April in Instagram

So what have I been doing lately apart from being over-emotional, as testified by my last blog post?

Office playtime My office is kind of cool. We have a meeting room with lots of cool stuff to play with including some Play Doh. Now I can make stuff in the middle of meetings. I am concentrating I swear, Making caterpillars helps me focus.

Tequila time The beginning of the Easter weekend kicked off with a trip round to a colleague's house. I came in from work on Thursday, slapped some lippy on and...got so so drunk. Horrifyingly drunk. This is what happens when you drink at home and you're in control of pouring your own drinks and in charge of several bottles of tequila.

Birthday time Two days after Tequila Night it was my birthday. 32. Ugh. No thanks. I travelled back to Hull for the weekend, still suffering from the Tequila Night Hangover. A quick nap on the sofa at Mum's when I arrived and I woke up to this little Fred face looking at me. Pretty sure he was judging me.

Fred and Lily time I ended up penned in by these guys on the sofa one night. Best night of my life.

Chandelier time I had a meeting for work at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole. It has some amazing chandeliers in the meeting rooms and my favourite thing is taking photographs of them.

Rowan time I love this dog. She is my best friend. I can't get enough of taking photos of her face, although why she looks so sad all the time I'll never know.

Gerbil time Gerbil playtime has been happening. I still can't take my eyes off it for more than a second. If I do then when I look back I will see a scene similar to this. Tyrion Lannister is always on a mission to escape.

Crochet time I've been undertaking some major crochet time recently for a pretty hefty commission for a child's nursery with a bird theme.

London time I was down at the Business Design Centre down in London for a meeting for work which has lots of cool artwork on the walls like the one pictured.

Picnic time A few of us got over excited at the sight of the sunshine and headed down to a local park for a picnic. It was a really brilliant afternoon, looking forward to lots more as the weather improves

Bradgate Park time Following on from the Bradgate Park - Winter Edition, Janet and I ventured to Bradgate Park for the Spring Edition. Blog post to come eventually. 

Lille time Blog post also incoming on this one. I had just over 24 hours in Lille on a trip with work. I declared Lille a thoroughly Instagrammable city. Hopefully a blog post will be incoming on this one too. 

Now just to write blog posts about it instead of putting photos on Instagram...

Follow me on Instagram here

The Weekend in (not real) Verbs

Debating

Lots of debating happened over #TheDress - pretty much anyone I've come across since Friday has asked me this question. I am well in the gold and white camp. It doesn't change colour for me like it seems to for others, my jaw actually dropped open when I saw a picture of the actual dress. A friend who sees blue and black said to me that she wished she could take out her eyes so that I could see what she sees. As a less violent offering I can show you this photo - these are the colours that I see the dress...

Dog Petting

I went to visit Mum's friend to help her learn how to use her Smartphone. It was every bit as painful as it sounds. But the upside is that I got to see Ozzie with his floppy ear, whom I love very much.

Shopping

Not just any kind of shopping but my particularly favourite kind of shopping. The kind that involves you not actually spending any money. I have some vouchers from Christmas and I ran round Matalan like a whirling dervish trying to pick up as many things as possible. Including this bedding which I came home and put on my bed immediately; a testament to how much I love it because I really hate making the bed.

Seaside-ing

I had an urge to go to the sea whilst I was vaguely near it. Living in the Midlands is nice for access reasons, lots of things aren't too far away, unless you want to get to the sea. Then the sea is far. Very very very very far.

So Mum and I headed to Hornsea for the most typical English visit to the seaside ever in that we ate fish & chips, bundled up against the howling wind and looking at very ominous grey skies.

In other words, it was brilliant.

Fred and Lily-ing

You didn't think I'd forgotten about them did you? Obviously not. Fred and Lily were in true crazy Fred and Lily mode. Just look at the photo of Lily's completely manic face at the prospect of being in the vicinity of crisps and dip. And Fred has a fun new trick - jumping on top of the door and then trying to get you as you walk past into the kitchen.

When they are not being totally mad, they are still mostly fond of relaxing, something which Lily is particularly good at doing...

Betwixtmas 2014

Apparently we call the period between Christmas and New Year, Betwixtmas. I heard it on Radio 1 the other day and I liked it. I can be down with the kids.

Betwixtmas for me started off with some fairly major snow late on Boxing Day night. Not a big deal in itself, and quite exciting for most people, but a bit nervewracking for me as the next day I had to drive to Hull. I haven't driven in the snow/ice before and I would also have with me my Mum aka the World's Worst Passenger.

But we made it to Hull which was good because we had to break these two people out of cat prison aka the cattery.

Betwixtmas is a time for many a Fred and Lily photo to be taken. Pay special attention to the top right photo - Lily was nicely asleep on my knee for ages and when Fred saw this he immediately had to come and sit even closer to me because he is a big fat jealous ginger boy.

Betwixtmas was a time for catching up with friends. Catching up with them from 2pm until gone midnight to be precise. Messy. Although the next morning I discovered that I'd had a very productive shopping trip at Sainsburys. Oh and I took the funniest selfie with Lily ever - why does she look so horrified? Because I chased her all around the kitchen grabbing at her to take that photo...

Betwixtmas is also a time for me to dogsit for a day. Which just involves lying on the sofa watching TV with this pair of idiots. I don't know why they always look so sad in photos, I swear to god they're really happy dogs normally.

Betwixtmas is a time for crocheting things that have no purpose and are for you and you alone. I got Kerry Lord's book for Christmas along with some lovely fancy Tofts Alpaca wool (which is eye wateringly expensive when you're used to buying Stylecraft)

Betwixtmas is a time for sitting on your behind, drinking hot chocolate and reading massive 900 page tomes.

Betwixtmas is a time for starting to get organised and fill your fridge up after you have eaten it bare. Before I went shopping I swear to god all I had in my fridge was a bottle of cider, gherkins, Flora and an out of date yoghurt. I love a bit of batch cooking although it drives me mental that I don't have more space in my freezer. Jamie Oliver's basic stew recipe is a winner every time.

Betwixtmas is a time for surprise presents out of the blue from Apple. I have been the proud owner of a first generation iPod Nano for the last 9 years or so. You might not remember first generation iPods, I think they stopped making them a bazillion years ago.

Anyway the battery on mine gradually just got rubbish and wouldn't retain charge. I put out a random tweet saying I felt sad that my iPod's time had come, and a stranger replied pointing me in the direction of Apple's First Generation iPod Replacement Program. I was absolutely convinced it was a scam that was going to steal everything from me but it turns out it was actually true.

I sent my iPod Nano off and Betwixtmas delivered a brand new, latest, 16BG, iPod Nano. I could not believe it. Finally being cheap and not buying the latest model of anything pays off...



Christmas 2014 could suck it but Betwixtmas 2014 I could get on board with.

Photo an Hour l 11th October 2014

It feels as if this month's Photo an Hour post has come around incredibly quickly, but I think that's just a result of the past month being kind of mental for me and that I've only just got around to posting September's Photo an Hour post.

Pop over to Is That You Darling to see others' posts and to find out the date of the next Photo an Hour day which will be in November and you can join in on Twitter and Instagram using #photoanhour

This was Saturday 11th October 2014...

9am - Woke up with raging hangover from a fairly decent session on the Friday night. Lily didn't mind my probably outrageous breath and sat beside me hoping for toast.

10am - Went to my brother & sister-in-law's house for the morning and played with some brilliant sticky mosaic tiles that were supposedly something my 4 year old niece was supposed to be doing. It was so massively therapeutic I can't even tell you.

11am - One finished creation!

12pm - This is Lucinda, my brother's cat. She has the loudest miaow and purr ever. She comes storming in, yelling her head off and isn't fussed at all about who gives her attention. She's so loving and I want to just pick her up and smoosh her forever.

1pm - My niece was going out in the afternoon for a party so put her party frock on. I need shoes like this. I also need to start wearing hot pink tights with silver sparkly shoes. It's a winner.

2pm - All of us played a very confusing game of Kerplunk! in which the kids seemed to think that when the marbles dropped that meant you won. It actually worked quite well because it meant that I was happy that I didn't have to do badly on purpose to let them win (my most hated part of playing with kids because I'm such a sore loser) and they had a brilliant time every time they did it wrong.

3pm - Back in Hull and a quick trip into town with Mumsie

4pm - The Grand Return of the Missing Bag. The previous day I had gone to Waterstones and bought some lovely things. Mum was looking after the bag and left it on the bus. She was absolutely devastated so I had to play things down but there was a fairly large part of me that wanted to throw myself on the ground and scream. On the way back from town on Saturday we stopped in at lost property to check and it had been handed in. Hurrah!

Kind of. Turned out my "Good Samaritan" had taken some stuff out of the bag and left the books in there. Ah well. Can't get too mad about it...

5pm - Got back home for a cup of tea and a muffin. It was needed. With a hangover like mine on this day it's a wonder I even got this far through the day without collapsing.

6pm - Lily gets down to the important business of foot washing and nail biting.

7pm - Starting to sit down for dinner. Salad + garlic bread + steak + onion rings - the way to make me a very happy person.

8pm - Mum and I were still sat round the table talking when I glanced over and spotted this super creepy Lily sitting and waiting to see if we were finished so she could try and attack our plates.

9pm - Sat down with super cool lounge pants and thick socks and cider and promptly fell asleep in front of Midsomer Murders. Form an orderly queue gentleman...

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I feel terrible that Fred didn't even get a look in on these photos so here's a bonus Fred picture...

BEDM Day 7 - May Day Bank Holiday

This latest Bank Holiday saw me back in the Mothership for a weekend of me and Mum time. I'd actually booked the tickets a long time back because I thought I was going out for someone's birthday but sometimes things just don't turn out like you thought they would. But that was fine, it meant more time for me to spend with Mumsie.

I took no crochet with me, just the ridiculously large hardback copy of A Dance with Dragons, the final book in the Song of Ice & Fire series (a.k.a. Game of Thrones). It is just too big that book, but I knew I was finally coming to the end of it and could get through a good chunk of it on the Megabus journey. I started it on 31 March and have been held back from finishing it sooner purely by the literal size of it - it is just physically difficult to lug around with you. Luckily for those reading it in paperback, it has been split into two books - although I can't lie to you, they're still outrageously large.

Speaking of ridiculously large things one of Mum's friends came round to see her with some spare rhubarb from his allotment. Cue Mum walking in with a heavy duty bin liner that she could barely lift. See picture below (Lily is captured for a size reference).

Mum spent a fair portion of my time stewing rhubarb, but there was still a fairly huge pile left so I was dispatched back to the Midlands carrying what felt like half a stone of rhubarb on my back.

Whilst Mum stewed rhubarb, I drank cider, because I know how to roll on a Bank Holiday. I am not a drinker of 'proper' wee-coloured cider. Not at all the time at least. I am mostly a drinker of namby bamby fruit ciders that basically don't taste of alcohol. I feel like I might as well be drinking a bottle of Hooch, so little have my drinking habits changed over the years.

Question - isn't Apple kind of a given flavour when you're drinking cider?

Obviously there was much Fred and Lily time. Lily was uncharacteristically affectionate with me this trip - normally she just loves Mum but I was honoured to have the pleasure of her company on my lap quite a few times. That top right picture is her watching Pillow Talk on Saturday night with me. (If you've never watched it you are missing out.) 

That's Fred yawning by the way. He's not really fierce.

I didn't just stay in, drinking cider, stewing rhubarb and playing with cats though.

We took a wander in to town where I got to admire Queen's Gardens looking flippin' fit in the sunshine with their newly planted beds and I even took a trip to East Park for a run with a friend. We probably did a little bit more walking than we should have done but at least we were out doing something yeah? Let's call it interval training.

And anyway, who cares about the running when you can see a deer like this little baby down below?

It may not have been a heady Bank Holiday, full of boozing and boozing and some more boozing but it was a Bank Holiday full of things I love:

- Cider

- Reading

- Fred and Lily

- Time with Mumsie

- My city looking pretty

(Not in order of importance)

So a little lesson that sometimes in disappointment, nice things can come.

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PS Have you read all the Game of Thrones books? Want to talk about brilliant theories of what might come next if George R R Martin ever gets on with writing another book? TALK TO ME.

PPS I'm not weird, I call her Mumsie because that was what Richard O'Brien used to call his Mumsie on The Crystal Maze. What can I say - I'm a product of the 90s.

Don't say the V-word

It's that time of year again when some people get bitter that they're not in a relationship, some people don't care that they're not in a relationship, some people buy flowers and gifts and chocolates and go out for a meal, some people say it's just a holiday invited by greeting card companies...

...And then there are some people, like me, who do not lose their shit over another day.

I do not feel the need to proclaim I'm terribly non-commercial and won't have anything to do with Valentine's Day.

Nor do I feel the need to go out and have a meal in a restaurant, surrounded by other couples, who are all secretly eyeing each other up and wondering who is the most in love in the room.

I will buy The Person a card because it's a nice little thing to do. And indeed I do not need a day to tell him I love him, I tell him every day anyway, but isn't it nice to have an excuse to make a point of it?

We will not be going out for a big romantic meal.

We will be in Hull, having a Chinese takeaway with my Mum and trying desperately to keep our prawn crackers away from this little person...

....And this little person

So whether you choose to mark the day or not, have a good one.

Hey, it's a Friday this year - and all Fridays are exciting regardless of the date so that's got to be a good thing surely?

May Project 365 Round-Up

"Woah. What's going on here then? You can't post a round up of May's Project 365 photos before May's even finished!"

Well yes I bloody can. It's my blog and I'll do what I want to. Especially when I have blogged every. single. day in May and am feeling fatigued and need an easy post.

If today and tomorrow's photos are really amazing, I'll give them a post all of their own, I promise.

May

Clockwise L-R: Blackpool baby yeah; Rosie on a wall; crocheted elephant; Coke bottle with my name on it; Lily cat; Hull 10km that wasn't

26th May - Oh I do like to be beside the seaside! Especially when it involves eating fish and chips, gawping at people, getting accidentally burned, freezing my feet in the Irish Sea and drinking a bucket of gin. Read all about it here.

1st May - Rosie is a funny old one. She doesn't really enjoy being on four legs you know. She can always be found up on her hind legs at the kitchen counters, up on her hind legs asking for a hug, and here, up on her hind legs on the wall that overlooks the castle when I took her for a walk.

13th May - I crocheted an elephant everyone! Aren't I a clever monkey. Not the people who wrote the pattern they're not clever at all, but I am the clever one for following it correctly and producing an elephant. That doesn't stand....but let's not dwell on that.

8th May - "Oooh look at me, I'm all sneery and so sick of seeing Coke bottles with people's names on them" - is something you will hear me say never. I think it was a great idea and it makes me smile and I don't even feel bad about it. Instead I feel bad for the souls who cannot find the joy in anything in life. The one drawback to Coca Cola's idea? People like me who are a bit weird and now can't buy the bottle unless it has either my name on it or someone who is connected to me's name on it. I don't want to drink Amy's bottle of Coke, that's just weird.

18th May - It is hard to get a photo of Lily where she doesn't look either deranged, massively overweight or as if she's descended from bats. It turns out the secret is to take a picture of only head, from side on so you can't see the size of her ears or her crazed eyes. I like to think this is how they take pictures of Kate Moss too - I bet she looks deranged from certain angles too.

19th May - How could I not include this photo? Let us all revel in the delight that was the Hull 10km that actually wasn't a 10km. I've pretty much given up complaining about it now, mostly because I've run out of people that haven't heard the story. However this t-shirt is wonderful - it's a good size it's a nice colour and doesn't make me feel all gross when I run. I'll take my good t-shirt with lies written all over it and go and run a 10km somewhere else thank you very much.

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This is quite the achievement. Not only have I got to the end of May and managed to blog every day - I've also managed to make it 5 months taking photos every day when I actually haven't got a life at the moment. 

High five!

All Project 365 photos can be found here on Flickr. Don't let the new layout throw you out and give you a headache like it did to me.

Crazy Cat Lady Part 26: Best Friends - BEDM Day 18

As you read this I am in Hull (as long as you're reading this at the weekend. If you're not then I just don't where I am - why are you making things confusing?) most likely getting myself all worked up at the prospect of running the Hull 10km.

I will also be spending some time with the Mothership and most importantly spending time with you know who.

And so in honour of them, and the fact that BEDM is taking it's toll on me and I need an easy post, I present to you a collage of Fred and Lily - who are each other's Bestest Buds.

You're welcome.

Crazy Cat Lady Part 25: Fred & Lily update

Who cares that I've been back from Hull for 2 weeks and haven't even blogged about the cats?

Not I.

I could always just deprive you of a Fred and Lily post but that would be a cruel punishment as I think we all know that of all the internet cats out of there, these guys are your favourites.

Gazing adoringly at The Person

Fred was especially happy to have me home when I came back for my birthday. Not because he loves me and misses me, but because I came with his favourite person of all time, my Person. Fred doesn't get a lot of male company and this has meant that The Person has become his all-time best bro. The second he's in the room, Fred makes a beeline, ignoring me, ignoring Mum, and taking up pride of place on The Person's knee - purring so loudly his head could fall off.

Telly addict

We also put on the DVD that Mum's Crazy Cat Lady friend got for the cats for Christmas. Other than The Person, this DVD is also Fred's favourite and best. Within a few seconds of putting it on he'll be up at the TV, despite my exhortations that if he sat on the floor he'd be able to see more of the screen. There he will stay until it eventually gets turned off for fear that he's going to throw himself through the screen as he chases the toy that's waving about.

He was a fan of my new Cambridge Satchel Company bag - he's a classy fella like that - and tried to persuade me that he should have it because it suits his colouring but I politely declined.

I took a photo which comes very close to portraying just how much Fred loves The Person this weekend. After a Saturday night out celebrating my birthday and drinking more than our fair share of units of alcohol, The Person wasn't feeling too chipper in the morning. Fred came upstairs after he'd eaten his breakfast and jumped on the bed to commence his usual morning routine of shoving his wet nose as far inside your nose as is humanly possible, whilst needling you to death.

However, he immediately sensed that his Best Bud wasn't in good shape and instead just lay very still and very quietly on his arm, keeping an eye on him.

Unfortunately the picture has The Person's face in it and he's keen to keep his secret identity so I've had to do a bit of touch-up on the below picture...

Ridiculous.

And yes I mean the pair of them. A girl can't get a look in with either of them.

"But what about Lily?" I hear you say

Well Lily spent a weekend doing what she does best, which is acting mental and lying asleep like a beached whale (see below picture).

She may seem all innocence and light but she is a fiend. Whilst sitting at the dinner table on Friday evening, enjoying a takeaway from our local Chinese, Lily stole a prawn cracker out of my hand - swooping in from over my shoulder as I apparently took too long to get the cracker up to my mouth.

And we wonder why she's such a fatty.

She's not a hugely cuddly person is our Lily and the only person that she really likes to sit with is Mum, but on Sunday morning, out of the blue, I came into favour and she joined me in a little reclining action. Unfortunately taking photos of her in black and white does not appear to make her ears look any smaller.

Bat cat

It was, as always, a shame to have to leave them. Especially in the knowledge that the only cat I was coming home to is one who barely tolerates my existence. But I had a new friend to come home to in the shape of a birthday present from Char who got me my very own cat who will not pluck at my clothes, leave hairs all over everything I own and shows about as much emotion as Blinky does.

What you can't see from this picture is that his head and tail move and nod slowly up and down, much to Rowan and Rosie's consternation. Unfortunately he's nameless at the moment - it's not like me to not be able to name inanimate objects but for some reason a name just isn't coming to me at the moment - any suggestions would be welcomed.

Although knowing my luck he'll probably end up liking The Person more than me anyway...

*mutters bitterly*

March Project 365 Round-up

I can hear the groans.

"Oh god didn't we just have one of these?" I hear you cry. Well yes, yes you did, but that's because there was nothing in January and February and now we are nicely caught up. You won't have to feast your eyes on another of these until the end of April.

 

March

Clockwise L-R: The castle, Lily's close up, a wintry scene, sheepy sheepy sheep sheep, the Tetris blanket grows, SNAKE

2nd March - I live near a ruined castle and it's brilliant. It doesn't look that impressive but you can actually go up to the top of one of the towers, as long as you don't mind heights or narrow stone spiral staircases. If I walk into work (instead of getting a lift from my sister) I walk past it and it never. gets. old.

9th March - I went back to Hull for Mother's Day and Best Friend's birthday. This is a close up of Lily. You're welcome.

26th March - Oh hai snow, you're here again, aren't you fun? No actually you're not you total twat. Although you do make for lovely wintry scene photographs of churchyards. 

18th March - These sheep lived outside our Manor when I was away for my Bloggers Weekend and I was a woman possessed trying to get a good photo of them. Persistence paid off in the end and I got them all lined up and looking at me. Winner.

19th March - The Tetris blanket is veeeeeeery slowly taking form and it is exciting.

23rd March - Every time I go back to Preston, The Person and I take a mooch around Pets at Home because it's opposite the flat. We look at the rabbits and guinea pigs and try and stroke random dogs and it's awesome. Going in every time I'm over sometimes makes me feel like a loser but it paid off because today we went in and there was a man there with many creepy crawlies including a SNAKE and I totally got to hold it. What do snakes feel like? Well, they feel like a handbag actually. Not slimy and actually nice and smooth. This old gal mostly felt heavy, she was about 4 stone.

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March was a good month you know, I struggled to pick just 6 photos and thought about adding more but then figured that I'm struggling to hold your attention as it is and probably shouldn't make it worse.

Let's be having you April.

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If you were interested - all the other photos from Project 365 can be found on my photostream HERE

January and February Project 365 round up

Yay I love being late with posts like this.

But really what do you expect, it took me until mid-February to post about my Not Really Resolutions.

I liked doing these round-up posts last time I did Project 365 - they were nice for me to look back at each month and also means that I post about the stuff that I forgot to post about. I don't understand how I ever posted more frequently, I think I'm doing amazingly and back on my blogging track and then I look and realise that I have posted 4 times in March - what? Worst blogger ever.

Anyhoo. Here's post 5 the month and a quick round-up of my best* photos of January and February.

January

Clockwise L-R: SWAN, my new home, Rowan taking over my bed, reading on the train, fancypants house, SNOW

6th January - I took a picture of a swan innit? This is a lovely wee place that we drive to to take the dogs for a walk. This swan nicely floated into view for me to take a photo, then caught sight of Rosie, hissed and scared the shit out of me.

1st January - First photo of the year and a picture of my new nest. This is the box room at my sister's that I moved into before starting work the next day. Man when I think about that I'm impressed I didn't have some kind of breakdown...

4th January - ...but how could I feel rubbish when I was now living with this person? This is Rowan, taking over my whole bed which she still regularly does and I let her because I'm a fool.

20th January - Being away from The Person properly sucks but it does mean that I get a good load of train reading in. I love being on a train, forced relaxation is the bomb.

21st January - It snowed! Ha. I thought this was such a novelty - little did I know it would still be happening in March. Less cool.

29th January  - My first big work challenge - organising a Strategy Meeting for all the Directors at work. We went to the place pictured and I flounced about like I was in Downton Abbey.

February

Clockwise L-R: Cats vs Andrew, Peeking Fred, failed Cookie Monster cupcake, very early roses for Valentine's Day, Rosie got to my Valentine's card before I did, the beginnings of the Tetris Blanket.

10th February - The Person is a funny old fellow you know. I came back to the flat to discover this little set-up - my two ceramic cats (why yes, yes they are Fred and Lily!) set up looking into the fish tank. Apparently the idea is to give them some "stimulus". Personally I reckon Andrew could take them on.

1st February - I went back to Hull for the first time since before Christmas. This means some jolly good Fred and Lily time. This is a photo of Fred peeking at me from behind a curtain. I have no idea why.

9th February - Let us never forget Cookie Monster-gate. 'Nuff said.

11th February - I got roses for Valentine's Day! Wait. But this photo says the 11th February. Oh yes, that's because The Person kind of got the delivery date wrong. Hey, he tried at least!

13th February - The Person did manage to send a Valentine's Day card in time though. Unfortunately Rosie got to it before I did...

25th February - Hey I had a great idea in February, I was going to crochet a Tetris Blanket. This involved planning to the max. Excel to the rescue!

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You see this is exactly why I've done Project 365 for another year. It helps you to remember all the daft little things. I mean who wouldn't want to remember the time they completely messed up their baking or when the dog ate your Valentine's Day card? 

Exactly.

*When I say "best" clearly I don't mean photographically brilliant, I just mean my bestest and favouritest moments.

Crazy Cat Lady Part 21: The Fred & Lily at Christmas Edition

As I mentioned in my last post, a lot of Christmas travelling has taken place over the last 15 years or so. This has meant that poor Fred and Lily haven't spent a Christmas at home and have instead been farmed out to spend a festive few days at the cattery.

Now some might say they are cats and this doesn't matter to them because they have literally no idea what Christmas is but that kind of logic holds no sway with a Crazy Cat Lady and one of the things I was most looking forward to this year was having not just Christmas with the Mumsie but with Fred and Lily.

Mum has a Crazy Cat Lady friend - who would very much fit the image in your head right now of a CCL - who is lovely and looks after Fred and Lily when Mum goes away. She got Mum/the cats a Christmas present in the form of a Cat DVD. As in a DVD that you put on when you leave the house to keep the cats company - featuring tweeting birds and mice and ducks and other cats and various sound effects.

How's that for a CCL present?

We were sceptical but thought we'd put it on and were amazed when it actually worked - Fred was captivated...

Lily was watching as well, but from a more sensible distance and Fred actually got so excited about what was happening on the screen that he needed to take a closer look and eventually ended up behind the TV at one point, in an attempt to find the ducklings that had wandered off-screen.

We also buy our pets toys. Christmas is for cats too you know. And the presents are even wrapped. This year I got them an educational toy - a ball that you can put treats in and then when they hit the ball the treats will eventually come out.

Unfortunately it would appear that Fred and Lily are dim cats. They didn't figure it out at all, despite my efforts to show them and instead chose to sit and stare at the ball, in the hopes it would magically dispel treats.

Fred was obviously tired after his DVD watching and ball-staring and went upstairs and slept for most of the afternoon. Lily however seemed pretty keen to be involved in all aspects of Christmas - including Christmas dinner...

It was amazing to be back at home with these guys. I have missed them more than I can say. It's tough being a Crazy Cat Lady without an actual cat in your life. Given my crappy salary I've not been able to get home as much as I would have liked to, the train fare has been out of my reach, and it's been rubbish not being able to spend time with them.

They are just so good at being relaxed. Take this picture below of Lily on my legs on Boxing Day...

Look at how relaxed she is - look at that leg draped over mine.

What you can't see, is that at exactly the same time as Lily was relaxed to the max on my legs, Fred was relaxed to the max on my lap and chest...

And finally. It would be a post about Fred and Lily if there wasn't a picture of Lily looking totally demented. I don't know how she does it but seriously, look at her face..