Sunday Selfie (In) Trepidation!

We interrupt our Gotcha week reflections once again to bring you my Sunday Selfie submission to the Kitties Blue blog hop!!  We will continue the rehash tomorrow and there will be one, possibly two more retro posts from way back when! So be warned! ;)

Here I am taking my selfie while I am in a state of some angst, agitation and stress due to the fireworks which have been going on all week and also now the really really bad weather, which means I can't go outside and do my usual thorough patrolling of my territory. Goodness knows who or what is running rampant out there, but it sounds very dangerous and threatening!! Excuse me while I go and rip the carpet!

To join in the Sunday Selfie fun click on the badge below to see other submissions.

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rampant - a small insect used as a sloping surface to join two different levels

(best I could do being , ya know, under stress and all)

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Caturday Art diversion!

We are taking a moment out from our week of retrospection to join in the Caturday art blog hop hosted by Athena and Marie.

The Staff was playing around with Ribbet and she went a bit crazy!! What do you think?

What has she done to me?? A bit spooky!! MOL

Here is the original!

Which do you prefer? 

I think I quite like the new me! 
At least the humans won't trip over me so much in the dark!

An InLinkz Link-up

Gotcha Week Reflections (3) Walking to Heel!

Thank you once again for joining Austin and me as we reflect on some of our earlier experiences in getting to know each other. This next post is from 23rd August 2009 and is entitled "Walking to Heel". 

By nature cats are not followers. Even when they are following, they tend to do it from the front!  Am I the only one to have noticed this? Many's the time I've indicated to Austin that he should "come with me please" (for instance, to the kitchen) to find that he's taken his natural position right in front of my feet so that when I take a step forward I have to decide in a jiff whether to tread on him or swerve sharply to the side, thus causing myself an injury.  

Being an animal lover, of course, I would much rather do myself serious damage than harm a hair of his little feline personality. So we proceed on our journey, all the while his ears are like antennas checking constantly for any change in movement or direction. And I shuffle along behind in a kind of one-legged hop as I try to predict which way he's going to veer. I stop to regain balance; he stops as he's "following" me. I place my left leg to his left and right leg to his right. So now I'm straddling him! He looks at me: 

"Make up your mind!" 

I hop over him and gain the advantage of being at the front. He nips round the side of me and stands on my left foot. We reach an impasse. Confusion reigns. We pause to consider our positions and then the whole thing starts over again; but by this time I have forgotten what it was I was supposed to be doing anyway, so I swivel round on my one free foot and hobble back to base camp in the living room for a regroup and a bit of a think. Austin goes back to rolling on his catnip stash behind the piano.

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impasse - when it is not possible for 'im to pass

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Gotcha Week - Reflections (2)

In our week of celebrations and reflections from the time Austin first came to reside at Chez Towers, our next repost is from 20th April 2008 and is entitled "It's Not Cricket".  I think it is safe to say that we were still in the "getting to know you" bit of our relationship! Things do improve .... eventually!

I have taken to wearing thick denim jeans and shin guards of late! He, who must be appeased, has devised a new game. It's called "screeching like a banshee and hurling fur, tooth and claw, onto the leg of innocent passing human, who's just minding her own business".  

I don’t know why he does it? It's not nice. It's not cricket. It hurts. I end up looking a bit like Quasimodo dragging his hunch back and misshapen leg around the Notre Dame! He thinks it's great fun and tries again from another angle - just to even out the damage I suppose. I put it down to too much protein in his diet, or possibly it's his TV viewing habits. He's gone off Fiona Bruce (BBC news reader). He's discovered Extreme Furballing on Sky Sports. So I have had to restrict his channel hopping activities to CBBC and CeeBees (or whatever it's called) by utilising the parental control facility. It will only last as long as it takes for him to work out that the pin number (that's personal identification number number, so why do we say it? It's tautological) is three digits from my mobile number plus one other taken at random from the telephone directory (have to be careful you know!). 

Austin is most likely to indulge in this antisocial behaviour when he's come in from his nightly rampage around the neighbourhood. So I have taken precautions when opening the door. Armed with a tea towel in one hand and brandishing a plastic water bottle in the other I approach with trepidation but proclaiming loudly that if one iota of my life blood is shed during this encounter then it's back to the car engine from whence he came:- 

Open door, he shoots in, I scream, he screams, I step back, he advances, I retreat into corner holding tea towel like some neophyte matador first time in the ring. He edges round me, I start whimpering. He loses interest, sticks his leg in the air and starts cleaning his fundament with contrived indifference. I'm a gibbering wreck! He's king of the castle. We move on ...... ..

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tautology - the study of stretching.

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Gotcha Week - Reflections (1)

First of all we want to say thank you so much for all the lovely Gotcha day comments yesterday AND we also got this super card from sweet Nellie Bellie!

Awww! Thank you Nellie ❤️

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This week, in order to try and make up for forgetting Austin's 8th Gotcha day (Nov 1st) I shall be reposting a few of the earliest blog posts I wrote.  

The best place to start, so they say, is at the beginning! So here is my very first blog post from 23rd March 2008. You will notice that I had the audacity to actually write it in my own voice! This was way before I realised that cats did blogging and actually had quite a lot to say!

Austin - aged 7 mths (approx)

Well what can I say? It was a damp, dark late October day in 2007 that I accidentally picked up this young fellow from the RSPCA rescue centre in Colwyn. I say “accidentally” because I went there to get a dog! However, all they had there at the time were 7 dalmatians and a suspect pit bull terrier cross. Crossed with what? I have no idea - and that is a cul de sac I will not venture down.

On the way out I popped into the cat section and that was my first mistake. One couldn’t fail to notice this little tuxie. He was making a big fuss trying to climb up the glass cage thingy that was his jail. “Ahhhhh he senses my feline empathy” I thought and that was my second mistake! All he wanted, it transpired, was to head straight out the door and up the A55 to Rhyl, Chester and all points east!
It seems that Austin was a stray found a few weeks before, injured and keeping warm inside a car engine - hence the name! Yep, he’s named after a car, not the place in Texas.

We don't know what traumas he suffered, except that one of his back legs was badly broken. Whether someone tried to start the car I don't know! Good news is he’s mended very well, except for a "bumpy" hip. We were told he would make a good indoor cat because he would probably be lacking in the necessary agility needed to make it in the big outdoors. Yeah right!

It took a few days to close the deal, but soon I was able to bring him home and that was how it all began.....

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audacity, audaciousness - bare-faced cheek i.e. beardless

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She forgot my Gotcha Day!!

Yes she did! Sunday was my 8th Gotcha day and we would have forgotten it completely if sweet Dezi hadn't sent a card in Cat Scouts!!

Isn't it clever! Thank you Dezi xxxx

I have looked back over the years to see what else has been said about my coming to live at Chez Towers and I find to my horror that my gotcha anniversary has only been mentioned twice in all that time! Once, a year after I came, and then again last year!! Such disrespect!!

Anyway, a gotcha day can be a time for reflection and reassessment! And why not?  Since I picked out the gullible kind person wandering through the cages at the RSPCA in Colwyn Bay and decided she looked a bit soft in the head lonely and in need of a furry companion, we have been inseparable ever since. 

It is true that The Staff has needed a great deal of training and discipline over the years and I think she will always be a work in progress. There have been some memorable moments though and as so few people read my blog back in the day, we thought we might regurgitate repost some of the earlier entries over the next few days so you can see how things were! Be warned! Things were rather different back then, as you will see!

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catoptric - reflection. A cat's favourite pastime

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This is the ......

..... wedged-behind-the-chair-trying-to-get-some-privacy-so-I-can-arrange-my-tuxie-furs-with-my-little-pink-tongue, selfie!

There is no peace for The Tux

Who's furs were far from deluxe!

He worked his pink tongue

'Cos the furs were far flung 

Until he had perfect flux!

We are joining in the Sunday Selfie Blog Hop once again hosted by our friends over at  The Cat on my Head. Click on the badge below to join in :)

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A week or two ago we were very excited to discover we were the international winners of the giveaway held by Ann of Pawsitively Pets to celebrate their third blogoversary! We received a Amazon gift voucher for £25, which we thought was very generous.

The Staff and I are still in negotiations, with the help of NUCAT of course, as to how it should be spent! Thank you to Ann and the crew xx

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Please note we are a bit behind with all kinds of blog stuff, but please be patient if we are not visiting and commenting as much as usual. The next issue of The Towers Times is scheduled to go to the printers as soon as the Union and Management conclude their latest round of pay negotiations!!

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