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.

Oh poor Ollie! He looks sad.

@Grumpyoldpersonwithcats maybe he is on his own for new year and wants company?

I have just the one cat - Elton - desert king and lord of the cat tree. But frankly most of the time, he's more than enough. He has spent all day ululating (fab word) like the wild cat his daddy was and I now have a headache!

Oh @Grumpyoldpersonwithcats how can you force the little waif to stay outside in this terrible weather? He may blow away! (I am choosing to ignore that he has a lovely warm home he can go to)

But the lovely warm home is missing the crucial element - Sybil!

Exactly!

Kitty is snug in the nice clean bed now, so everything is all right.

I wish I could round up the local strays for tonight & put them in there with her until the fireworks are over.

Agatha, my half-Bengal, half-Savannah is being a right pain today. So, business as usual. She's been in and out of the house every half hour (at least she uses the cat flap and doesn't require personal service), or has been following me around, chirping. She finally invited me to watch her use the litter tray, before kicking litter all over the floor and going back outside. I thought she might be upset about the wind howling, or early fireworks, but strongly suspect she's just being an arse.

Photo from a while ago, when she was happy to be held like a baby and show off her beans.

Just grabbed a snap of the other one trying out whether the hammock can take her weight. It did - just.

Kitty’s having an evening snack.

Hmm, maybe I should have spent a little more time looking (& probably a little more money!) to get a really heavy duty one! I honestly didn't realise she was even heavier than Boycat had been (before he got ill) until you told me the other day.

Ah well, you'll probably have to get a second one anyway if they both like it. Else they will do what mine did & try to squish th both of them on at the same time - which could be a tragedy if Izzy ended up underneath Thrifty! 😱

May 2025 bring you all the peace and happiness of Raven in between a heated blanket and fleece one.

And the love and friendship of this dopey pair.

Awwwww!

And the cosiness & comfort of Kitty under a duvet.

We're tuned to BBC Alba which has the best NYE programmes.

Happy New Year to all.

I've said Happy New Year to Linney and Gizmo.
They popped into the sitting room looking for treats.

Happy New Year all. Started OK at Allergic Towers - much reduced fireworks (for here anyway) last night compared to previous years and even then the noises were somewhat muted by the weather, so got to sleep nice & early & was only woken up very briefly at midnight by the barrage. Probably helped by the Nytol I took half an hour before going up to bed!

Of course then I physically couldn't get up for about half an hour in the morning due to The Back, but a small price to pay for not being woken up by the battle of the Somme every half an hour until 2am as usually happens.

How’s your back now, Allergic?

I went to sleep around 10 & woke up briefly when Kitty came diving under the duvet around midnight.

Back now bearable, curtesy of 30/500 co-codamol and Naproxen. Gods I miss prescription Voltarol, sooo much better!

Poor you!

How did everyone else’s cats cope with the fireworks?

I couldn't find Fred at one point so thought he had hidden from the fireworks. About 20 minutes later he appeared from behind the curtain so it seemed like he'd been watching them.

The others jumped occasionally when there was a really big bang but otherwise weren't too bothered thankfully.

How did everyone else’s cats cope with the fireworks?
Ours just watched them out of the window.

Luckily we had hardly any as Herbie, despite being a big bruiser of a cat, gets very spooked by them
On Nov 5th he hid away and we didn't know where he was-i thought he must be out and was berating myself for forgetting to lock the catflap.
I was outside shaking bowls of dry food, we were walking up and down the road amongst loads of fireworks.
Eventually we heard a crash from upstairs, he must have been on top of the wardrobe in our room. We'd looked up there several times -all he had to do was a meow to alert us but he didn't bother!
Lesson learnt for me to make sure I keep the catflaplocked around Nov 5th in future as it was a very stressful evening.