Once a week

OK, haven't done too badly as only updated it last week, so here is another catch up. First of all, thank you so much to all of you who have sent me lots of love and hugs and prayers for my mum. As you know I had to rush her into hospital last Sunday night at midnight. She is still in hospital but is doing much better and on Tuesday we are moving her to a rehabilitation hospital for another week and hopefully on 31st March she can go home. But she moves from her house to a flat on the 8th of April, so Hayde and I will be doing the move.

Guard Cat
Little Lucy is the guard cat of my flat! She does not let any other cat through the cat flap (apart from Gingerblokeycat coz he was twice her size lol). So here she is after having seen a black cat in the patio approaching the cat flap:

and here is her view (sorry its blurred, it was not an easy photo to take!!)


Challenges
I am really enjoying our weekly challenges and I am one behind (the home one). Did the white space one of Lucy which I loved :

But then realised that I had totally forgotten to use the colour swatch! And as Lisa pointed out, I needed to do a layout of Honey so that she didn't feel left out, here it is, using all the colours in the swatch (Liv, Lisa, do I get a prize??)


Introducing Barney!!
My best friend Di lost her cat Zac to illness a week ago, we were all sooo very sad - he was a lovely cat and so loved. They decided to visit a cat rescue place and came home with Barney!!

Isn't he cute??? He is 10 years old and a Persian and wasn't treated very well by first set of owners. Passed him on to a new set of owners who could not keep up with brushing him daily and his fur ended up all matted and bad and they shaved it! Then took him to the cat rescue place where he has been since January. No one wanted him because they thought he looked horrible! I think he is adorable! What do you think? So Di and her DH took him home on Friday and he is settling in well!
Oh yes, and doesn't he look like Animal from the Muppets!!

Catch up - warning long post!!

Eeeek, can't believe it's nearly a month since I update my blog! How time flies! What have I been up to? 3 weekends ago I went to babysit gorgeous Lola for the first time, as Hayde and Mick had a party to go to. It was a bit nervewracking and I kept checking every half an hour that she was ok lol! She woke up once and cried for about 20 mins but I managed to get her back to sleep. I got home at 3am lol! But at that time its an easy drive home and it only took me 20 mins, as opposed to nearly an hour with the traffic (its only 12 miles away but its a bugger of a route).

I uploaded some photos to Photobucket and wow, Photobucket has some great cool things now!! Check out this photo of Lola - I went to the Photobucket Edit and gives tons of goodies :


And for one of our challenges, I did this layout (havent edited in Photobucket)


Talking of Lola, I have completed 4 pages of 2008 Calendar which I am doing for my sister Hayde! Here is a slide show of them - as usual bright and colourful!

OK next on the list was the wedding last weekend at a beautiful palace (no Liv, not my palace!!) in Woodstock - Blenheim Palace! Shame the weather wasn't that good to take a good walk round, and also we couldn't go see the main tourist bits of the Palace - but I did manage a few photos!

Not sure why one of the photos didn't show up in the video, so adding it here :

ACK (a la Liv!!) now I see the photo in the slide show! oh well, you got to put it with it twice!

Ahhh, also, I had a go at creating a template, and did a layout with it :


So there you have it! Of my huge list of things to do I have only completed one - updating my blog! I need to to visiting the blogs of all my lovely mates and leave some love, haven't done the Home challenge nor started the new one!! Weather is crap today so maybe might be able to tick some more things off my list!!

Feast or Famine

Yep, that's me - I either don't blog or scrap for ages, then do loads in one go! Weather is really sunny here but blooming cold, so decided to catch up on doing layouts and blogging! I promised my sister that I would do a calendar with photos of Lola so I finally finished February! If things go well I might even get March done today (yeah, that's pushing it!!). Also wanted to try out slide.com so I went and found a few of my layouts and converted them using slide! See what you think!

I scrapped I blogged!

Where does time fly!! Never enough hours in the day to do everything! But, I scrapped thanks to Lisa's great weekly challenges and Kimi's lovely Orton Effects for Photos and Liv's fantastic multi-photo template!

So first layout completed (boy it felt good) was one of my beautiful gorgeous and precious little niece Lola (and me!) combining Lisa's first challenge plus I used the Orton Effect on all the photos! Oh yeah, you can click on the photos to display them larger if you want!

Next up was another challenge about our Town! So I did photos of Richmond which is close enough to me, 1.25 miles away!! Need to do a second layout of my Town, this time of photos of Lima!

And finally completed today was last Sunday's quote challenge! I had downloaded the quote a few days ago and lost it! Took me ages to find it again today! Liv created a wonderful multi-photo template which I used. So photos of my lovely girlies Honey and Lucy. Not forgetting the beautiful little Simba who as you remember, is the rescued little blind cat that I sponsor. I also sneaked in a photo of the hunky Custard (was Mark's cat and now lives with Mark's parents) who used to stay at mine a lot! Love the photo I took of him with a mouse on his head, he didn't even budge!

Talking about cats, here is an update of Dexter aka Gingerblokeycat - this is the write up at the Cat Rescue place

I'm sure Liv will have a few comments to say about the wording "His Highness" lol!! Anyhow, I do hope he gets found a nice new home soon!

Right, I am out tonight with my best friend and we are going for a few bevvies to Windsor (popping in to my castle naturally - hehehehe!!!).

Simba

I got an email today with the details of Simba, the little cat I am sponsoring! As soon as I got the email of course I burst out crying, but when I read it again, I was happy to know that I am helping this little cat, who has now settled in his foster home and being so well looked after! So the money I send once a month will help towards him. Anyhow, here is what the Cat society told me about Simba :

"Here is some info and photos of Simba, I hope you don't find them too upsetting, they certainly upset me, so be prepared before you look at them, unfortunately this is the reality of people's neglect.

Simba is one of the lucky ones, he's no longer in pain and has quality of life now.

No detailed story as such, but this is what we know.

He was abandoned at a vets in very poor condition with total blindness in one eye and rapidly diminishing sight in the other. After a period of treatment (at the vets) his discomfort escalated and glaucoma was diagnosed after he came into HAWS care. One eye was removed by our vets immediately to ease his pain. The second eye has just been removed for the same reason and he is now beginning his recovery. Despite what he's been through he's a happy, purry cat, and very settled in his foster home. His foster mum sometimes forgets he is blind as he gets around so well.

Thank you so much for sponsoring him."

Hope you like his photos! I think he is absolutely gorgeous!

A week behind (oops nearly two!)

Don't know how I manage it but I am always behind! Actually, I did take these photos 8 days ago and forgot about them! So these are the photos of Lesson 1 of Two Peas in a Bucket - 12 Weeks to Better Photos photography course! This lesson was learning about aperture and I did learn a lot! Struggled with the weather over here to get decent photos! Lesson 3 starts tomorrow so guess I better pull my finger out and do the exercises for Lesson 2!! Photos below were taken walking in to Richmond with a tiny bit of sun that came out!

5.6

9.0

22.0

How do you get a huge cat into a cat box!!

Ok yesterday was the day gingerblokeycat left. I took him to the vets in the morning where he was going to be checked over, then the Cat Society foster person picked him up in the afternoon. As you all know, this cat was huge so I was in a dilemma on how I was going to get him in the cat box on my own!! So didn't feed him too much when I got up so that I could tempt him into going into the box on his own at around 10ish. Yeah right, he started going in but he is so big I couldnt close the door of the box with him in there eating! So by then he realised that no way would he go in the box on his own, no matter how hungry he was.

OK, went back into the 2nd bedroom and locked the cat flap and closed the door, I grabbed a towel (otherwise he would bite and scratch me to pieces) and tried to put him into the box. Bad idea - no way would he go in that way! By this time he is not happy and I dont want to stress him! Then I remembered my box also opened from the top! So, grabbed him again and put him in, he just fit! I pressed him in and closed the lid! Phew!! Done!

Turned around to grab my stuff and I hadnt locked it properly so he was out! AARRGGHHHHHH - or )*)B%$£!&^^"&!!! And he went and hid under the sofabed. By this time I'm thinking how the hell am I going to get this cat in the box on my own! So I thought I would try one more time. OK, first move sofabed out and get him from under there. He aimed straight to the cat flap which of course luckily, coz I am clever, I had locked! Sooooo, grabbed him again in the towel and with a bit of a struggle got him back in the box and locked it properly this time!! PHEW!!!!!!!! Covered him with a blanket because if I spoke cat speak, I am sure I would have been shocked at the language coming from him as he was not a happy chappy!! Vet was about 15 mins drive so took him there. The receptionist at the vet nearly had a hernia lifting the cat box!! Ohhh I was so sad by then I didn't even see him as they took him with the blanket still covering him! I got to the car and cried my eyes out! Why am I soo soppy!!

I got an email today telling me "Ginger boy is fine, passed his MOT with flying colours and they've estimated his age at maximum 18 months, all the vet nurses thought he was very handsome!" Oh yes before I forget, I gave them 2 names to choose from - Auburn or Rusty!

Anyway, I want to do my bit to help the cat society so I enquired about sponsoring a cat and when I spoke to the lady who I have been dealing with, she went to find out which of their "elderly" cats could do with sponsoring. This was her reply :

"A cat which we think would be nice to sponsor is Simba, he is in his early teens and completely blind. Even though he has no sight at all, as both eyes were diseased and had to be removed, he still enjoys wandering in her (foster person) garden and is able to climb up on the sofa or wherever else he fancies having a snooze. She says he finds his way around in the house so well, that she sometimes forgets he can't see. He is very happy and purry, enjoys his food, and loves to go and sit in the sun (when we have some !!) She will never rehome him as it would be too unsettling to put him in a strange environment."

So now I am crying and sobbing at work reading this so I told her that is the cat I want to sponsor! I will be setting up £12 a month towards Simba. They will send me photos of Simba and put his photo on their website as a sponsored cat!!

As soon as I have a photo I will post one in my blog! I have rambled on far too long!!!

Byeee byeee Gingerblokeycat!! I hope they find you a nice loving home where you will be very happy!!