Tales and Tails and NMCs - the Excellent Cats March On

[TheShellBeach]

Join us as 2024 starts and our cats continue to run our lives for us.

Clearly he is plotting your demise. He's in cahoots with TC.

@TheShellBeach @RumNotRun
You have filled me with confidence 😲🤭

Socks and Lenny are such tender loving hearts.

Bad tempered? TC sometimes struggles with appropriate modes of self expression under pressure, Grumpy. He is not a terrifying, violent bastard who you have the remarkable misfortune to live next to.

Thanks @nettie434 !

Storm Isha is being utterly terrifying here.
Picard found his way to our door and Mr SB let him in.

Now he won't go.
I can't say I blame him. The noise of the wind is scary.

We’ve probably not got the storm as badly as some but Velvet hasn’t wanted to go outside so has spent a day unable to expend enough energy and running after my mother and father, shouting (my main achievement was to have a bath and I had to crawl up the stairs, gasping, with four breaks for rest so there wasn’t much to chase after there lol). But guess whose bed she’s on now? haHA! A small victory. Also I love my little leopard sleeping on my bed and she curls herself into a little roll so there’s room for us (most of the time. If I’m not on the bed when she arrives I can forget about anything but the outer 5cm on either side).
On the other hand, about an hour after she’d come in (cat that is) my parents came back from the cinema and my mother came in, in the dark, and started to fuss the cat in silence. This both solved why Velvet is always gone when I wake up and also deeply freaked me out - she’s actually told me she does it and I’m on a drug cocktail that knocks me to the ground at the moment (propanolol, Mirtazapine, codeine, cyclizine) - but this is the second time in a week I’ve caught her doing this sort of thing and both times she’s reacted with anger so I think she knows she’s up to no good.

Hope you've made it through the night without any damage Shell, and anyone else here affected by Isha. Glad Picard found his way to safety
We're outside the weather warning area but even here it was bloody noisy so we kept the cats in yesterday evening - for once they didn't complain too much.

It was so noisy here, it took me ages to get to sleep. About 5 minutes after I fell asleep (probably longer but it felt like 5 minutes), Toad woke me up by performance vomiting. I decided to ignore it and try to get more rest before my alarm and as soon as I snuggled down again, my bloody alarm went off.

Very noisy here. I live near the bottom of a steep, narrow valley so the wind funnels down. Tobias decided that as he was warm (and the electric blanket went on after their supper time) he would curl up on my bed and ignore everything, and Girlcat was quite annoyed that mid cuddle I jumped when I heard something glass shattering out the back - obviously as it hadn't bothered her why was I startled?

They're on slightly reduced rations currently due to Tobias being a total pig about wet food plus he quite likes dry now, so I need to Take Measures before he gets so fat his feet don't touch the ground (made more likely by his short little legs). So I've taken to only topping up the dry with a small measure twice a day, and then only when it's almost completely empty. This has led to the biscuit bowl being empty for a while on a few occasions on the lead up to meal times.

This led to another very bijou breakthrough with Tobias last night though. As I went to pick up the breakfast bowls prior to supper, both were swarming round me and without thinking I stroked him along the full length of his back. No objections, no hissing, no jumping away, no reaction from him at all. First time I've properly given him a stroke without him having his face in the trough 😀

Oh how absolutely lovely Allergic!

Great progress Allergic. Delighted to hear it.

A full stroke! Bet he loved it. Congrats 🎉 A&T.

Prince bit me awake then, when rejected on principle and the leg retreated back under duvet, trampolined my head vigorously. He likes that new mini Sheba multipack.

@Allergic that's fantastic 😍

Hurray for you @Allergictoironing! Velvet is doing a special supportive cat dance (this is like a rain dance but for cats) to make sure this happens in the future.

I'm really thrilled about Tobias! Very good progress!

Linney woke me at 05.00 because Picard had eaten everything in the bowls.

Including the very generous extra rations I'd put out before I went to bed.

Picard left his high quality accommodation at 8am.

No doubt to have breakfast at his own house.

A Six-Dinner Sid? Fifty points if you get the reference.

Shell very impressed with the b&b service you provide - even when your guests don't book in advance. Have you considered going on Four cats in a bed?
Cecile I claim my 50 points - Six Dinner Sid was a favourite with our sons and is also frequently referenced on these threads 😸.

Granted!
Velvet is one too just inside our house - she’s pretty conspicuous and hasn’t been mentioned in the WhatsApp group for our neighbourhood yet, what with all the random howling and special coat. But the other day she managed to convince my dad and me to serve her lunch in different rooms sinultaneously after my mother had left her an early one before leaving. My mother over feeds her routinely anyway unfortunately. I think I have mentioned this before but I saw a cat during work experience that was a Burmese and had literally been stuffed in a wire cat carrier, as in he was bulging out of all four sides. Weighed TWELVE kilos. Diet of custard creams.

I'm incapussitated.

He's been sitting on my knee for ages. I'm getting a bit hungry & definitely need the loo. But he's so sweet & cuddly I feel mean making him get off. Yes he's got me wrapped round the proverbial paw.

Six Dinners Sid was one of our children's favourite books.

Just had an early Burns Night Supper at the old people's lunch club.

And my wonderful neighbour and I are gearing up to continue arguing endlessly with the housing association who are trying to remove our warden.

It's irrelevant that neither of us use her. The much older residents do, and my neighbour and I will be much older ourselves one day.

It makes us so mad!

We have already got our McSween's haggis in for the 25th 😍.

Shell very impressed with the b&b service you provide - even when your guests don't book in advance. Have you considered going on Four cats in a bed?

Four in a Bed is our favourite show!

We watch it while we eat dinner. It's our guilty pleasure. Even DS2 likes it now. The psychology of who hates whom fascinates me.

It's like Strictly Come Dancing. It isn't the best dancer who wins, it's the person who the public likes best.