Ring Out, Wild Bells! As 2025 approaches, the Excellent Cats raise their game with a discussion on Tennyson's poetry

[TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne]

And while the cats are thus engaged, their human slaves are still finishing the turkey and Christmas pud, and idly placing bets on whether or not Kitty will use her new cat tree.

What a day.

Picard came in this morning, and fell asleep under the table. Gizmo was deeply unimpressed by this, and he growled. A lot. Picard didn't care.

We had to go out in the afternoon. Just before we left, Picard had a poo in the litter tray (thanks for that). I mean, he doesn't live here but he might just as well............

Anyway, when we got back, there was a very large quantity of Picard's fur scattered around the sitting room. Gizmo was asleep in the bedroom and Picard was on the table. Neither was saying anything. Linney was in the kitchen.

I wish we could view some CCTV of what actually happened.

🤣🤣🤣

Crikey, @TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne.

Hopefully they reached a truce.

Wow, poor Picard. I suspect he hid on the table away from the meanie landshark because we all know meanie landsharks can't jump. Send him back to Grumpy.

@HumanToCatBeasties - good luck, I would be very interested in any updates or pictures!

I really, really doubt it.
😂

Finlay is smashing it on the Tractive leader board!
I have never had a cat before who spent so much time on the move!
We love tracking him - especially whilst I’m away oh holiday and DS is in charge

Anyway, when we got back, there was a very large quantity of Picard's fur scattered around the sitting room. Gizmo was asleep in the bedroom and Picard was on the table. Neither was saying anything. Linney was in the kitchen.
Perhaps Gizmo is running a grooming/barber service behind your back and Picard is a customer?😺

Go Finlay!
It's good to see an Excellent Cat winning.

Perhaps Gizmo is running a grooming/barber service behind your back and Picard is a customer?

Of course! Why didn't I think of that @Pudmyboy?

It's the obvious explanation.

@TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne I love the line up of past cats on the drawers behind Gizmo. One of them looks a lot like Kettle!

Yes. I often think of her when I see pictures of Kettle.

Her name was Cheilidh (a Scottish Gaelic name) and she died in 2017.

She was one of three cats we had in London. The other two were Buster and McVicar, who came to Scotland with us. They died in 2020.

Cheilidh was The Boss of the Alley which ran from our back door in London.

Endless NMCs paraded along it, and Cheilidh kept them in order.

It was not long after Buster and McVicar died that we adopted Linney and his sister, Emerald.

Emerald died in 2023.......................

.......................and then we got The Broon One aka TC/Guillermo/Mr. G/Gizmo/The Wee Shite.

My favourite picture of Linney's sister, Emerald. DD2 took it.

The Wee Shite
Oddly enough that was of our names for him too 🤣.

That is indeed a gorgeous photo of Emerald.

And talking of DD2, we took her to the vet's, to have Sebastian and Cleo examined and registered.

True to form, Cleo jumped down from the table and we had to scrabble under various cupboards to get her out.

That sounds like we took our daughter to be examined at the vet's.

I meant that we took her in our car, of course.

I'll never learn.
I found another cheaper version of Feliway on Amazon, so I bought it optimistically and plugged it in two days ago.

Today, the characteristically awful smell became apparent, so I hastily removed it and put a real Feliway in instead.

Amazon then gave me a refund for the nasty one.

Sigh.
It's a good job I'm retired. I'd never have time for all this buying and refunding on Amazon if I was still working.
Still, it gives me something to do, in between visiting lunch clubs for old people and the afternoon tea club.

Inching towards being a lapcat while I was trying to send some emails.

Do cats always act more affectionate when recovering from surgery or illness? The cats just want to be with me the whole time at the moment and follow me round from room to room. At the weekend Whitecat allowed the children to put her on their laps and stayed there purring instead of climbing straight off.

Emerald was indeed beautiful
Hope white cat is recovered from spaying soon

Oh, she’s beautiful. And so like Kitty.

Yes! I always think of Emerald when I see Kitty. And when we adopted her from Cats Protection, her name was also Kitty. (Linney's was Billy - we changed it to be like Loch Linnhe, which is fairly close to here).

But Kitty is much smaller than Emerald. Emerald was always on a diet. She weighed 6.8kg at her heaviest. 🤣🤣

Here are the big sister and her brother together.

Wow.

Emerald’s a wonderful name for a cat. I can see why you changed the name - it’s not very imaginative but by the time I adopted my Kitty I’d been fostering her for long enough that we were both used to it!

Her long name is Kitty Bella Caramella, Empress of the Seven Oceans, but I can’t quite see them calling that out at the vets.

Ooh Pa Broon has found another crime scene.

In the garden, there's a area in which a lot of fur from all three suspects is evident.

Here they are, the villains.

We've informed Police Scotland.

So they had the fight & then Picard joined the other two inside & lost more hair?

................ it’s not very imaginative but by the time I adopted my Kitty I’d been fostering her for long enough that we were both used to it!

That's kind of why we didn't change Gizmo's name. Although (on the Litter Tray threads) he had been known as Thug Cat for many years, his real name was revealed by Grumpy when Gizmo needed a new home.

I'd thought of changing it to MacIntyre, but decided to keep it as Gizmo.

Although I might just as well have changed it, since he's known by so many names...........

We're hoping that CSI will be able to elucidate the mystery.

We don't know, and the three suspects have apparently all said "No Comment" when they were interviewed.

Inspector McGadget says it'll come down to Forensics.