Friday 22 October 2010

Austin is Vetted!

I took Austin to the vets yesterday. It was not an experience that either of us are really able to talk about yet.  Good grief! It was only for his annual booster shot. 

I tried to explain.  I even made favourable comparisons with the NHS, saying that at least you could get an appointment when you wanted and weren't likely to come away with the wrong organ removed or MRSA.  The staff even smile and look happy, for crying out loud.


The scene I had in mind was this:



But the actual scene was this:



Austin is now taking steps to ensure he never has to go again:



As for me?


Saturday 9 October 2010

Oh No!!

I wrote the following on 29th June!  Don't know why I didn't post it?  Maybe it was because it's not finished, or maybe it's because it's just rubbish!  Anyway, I'll post it now just to get it out of draft. 

Austin caught another robin this morning.  This time it was a baby one and it was still alive!  He left it outside my window and jumped up to let me know how clever he was and I let him know how I felt about murder or injury inflicted on those innocents who are just going about their daily business.  We had to be content to disagree and then I had to deal with the aftermath (don't ask :(((! 

Thing was we had a bit of a storm last night!  After seemingly weeks of dry weather, it was a blessing to have the rain, that's for sure.  Normally I would stick my head under the pillow and try to ignore it, but I was aware of the fact that Austin was shut in the conservatory experiencing the full horror of thunder, lightning and torrential rain.  Also my mother appeared to be having a good stomp around upstairs.  So at about 2 a.m. we let him out and made a cuppa.  He went all low slung, like he does, and emitted this spooky mixture of yowl and a growl.  Poor little guy. 

Anyway after about 30 minutes we went back to bed and left him cowering behind a chair.  Big mistake.  It wasn't long before he was ripping up the carpet outside my bedroom door.  Now as I'm not one of those who enjoys being stared at by a cat all night, I wasn't about to allow him on the bed. The reason for this is detailed elsewhere.  So as I wasn't about to go through all that again, I got up and put him back in the conservatory.  Happily the storm had hightailed it off to Prestatyn by this time. 

This morning he was crawling up the door to be let out - legs crossed, the whole bit.  I don't know why he won't use his en suite facilities after all the trouble we took having it installed (well I had to go all the way to Pets R Us on Caernarfon Road for the tray and wood chips!).

Wednesday 6 October 2010

Cat Stats

I'm not sure if anyone has noticed, but I've had a bit of a hiatus from blogging.  Thing is, apart from life stuff getting in the way, I've been rather diverted by the fact that Blogger have added this dinky new feature called "stats".  It's a wonderful service that allows me to track the traffic to my blog!!!  So now everytime I open blogger, instead of clicking on "new post" I find my click digit wandering over of its own accord to the "stats" tab. It's fascinating, really.  I can see which countries viewers are coming from and which posts they are reading and everything. 

Now although the traffic isn't exactly stacking up to get to me down the information superhighway, there are obviously some stoic and sturdy folk who are fighting their way down the beaten track just to get a glimpse of me and Austin in our quiet little blogosphere backwater. Apparently I'm quite popular in the Ukraine!  There's even "real-time" updating!  Ok, I must try not to get all OCD about checking every minute of every day, as this could lead to a serious case of delusional statopsychosis, a condition which would mean commital to a secure unit.  Wonders if they will have wifi?

Anyway what would happen to Austin?  I suppose he could come too; in a sense he's already committed, poor little guy, being holed up here with two old bats.  To be sure, if it wasn't for the diversion of Tigger the Massive he would be climbing the walls.  What am I saying?  He does climb the walls.

......... sorry just wandered over to stats again.  I can see this is going to be a long and painful process :( 

News of Austin?  Well, sadly he's developed a five-brush-a-day habit; it's getting beyond a joke.  It used to be just once in the evening.  Now every time he sees me he stands on his head, rolls neatly over onto his back, and makes like a giraffe with his neck.
 


He gets quite peevish if I ignore him to get on with more important things, like filing my nails or watching daytime tv. So I give him his fix and then he falls asleep in my lap - but not before he's carefully administered the requisite number of acupuncture needles in my legs (ouch!). Bless .......

....... Oh, while I've been chatting away here someone from Latvia has dropped by :>)