarties?!?!  I took her for a walk yesterday and she was a complete lunatic.

As Demon had her friend to play with, Stella went postal with the water and got soaked.  She kept throwing herself in, which isn't as brave as it sounds, it only reaches her belly.  Having run out of things to fetch, she bounded up behind a teenager, who had rolled his trouser legs up to his knees...and rubbed herself across the back of them.  Poor lad nearly had a heart attack.  Worse was to come.

He picked up a stone, and, as his friend wandered off, went to throw it into the water.  Stella was watching the stone like a hawk.  Before she came into rescue she's obviously spent a lot of time playing with stones, as her teeth are broken and chipped.  Knowing exactly what she was about to do, I shouted NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! very loudly.  I looked up to see a teenager with a very stunned expression and his arm up in the air.

Me: Oh sorry, I'm not shouting at you, I'm shouting at her...she's waiting for you to throw it.

Teenager: Oh, I'll put it down then!

And with that he dropped it like...well, a hot stone now you come to mention it and off he went.  He perched on the side of the water and started splashing his feet in the water.  He's braver than me, I know what Stella smells like when she's been in there!  But as he sat there splashing the water around with his feet, a certain little girl high-tailed it towards him and threw herself into the water.  Exit stage right one teenager screaming in terror....

I called her off, and she came straight back.  After sniffing smelling salts for the shock, I tried to get her to come away from the poor, traumatised teenager.

But then...Stella spotted a floating log.  As it drifted towards her, hearing was set to OFF and nothing I said got through her ears, never mind brain.  As the log got to our side of the water, she stood in the shallows and tried to get it into her mouth.  Not even Stella's gob is that big (and that's words I never thought I'd utter) and she gave up.  It was then she realised that there were humans sitting on it.  The first one caught her attention, the second one confused her as they had no legs.  The third one really grabbed her attention as he was waving a stick around.  A stick that was soon in a tug of war between a very amused man and a very confused dog.

Me:  Stellaaaaaaaaaaaaa....

Stella: Mum! Mum! Did you see it? Did you see that great big giant log? And did you see that man playing with me with that stick?

Me:  No, Stella...........that's a C.A.N.O.E........and that stick is actually a P.A.D.D.L.E.....

Stella:  Ooopsie....

The man was taking the boys away from us, but soon realised that the swans were approaching and being aggressive.  Very slowly he did an eleventy million point turn and started heading back....towards a hyper German Shepherd bouncing like a lamb and shouting about how she wanted a go.....

We didn't go to the water today....

Fateful musings...

Note to self: do NOT, under any circumstances, tempt Fate....

Too late.  When I said that living with the cats was like living in a snow globe, it was before I realised they had found a lump of polystyrene.   Which is becoming smaller by the second....

So, I truly do, now, live in a snow globe and I have the carpet to prove it!  What little of it I can see.

They've all had a go at playing football with it, but Tatwo is currently hiding in the cardboard box used to store Stella's toys and denying all knowledge.  Again.

Straw poll...

Demon decided she couldn't be bothered to keep picking up her drink, so she used a 50cm 'giant' straws and put her drink on the floor so the straw would fit.  Lazy mare.  I put the straw (after she'd finished, obviously)  in the recycling bag and thought nothing more of it.

When I heard a banging noise I was a little confused.  Straws tend not to bang.  I looked round the corner and caught Tatwo, Tickles and TC working together/fighting each other/working together to get the straw back out of the bag, which was hanging off a doorhandle.  Success was a long time coming, but finally the straw was free and the door could go back on its hinges.

Tatwo was seen sprinting off upstairs with a 50cm straw in his mouth, and his two brothers in hot pursuit, to play with his new toy.  Half an hour later, Tatwo came back downstairs with something that resembled a straw, still sideways in his mouth, and all four siblings chasing him.

By the time he got to the living room he had two on each side of him, all five of them lined up with a strangled straw in their mouths.

Stella was fascinated by them, and Summer was on the sofa with me being thankful she's not a genetic relative of the loonies hooning round my living room.

Meanwhile I was taking bookings from the Red Arrows for formation training...

The madness is spreading....

 A Facebook conversation from today.

Karen: Just so everyone knows - today is apparantly not Saturday . . .

Me: Monday wasn't Sunday either. I hate these days that swap round

Chrissie:  If Monday wasn't Sunday then Friday is July??? 

Me: It quite possibly could be, we do put the clocks forward after all! 

Chrissie:  Yes am moving mine forwards to the patio doors

Stella goes Ninja...

Stella likes sticks.  When I say 'sticks', I mean wood of any length.  She's not bothered as long as she has something to play with.  Hence the look of fear on my face when a 7 foot tall young tree was shaking as if a wild animal was charging through the forest.  In actual fact it was a mad German Shepherd who wouldn't be told that the 'stick' was actually a branch, and still attached...

At the other end of the scale, she'll quite happily play with a twig.  Still bouncing around like My Little Pony and pretending she's carrying a log that a lumberjack would view with pride.

She has a tendency to chew the middle of the stick.  She did it one day, chewed the middle out of the wood, but left the bark intact.  So that's two mini sticks, attached in the middle by the bark.  You're one step ahead of me, aren't you?!  Yes, correct, homemade nunchucks.

Stella picked up one stick, and I knew she was going to shake it. I did tell her not to, but why listen to your mum?  So she shook it...and nearly brained herself.  Hmmmm confusion, let's put the stick down and think about it.  For about 30 seconds she stood looking at the stick, and sniffing it.

Obviously, when you've shaken one out of two sticks, and the other one is a) attached and b) smacking you in the face, the way to solve the problem is.....to pick up the second of the two sticks and shake that one instead.  That's right, the one that's the same length and same distance from the other one....

Being surprised at being brained for a second time, Stella finally worked it out.  The way to play with homemade nunchucks is to fold them in half apparently!

Speechless.....

Demon was explaining the conversation at lunch that she and a few of her fellow 9 and 10 year olds had.

Demon: We were talking about which would be the worst way to die.
Me: Oh. Nice.
Demon: Yeh, we have these random conversations sometimes.
Me: You're not wrong there.  This was at lunchtime? While you were eating?
Demon: Yes.  Molly said being shot with a rifle. George said being murdered.
Me: Nice....
Demon: And I said, having your skin taken off all over and being dropped into a vat of lemon juice.

Speechless..........

When Mother Nature calls....

Last week Stella and I had one of our walks in the woods without Demon.  Halfway through the walk I was struck by a thought.

I need the toilet....

Luckily, the woods is part of a council run park, and it has a toilet block.  Sorted!

Not sorted.  I was on my own with Stella. 

Nothing to it, I'll take her in with me I thought.  All was well until Stella spotted the toilet.  Ooooh drink!! 

Erm, no don't think so!!  I shrieked NO! and Stella backed out of the cubicle.  Every time I tried to get her back in, she stuck her head down the toilet.  I was fast beginning to realise that this perhaps wasn't the best idea I'd ever had.

We ended up using the disabled cubicle, which I thought would give us plenty of room.

It gave me marginally more time to wrestle a German Shepherd doing a fantastic Father Jack Hackett impression away from a toilet while my bladder was at bursting point and my stomach was struggling to hang on to it's contents due to the smell....  I think Stella's not the only one to need a DRINK!! 

Identity crises.

I've noticed the personalities of my pets has changed a little lately. 

Stella likes to eat cat food, and the cats like to eat dog food.  When Stella does a poo, Tickles will bury it for her.  When the cats play fight, Stella tells them all off.  They're a pretty tightknit bunch now.

This morning I was in the shower, and had the bathroom radio on.  A good tune came on, and I was quite happily singing.  The door swung open, and Titch sat in the doorway glaring.  Normally, if I'm in the bathroom, Titch is in the bathroom.  He's worse than a toddler.  This morning, though, he was not impressed by the level of noise.

Me: Ello Titch

Titch: I'm not coming in til you stop that noise.

Me: Shut the door Titch, it's letting the heat out.

At this point the door shut in his face and with the best Garfield glare he could muster, he pushed the door open again, and sat with one paw holding the door open.  Tickles shot in.  Tickles now thinks he's a hamster, and had a field day with the cardboard inner from the toilet roll.  Titch let the door shut and stalked off, muttering.  He's no longer a morning cat.

 Midnight thinks she's a Ninja, and will quite happily lie down in dark places, waiting.....just waiting....  I think she may have found the insurance policy and got her name on it as beneficiary.  Her favourite place to lie when it's dark, knowing how I generally walk around in the dark is.....the top of the stairs.  Hmmmm...

Summer thinks she's a dog.  A Boxer.  She will quite happily punch anything in the face, or on the leg, or on the back...anywhere she can reach really.  No reason for it, it's purely because she can.

TC thinks he's a girl.  He makes a beeline for any reflective surfaces, shoving anything that happens to get in the way onto the floor.  I have a coat over the mirror on my dressing table.  It's not cold, it just stops the vainest cat in the whole wide world from gawping at himself as he empties the stuff onto the floor.

Stella thinks she's a cat now.  Every time we go out, she's off chasing birds.  And ignoring the dogs.

And Tatwo.....is still a nutter.

Letter from the cats....

Dear Mum

Thank you for showing us the magic doors, we think they're amazing.  We just don't know how to work them properly though, do they come with instructions?  The little one in the big one lets us go out to the garden, but sometimes it won't open and we smack our noses on it.  And when we're outside we want to come back in but Stella keeps poking her head through it, can you tell her it's ours and she's not allowed to play with it please?

We love the magic food doors, but they don't work very well.  We got inside the one with all the boxes and tins it.  We found those little shiny balls but they're a bit too small to play with and they stick to your paws.  Demon said they were supposed to go on her cakes, but we weren't to know were we?! We know you come out of that door with our food, so we looked really hard for it.  We know it isn't underneath the silver balls, but we looked behind the cereals you have for breakfast, and in the bag of crisps, and everywhere.  Sorry about the mess, but we did put it in a neat pile on the floor.  We didn't find any of our food, and we hope you haven't run out of it.  You haven't, have you?! Noooooo, please tell us we won't starve!  We haven't eaten for all of two long horrible hours, we're wasting away here....

We tried looking behind the magic door with the light.  We don't like that one.  It's cold and we don't like being cold.  And it keeps shutting on our heads, we don't like that either.  Please don't keep our food in there, we'll never be able to get to it if you do.

We really love living here Mum.  Well actually, we love living with you and Demon and Stella and those funny things at the bottom of the garden that live in the big wire cage.  We don't love the rain or the wind though.  When we lived in Cyprus we had a big yellow heater in the sky.  Can you get one for here too please?  But make sure you don't turn it up too much or all the humans get lazy and sleep lots, and as we all know, that's our job....

Lots of love,
The Cats xxxxxx

It's been a funny old week....

The cats have slowly destroyed everything.  My curtains.  My sofa.  My will to live....  It's like living in a snow globe, I tidy up, 3 seconds later six monsters enter the room and shake it all up again.  

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Facebook status during last week....

Girl cats AWOL....upset child
Found girl cats, got them in, now lots of scrapping cats.....upset dog gobbing off
Dog gives Brat a Glaswegian kiss.....bawling child
Child realises there is blood...all. Hell. Let. Loose....

Someone please just shoot me....

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On Sunday the weather was lovely, no wind, no rain, and a yellow round UFO in the sky bringing much smileyness.  Off we went to the woods.  Seems everyone else had the same idea, and Stella was thankfully in a good mood.  She was trotting ahead of us, and we approached a corner that I always make her wait at.  If I don't, she ends up in the stinky pond.  As we got closer, I noticed a couple, probably in their late 40s sat on the bench sucking each other's face off.  Suddenly, the woman ended up flat on her back, legs wrapped around the bloke, and he was sat on the bench but laying over the woman.  "Bit much, there's kids round..." I thought. Stella got bored of waiting and started trotting off.  I called her, but not particularly loudly.  I called her again.  At this point she put her ball down, which is what she does when she's waiting.  But instead of waiting, she carried on trotting.  Towards the amorous pair on the bench.  They didn't see her coming.   They did, however, catch the face stuck between theirs and the "wotchyadoooooooooin?" 

 Much shrieking ensued....and then the woman shrieked too.

 At this point Stella trotted back to a Mum who couldn't resist saying "you're lucky she didn't join in...."

Hopping mad...

I've had rabbits for the last few years, two large ones called Pele and Conker.  Sadly, Conker the French lop girl died last year and Pele was left on his own.  Rabbits don't fare well as solitary animals, and so I found a rescue not too far away to bond him with another girl.  We chose Wendy.

Wendy is a lot smaller than Pele, and is therefore a lot quicker.  Quicker to get to the food, quicker to sit in the bowl and quicker to do a runner with her favourite bits.  She likes to escape.  A lot.  Tonight I've had to shovel half my garden back into a hole she's created, and it would seem it's not a hidey hole for her, oh no, it's a hidey hole for a herd of elephants if the size is any indication of her intentions.

A couple of weeks ago I couldn't find her to put her to bed at night.  Night was drawing in fast so time was of the essence.  She was nowhere to be found, and on a complete whim I looked over the fence.

There she was, sat in next door's garden.  Laughing at me. 

It took me climbing over all sorts of building materials, being smacked in the face by tree branches I couldn't see because of lack of light to discover she could get round both sides of the neighbour's shed.  Having hurtled head first over a pile of something hard and bruise making and quite clearly hovering at thigh level, I was beginning to lose the will to live.  The neighbour by now had begun co-ordinating rabbit rescue from the edge of the lawn, and had her niece guarding one side of the shed while Demon guarded the other.  Wendy sat in the flowerbed admitting defeat...until I got near enough to be able to grab her and she was off at top speed.

I start my new career in English Rugby next weekend.....

Flapping around...

The Cyprus 6 are not impressed by British weather.  They don't like the wind.  Well, to put it more accurately, they don't like wind that they don't create.  They really don't like rain.  Apparently it makes you wet.  And they really, really don't like hail.  When the hail started there were five cats glaring from inside the house.  I looked outside and saw Summer running towards the house.  At speed.  So quickly, in fact, that I didn't have time to get to the back door to open it before she ploughed her way through.  She was very lucky that the cat flap was unlocked.

She hit it so hard that she's being treated for concussion and we now have a revolving cat flap....

Meet the nippers...

Tickles has a habit.  He likes to nip.  Whenever I have flesh outside the duvet, it gets nipped.  I'm not a morning person.  Neither am I a middle of the night person.  I am also not a blood donor.  Tickles has a lot to learn.  Like flying.  He's had a few lessons so far, it's work in progress.

Summer is a complete nutter.  She's decided the best way to get fed more quickly is to help herself.  By biting my legs while she's stood behind me.  She only ever does it while I'm in the kitchen, and usually while I'm washing up.  She's trying to tell me I need to get myself a dishwasher obviously.

Doesn't that mean getting married though??   :p

All aboard...

I'm not one for change.  I like things to be as they should be.  I like to find things as I left them.

I have no hopes....

I went to the woods in the week with Stella.  As you may imagine, I was heartbroken to see that they've run a train track through the side of it.  And when I nearly lost the skin off my face from the train rushing past me, I had a thought.

Why do men feel the need to tie inanimate objects to the front of vehicles?  Lorries, for some inexplicable reason, have teddies tied to their front grilles.  Steam trains through picturesque countryside, have flat balls tied to the front.

Oh! My mistake!  Not a steam train, it's Stella.

The best part of being able to get to the woods in school hours is that there is very rarely anybody but us in there.  Stella now thinks she owns the woods, which is great fun at the weekend.

When Stella wants to know why they're all in HER woods.....