A few doors away from our little holiday home, there is a French family who have brought their cat and dog on holiday with them. It’s the first time in my life I have seen a cat on a chain. I asked ‘Il est amiable?’, but the gentleman shook his head and said ‘Pas tellement’. I kept my distance; perhaps it was a highly-trained and vicious guard-cat?
I told you it would be an odd assortment of posts for a while. Captured on the ferry en route pour la Normandie. We have arrived, it’s lovely and we’re off soon for our first meal. Miam miam!
We are on our way to France for our annual holiday and are spending the night in Ashford in Kent (cheaper than Dover) before catching an early ferry tomorrow morning.
My brother is working at Dover Castle this weekend, so we popped down to have dinner with him. For the next 10 days or so, I will have to improvise cat pictures for my blog and here is my first effort; a cat charity shop we spied in Dover town centre.
I wonder how our kitties are tonight?
I walked into the kitchen and I don’t know what surprised me more, the mess or Milka on top of the cupboard.
That’s a big hairy lie. The kitchen is frequently a mess, but I hadn’t seen Milka on the cupboard before.
This all took place in slow-motion with no bottle-brush tails. They’re just playing, despite all the teeth on display. In two minutes, they’ll be cuddled up asleep together.
Ted is our ace reporter at the moment, today’s and yesterday’s pictures were snapped by him. You may spy an old pc (given to us and I don’t know what to do with it) and the rear of John’s Denon amplifier (I have even less idea what to do with that) in the background.
Soft kitty, warm kitty,
Little ball of fur,
Happy kitty, sleepy kitty,
Purr, purr, purr.
Little Percy really didn’t want to go to the vet for his post-op checkup. He yelled angrily non-stop until he came face to face through the grid of his basket with a huge and friendly golden retriever. I didn’t hear a peep from him after that ..
Helen Daykin is a firm friend of this blog and has shared lots of pictures with me. This latest is the earliest I have yet seen of her with her first Siamese cat. I am guessing this is Midge, who we met in May here. They do look like good friends. My own cats steered clear of my two children when they were this size, in order to avoid drool, sticky hands and having their tails pulled.
Helen plans to send me a similar picture of her young daughter Pearl with her cat Bridget. Bridget has a fearsome reputation, so I hope there will be no unfortunate incidents!
It would be understandable if both readers of this blog thought Milka and Percy were my only pet cats. This is because they are in-your-face confident, even bold and very comfortable with us humans.
My other two, Willow and Florence, are very different. Willow is reserved, even stand-offish. He came to us as an adult and whilst I am certain he is content, he prefers the company of the other cats to that of humans.
Florence is more of a mystery. She was a happy, confident kitten, but became a shy, scaredy-cat as she grew to adulthood. Like Willow, she is very confident with the other cats, winning as many cat stand-offs and running races as any of the boys. However, she is afraid of male humans, despite the fact that it’s almost always John who feeds her.
This afternoon, I went to my bedroom to escape the World Championship Athletics and read my book. I received a rare visit from Flossie, who demanded forty solid minutes of extravagant stroking, petting, cuddles and general affection. It’s as if I have to give her three months worth of affection in massive doses once every three months. She’s an oddity, right enough.
A Cat A Day 