Double Trouble

Thank you everyone for the kind words about Monet. I'm feeling very raw & emotional at the moment but it'll get easier with time.

We have however been brave & added two new members to the household already:


Ginny (l) & Lyra (r)

DH & I have had kittens before but DD never has so, even though we both would have preferred to get an adult cat, we thought that it was only fair to get kittens so that she could have the fun of playing with them & watching them grow up. We promised her some once Monet was gone as she really didn't like other cats & really should have been an 'only' but I already had two cats when I got her as a kitten.


Ginny

I wanted to wait a couple of weeks but DH is off work for another week due to his surgery & it made a lot of sense to have someone here for at least the first week. I work part time so they won't be on their own all day and it seemed to work out better this way.


Lyra

They are 12 week old sisters & came from the local animal rescue centre & had to be homed together as they're very close. So when we rang up requesting two kittens of the same gender the staff must have been cheering. We had already had a home check, as it were as the woman who brought us Spike works there, so we just had to have a vet check over the phone & we were allowed to take them home.


Ginny (l) & Lyra (r)

Poor Pam isn't very impressed & retreated to the loft at first but now she's got the rest of the house with her own litter tray. The kittens are currently housed in the conservatory with radiators & a heated bed until she learns to accept them. Hopefully DH can make progress with this next week.

The dogs however love their own cats (sadly they do think it fun to chase other cats that aren't part of their pack but aren't allowed to take part in this sport) & are far keener to spend time with the new recruits:


Annie & Blue watching the kittens

Annie in particular will adore them & spent a good 10 minutes lying by the door with her tail wagging. In time the kittens will learn just like Monet did that these two big hairy things are actually quite good fun & nice & warm to sleep on.

I feel a bit 'unfaithful' getting them so quickly after Monet but they are making me smile!

btw I had a lot of 'help' writing this post & knitting around them is definitely not happening yet!

Goodbye Monet

It's exactly a year to the day that I had to have Tia put to sleep & now it's happened again as Monet was put down earlier this evening. She was suffering from arthritis & kidney failure & had stopped eating so it was the right decision to make albeit a hard one.

I first met her when she was an hour old as my friend owned her mother & she was an ugly kitten who grew into a very beautiful cat.


Monet & her siblings aged 4 weeks


Monet & her brother George aged 5 weeks

She was initially wary of my previous Airedale Terrier Libby but grew to love her & adored both Blue & Annie. She would often greet them with trills & walk between their legs jumping up to scent them with the side of her face.


Monet learning to accept dogs

She has really enjoyed the last 7 months as she loved our new house & garden & spent a lot of time snoozing in the sunshine, catching mice and chasing birds & squirrels:


Snoozing on the lawn


Monet enjoying the sunshine

She was a very loving cat but wouldn't tolerate anything that constituted 'fiddling' including flea spray, the giving of tablets or any other unwelcome attention. So I had to smile when she managed to bite the vet as she inserted the 'lethal injection' despite having being given a sedative beforehand



Monet

3/5/1991 - 2/11/2007

Our garden in autumn & an update on Spike

Thanks for all the comments & good wishes regarding Spike. At first we thought he'd moved on but now he's eating the food every night which is the only indication we have that he's still there as we don't have a infra red camera. DH has been very tempted but we can't justify the cost.

I'm going to try and answer all the questions his arrival raised:

Firstly he was nursed back to health & looked after by a wonderful woman who runs the local hedgehog rescue service entirely self funded & voluntary. She currently has about 80 'pigs' in & will probably have most of them until next year as time is running out to release them before the weather gets too cold. I found her by googling 'hedgehog rescue' & the name of our nearest city & suggest you do the same if you can offer a good home. Gardens must be pesticide free & all hazards including wire, dogs etc must be addressed first. If you have a totally enclosed garden (walls preferred) you might be suitable to take on an injured 'pig' as they often come into rescue with eyes & limbs damaged beyond repair but a healthy 'pig' needs the space of approximately 10 gardens to roam in.

That brings me to the next comment which quite rightly queried my dogs' reaction to them. As both my girls are terriers they'd love nothing more than to hunt & probably kill him but as you can see in the photo above DH built a VERY solid gate & fence earlier in the year in preparation for our temporary guests and because we didn't want the dogs to ruin the garden. They have the patio & top of the drive to lounge on & also get plenty of walks so it works well. For us we have a garden that doesn't smell of dogs & the flower beds & lawn aren't ruined.

For the wildlife who also live in our garden, they have safety, peace & quiet with a ready supply of food & water as we have installed two bird tables & a bird bath.


Squirrel

Bryony you beat me to it! I took the garden photo on my phone & then wrote the rest of the post via my laptop & before I could publish the changes you had already commented! First prize for a speedy commenter!


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Red cross on the door

DH had his operation last week + is recovering with feline aid. 
If that weren't enough I've got a bad chest infection + am on my 2nd round of antibiotics + feel as if someone is twisting a knife in my chest :-( not much fun.

Mini sweater

Meet Spike!

A few weeks ago I started hinting of some changes here at blueadt house and now I can finally reveal whats been going on.


Meet Spike!

He was taken into rescue in June '06 weighing just 3oz & suffering from a variety of ailments including lung worm. Now a healthy 4lb he's strong enough to go back into the wild or rather the bottom of our garden. He'll have the freedom to come & go as he wants with the added advantage of fresh food & water delivered every evening.


Spike

DH has made him a special house & it's carefully hidden under plastic covered in a mountain of leaves in a corner under a large bush sheltered by fencing.


'Band H' Hedgehog house

We're hoping that he doesn't 'leg it' & that he choses to stay in his house snug in all the leaves. The bottom of our garden is quite overgrown & home to squirrels in the trees, mice & lots of birds including Tawny owls. Hopefully he'll fit in well & make it his home.


Spike

Long time no blog

It's been very busy in the blueadt household recently.

Memorable occasions include DD starting Secondary School. That was the whole reason for our house move & she's settled in well. We chose a house that was in between the two school sites so that she could walk to both & obviously this had to mean that the friends she has made live nowhere near us. So she can't walk to a friends house on a weekend & has to be taken everywhere by taxi aka me which we're gutted about as she wouldn't play out at the last house due to the girls who had bullied her & we were hoping that she'd gain friends nearby & have more confidence in going out.

She has joined a number of after school clubs but non are sports related which surprised me. She was delighted to present me with this recently her first creation at Cake Decorating:


Bluedog in icing sugar

DD has also celebrated her 12th birthday. Presents weren't in abundance as we've recently decorated her bedroom & DH built her a fantastic wardrobe with sliding mirrored doors which cost a fortune but she had a good time & a huge slab of chocolate cake with her birthday meal at a favourite restaurant. She is now over 5ft 4" tall & fast approaching my height of 5ft 5.5" & she can't wait until she's taller than me. She's now taller than a lot of my friends which delights her no end.

She has also been ill this week with a bad cold & another ear infection. So swimming in on hold for a few weeks until she recovers.

There has also been a fair bit of stress for DH regarding his working life. Due to internal politics he has been under pressure a lot recently & hasn't been happy with the direction he was being pushed into. Working for a very large organisation things take a long time to happen; 2 years in his case which is a very long time to have uncertainty about your place in the cog. But as luck would have it another job came up & he was interviewed on Wednesday just two days after started in the new department where he was dumped. We were celebrating last night as he got the job
As he's having an operation for Carpal Tunnel soon he will have spent a grand total of 10 days in the role, that he didn't want, before he goes on sick leave. The people on the new team are great but it's the way that the management has manipulated him that he can't stand so I'm really chuffed that they'll now be left without his indepth knowledge that they took for granted. His new job is a really interesting & vital role so I'm pleased that he'll have something to get his teeth into.

Things are changing for me too but I'm not ready to reveal how just yet.

On the knitting front things have been a bit quiet. I'm working away on Christmas projects which can't be shown here. Have also splashed out on the new Cat Bordhi book further to this review & OMG it really turns conventional sock construction on it's head! I'm doing a tiny baby sock for a keyring fundraiser but it's fidly as it's so small. Pics when it's finished.

I also got a lovely treat recently from Miss Malice. She had generously offered to pick some goodies up for me when she went home to Canada but was a bit late in posting them due to her manic timetable at the moment (read working full time & setting up her own business) so very kindly sent this gorgeous treat with my things:


Chameleon Colorworks Evolution in Flamingo Sunrise

This yarn is unbelievably soft & so smooth. I'm planning to make a pair of bedsocks with it to stop DH moaning when I utilise his body heat to warm my frozen blocks of ice. Socktopus specialise in yarns that can't be bought anywhere else in the UK so head on over & be prepared to start drooling