Memories of a long ago cat.



Memories of a long ago cat

It has been a while since I posted anything up here or on my other blogs, mainly due to illness, but also due to an unhappy event in our family.  Just a couple of days before Christmas, the 21st, my husband's eldest daughter died, she was just 49 years old, we were notified on the 22nd by his youngest daughter.   A couple of weeks previous to that I had a bad angina attack that put me in hospital, since then I have been feeling really ill, due to the medication.  That has now been changed and I am beginning to feel like a human being again, and getting my energy and enthusiasm back.

Rappy, Jet and Calli have been a comfort to both of us, and kept our spirits up with their antics and affection.  After seeing someone else's cats Christmas tree, we went out and bought a small live tree for our cats, we really were not in the mood for dragging the huge artificial tree down from the attic and decorating it.  So I bought some bird decorations and small golden baubles for their little tree, they found it quite interesting, Rappy in particular was fascinated by the birds!    
 
Just this morning Jim and I were discussing the antics and personalities of our cats, prompted by a commercial on TV for a doormat that soaks up wet footprints, Jim said maybe we should buy one for our cats as they are always coming in with wet, muddy paws.  I said it probably wouldn't do any good as they would walk around it instead.  We've tried that before.   Anyway, it brought back a memory from my childhood, one of my grandmother's memories in fact.  She used to talk about a cat they had long before I was born, his name was Nicky, and he was a mischievous tabby.  One thing he loved to do was to go out in the garden and trog around in the mud, particularly on a day when my grandmother was scrubbing the kitchen and hall floors, then he would come running in leaving a trail of muddy pawmarks, not only on the floor, but also on the wall, he would kick up his paws against the wall every now and then.  He was such a lovable character though, she couldn't get mad at him.  He also used to wait at the garden gate for my mother and aunt coming home from school, and for my grandfather coming home from work, as soon as he saw grandpa, he would run into the house and halfway up the staircase, and as grandpa walked past, a paw would fly out from between the banister rails and take a swipe at grandpa's trilby hat, knocking it off.  They do love their little games!

We did manage to carry out our Santa and Holly duties, though I found the last couple of days a strain, we did our last day on the trains on Dec. 20th.  But as usual it was a lot of fun.



Santa and two of the many children who came to vist him on the Santa Special

Santa and Holly Claus with some of our many helpers.

Jetikins Box Adventure

Jetikins Box Adventure

Hello,  Rappy here, mama can't put any new photo's up today cos her camera batteries died and she can't get anymore until she's got some spare pennies, so we are camera free until Friday anyway.  Jetikins is really happy about that cos he doesn't like that clickety thing.  But mama says she will find some old pics of us to put up instead, and one that she took when Stamps the Irish hedgehog postman came to stay with us.

Me and Jetikins frog and tadpole watching

Jetikins trapped himself inside a box this week, he could've got out if he'd really wanted, but mama started playing with him through the holes in the top, and he enjoyed that, then he dozed off until I came home and woke him up, we played patti-paws through the gap.  It was one of those long narrow boxes that have things like cauliflower or cabbages in them.  Papa brought it home with a big glass lamp in it, then he stood the box up on end against a chair and Jet started playing with it, he reached up to pull on a sticky-out bit and it fell on top of him.  There are little round holes in the bottom, which was now the top, so mama stuck the tail of one of our sisal mousies through and Jet caught it and pulled it through, then she found two more and he got them too.  When she put the toy dynamite stick cord down the hole he couldn't pull that through so then he went to sleep.

An old photo, but we are still doing this!

Papa with Stamps in Malton Market Place

Stamps the Irish hedgehog postman was knitted by mama's friend Geraldine, she lives in Dublin.  Stamps has travelled all over the world visiting members of Ravelry.com - a website for knitters and crocheters like mama and Geraldine.  He stayed with us for two weeks and mama took lots of photo's of him before he left us to go somewhere else.  Stamps has his own blog called 'Stampses Travels' and you can visit him here:

Calli Patch-Pelt

Calli Patch-Pelt

Hello, I am Calli, matriarch of the family, I am 12 years old, going on 13.  I have several titles, Papa's Princess, Mama's Mugwump (that means Big Chief in the Algonquin language, so the dictionary says.)  Mama and Papa also call me Calli poppet, Calli Patch-Pelt, and Sweetie-pie.  This is me relaxing on mama and papa's bed.  Yesterday was a stay-at-home-relax-in-bed kind of a day.  Rappy was on the bed too, all stretched out like a long sausage, mama said.  It is nice and warm up in their bedroom cos the chimney from the fire downstairs is behind the wall the bookcase is on.  Papa complains sometimes that it gets too warm, and he throws the duvet off himself.  He moves about a lot too so I usually sleep down by mama's feet cos she doesn't move much at all.  She doesn't kick me out of bed like he sometimes does when he tosses about.  Rappy likes to sleep on mama's side of the bed during the day, up near her pillow.  Sometimes Jet jumps up on the bed and he likes mama's side too.  He is a huge black cat and he scares me a bit, sometimes he waits for me when I come down the stairs, he hides behind the door and jumps out at me.  I hiss at him and run away and he chases me.  Mama says he wants to play with me and give me a head wash, he is always washing Rappy,

but he is so big I'm a bit scared of him.  Sometimes though we do sleep close together on mama and papa's bed, I know he doesn't want to hurt me, but big black cats are scary to me.  He is funny though, he likes to squeeze himself into small places, like the little cat bed in mama and papa's bedroom, it's really more my size, but he has claimed it and he squeezes himself into it, then turns round and round and ends up half hanging out of it.  He sleeps in it a lot now when he isn't on the bed.  Sometimes Jet and Rappy crawl under the duvet with mama, Rappy curls up in her arm but Jet goes

 right down by her feet and cuddles her legs, sometimes she has to jump out of bed cos she gets cramp and she says it hurts a lot.  It's cos he is so heavy, papa says he weighs about twelve and a half pounds, I only weigh about five or six, Rappy is about nine or ten pounds, so I don't want either of them jumping on me, they would squash me flat.

Today, Wednesday, is not much better than yesterday, it is very cold and damp outside so we are all staying in again.  Mama was very busy yesterday making lots of soup, most of it goes in the freezer, she made Cauliflower and Broccoli soup and Carrot and Coriander too.

We are going to relax in the bedroom for a while, until mama lights the fire this afternoon.

The picture opposite is Rappy stretched out like a sausage, he is just asking to have his tummy tickled, sometimes I like to have a tummy rub or tickle, but not so much as he does.  Mama even blows raspberries in his tummy, and Jets, but I won't let her blow them in mine.



This morning Jet jumped up on mama's lap when she was sat on the sofa having a cup of tea, so she got papa to bring the camera and she took Jet's photo, he doesn't like the camera, he calls it 'that clickety thing' and you can see him scowling a bit cos she stuck it right in his face.  Then she took one of Rappy cos he was sat on the carpet below glaring at Jet.  He gets a bit jealous when Jet sits on mama's knee. 

Rappy has been busy ratting again, he brings them all home to show mama and papa, I catch mice sometimes, but I eat them.

Mama and papa make a big fuss over all of us though, they love us very much and we are their family now that all their human babies are grown up and gone away.  We love them very much too.



Mama is still knitting those Santa socks for papa, she is almost halfway up the legs now, in spite of Jet, he thinks he is helping her when he jumps on her lap and holds the yarn down.  She doesn't get cross with him though cos she says he is cute.  'Cute' - him, hmmph!  I could think of something else to call him, but not 'Cute.  She is doing the legs in red and white stripes cos that's what papa wanted, he is going to a Bowls match one night in his Santa suit and he will be wearing those socks, and he will have to take his boots off if he plays; I think he will look like a Liverpool football supporter.  Mama has to go in her Mistress Holly costume too.  I wish we could go and watch the fun when they play.

Jetikins Blog

Jetikins Blog

Hello, it is me, Jetikins, and mama says it is my turn to do the blog this week, anyway Rappy is too pooped to do anything right now, he has been really busy lately, he has brought in a rat practically every night for the past week, and several mousies too.  Mama says he is probably creating havoc among the local rat families and she is very proud of him.  He leaves them for mama and papa to look at, then they get rid of them.  I can catch ratties and mousies too but I prefer to stay home and keep warm at nights, so I watch over mama and papa while they sleep.  I like to lounge on their bed during the day too, or keep mama company in the computer room.  It has been cold and damp all week and mama has had to light the fire to warm the house up.

Rappy sleeps most of the day so I am lonely without him to play with and Calli won't play with me, I try to make friends with her and roll on my back in front of her and try to look cute so she knows I don't want to hurt her, but she just hisses and spits and says naughty words, then she runs away from me.  It makes me sad, I just want to be friends.  Mama says she is very shy, and she doesn't much like having that clickety thing pointed at her either so mama has trouble trying to get pictures of her. 

Well I will keep on trying to make friends with Calli, I would love to cuddle her and wash her fur for her like I do with Rappy.  He likes it when I wash him.
Mama is knitting papa a pair of a pair of red Santa socks, so I need to go and help her with the wool, sometimes when I am sitting on her lap she tickles me with the knitting needles.

Mama and Papa's Cat-a-strophic week - Cats on Tuesday

Mama and Papa's Cat-a-strophic Week

Hello everyone,

Me in bed drawer

It’s me again, Rappy, mama and papa have had a bad week, their car is in the hospital since last Thursday night, it broke down when they were on their way home from Harrogate and they were stuck in a bad place for 2 hours until the RAC man arrived, he couldn’t fix the problem so he had to do a temporary job so they could drive it home.  He was afraid it would give up the ghost on the way home, 40+ miles on lonely country roads, so he followed them to a garage in Malton where they always have work done, then he brought them home in his van.  It was very late when they arrived and me, Jet and Calli were getting worried.

Me trying to get Jet to wrestle

Mama is still not feeling very well, and her camera won’t work, she said it needs new batteries but they can’t get into town cos there is no bus from our village.  So she said I can put up some old pictures of me, Jet and Calli.

We are glad the car is sick cos now mama and papa can’t leave us and we have them all to ourselves all day.  They have to stay in today cos an engineer is coming to look at one of our walls, the one between the kitchen and living room is not well, and the plaster is crumbling and falling off.  Papa says it is rising damp.



Me hiding behind coat on chair

 

Me guarding Mama's knitting wool





 

Jet sitting in the sunshine

Our Calli-poppet sitting in the back garden last summer

Our Calli has several names, Calli-poppet, Calli Patch Pelt, Papa's little Princess and Mama's little Mugwump.  Mama say's Mugwump is an Algonquin Indian word meaning Big Chief.  But I'm Big Chief here.

Report from Rappy for Cats on Tuesday

Report from Rappy

Hi Fellow Felines,

We are late getting here again cos Mama was very busy tearing her fur out yesterday trying to do her Random Pics blog, she says the intinet hates her, and blogger hates her.  Every time she started work on it the phone would ring and cut her off, then when she got the intinet back it would fall off again and she said it kept wiping out wot she wrote.  She was really spittin' fire in the morning.



Mama and Nina



In the afternoon she and papa left us and went off to a place called York to meet another blog person, Bjorg Nina Anderson, she is one of the teachers and leaders of a party of students from Norway, they were sent off to do sketches of York, and mama, papa and Nina went off into a nice little teashop for a chat over a pot of tea and toasted sandwiches.  Nina has a cat too so when she gets back home she may just come to Cats on Tuesday.



Papa and Nina outside the teashop





Nina and Papa (Santa Claus incognito)

 

Mama and papa then had to drive back and go straight to Thornton-le-Dale as they had an appointment with a friend, when they arrived at his house they found he had had an accident, he fell off a ladder the day before and had dislocated his shoulder and broken several ribs.  So it was late when they got back and they were tired out, poor old things.

Mama checked her other blog in and then found that there were pics showing up in the slide-show she had put up that shouldn't be there cos they were not in the album, but she was too tired to tear any more fur out so she went to bed, Jet and I cuddled up with them all night and this morning when mama came back from the bathroom I jumped into bed under the covers with her for a special cuddle to make her feel better.

I am in the computer chair today - so go wash your head fur.

But now, as you can see, I have taken over her computer chair and gave her a very stern look, no more computer for a while, so she is going to climb into the shower and wash her head fur instead. 

Jetikins - Cats on Tuesday

Jetikins

Hello, my name is Jet, but mama often calls me Jetikins, or panther puss, especially when she gets soppy and starts cuddling me or blowing raspberries in my tummy fur.  I don't mind really cos I know she loves me, and so does papa.  I don't really like it when she starts following me around with that clickety thing she calls a camera though, she says she's trying to capture me in it, but wot happens then, it's too tiny to hold me?

                    This is my Papa, he showed me wot mama was cooking.

                                                 Get that clickety thing outa my face!

                         My rug on mama's desk, one of my favourite places.

We are late getting this up this week cos mama is not very well, and she ses the intinet is being hard to get along with, and it took her forever just to get her Our World blog to behave.  I asked her "wots a blog, does it have a tail?" and she said this is a blog and it's mine this week, so I said ..brrrup!

Oh, Rappy told me to tell you all that he caught another rat, not as big as the last one, just a young one.  He left it in the living room this time cos mama didn't like it by the bathroom door!