Taking Barclay To The Cattery :(

I'm going away over Christmas and can't take my beloved cat with me, which meant packing him up in the little cat carrier, which he was not amused with...

And taking him to the cat brig... aww poor little Barclay, but in fairness the cattery was absolutely lovely, ran by a really friendly family of animal lovers and in his little pen he has a litter tray, a little ladder leading up to a comfy sleeping box where I put his fleecey blanket he likes to sleep on and inside is a little heater that he'll have on over night. When they're cleaning it he can go in and outdoor pen to explore and they bought in all his favourite food brands and treats. So I know he'll be well looked after. 

But I do feel bad to be without him, poor old boy. The lovely Sarah (my friend from uni) dropped him off with me and after that we went to Blicking Hall which was near by where her sister got married (um, nice!!). 

And we had a nice little coffee/cake combo. 

And then we went on a muddy but pleasant walk/gossip where about 5 minutes after taking this photo I got electrocuted by the effing fence!! Not cool. 

He's So Fancy, You Already Know

So I'm a crazy cat lady, and recently Mr Barclay and I have moved house... near a main road... so unfortunately Mr pussycat can't go out for now. 

Aww look he has a heart in his fur! Anyway... so I've bought him a few things lately to keep him amused. First off cat grass, this is really good, I got it at pets at home and you just add water (although you can buy the seeds alone if you're less lazy than I am - let's face it, you probably are). Only cost about £2! Bargain. And it's been a couple of days and the shoots are coming through. 

Secondly I bought him cat-nip bubbles which he really likes, at first they confused him but then he realised he could lick the bubble wand and have a short drug induced roll around on the carpet. 

Next up, feathers on a stick, the classic. He like's this if he's having a mad five minutes before bed time. 

I got him a cat harness too for him to explore the garden which went great until he figured out how to escape it! I'll be putting it on extra tight next time for little Houdini. 

But his favourite activity is watching outside the back garden window... 

For his enemies... squirrels, other cats, birds, bats. You name it, he hates it. 

Look at his new bow tie argyle collar, how sweet. And that's the kitty update for the new house. 

Tired Out

So I'm unpacked and in my new place and gave back the keys for my old; Barclay's just pleased I've unpacked his toys. 

But cocktails with the lovely Anastasia cheered me up this week. She ordered a white Russian (she's white and Russian so this made me laugh).

It's so weird, I've heard a ton about it but I'd never been to Franks Bar in Norwich, I had a really tasty cocktail called apple crumble and it really tasted like that! 

But other things like changing my address (including an 18 minute long conversation with Scottish Widows!) have been much less fun and because of all this moving I am so behind on my dissertation. Wah :(

I was thinking today, I don't get body warmers. I never have a situation where my arms are hot but my body is cold. Surely no one does... why do they exist??

Christmas Preparations

My Christmas preparations have been rather shoddy this year due to me being on placement until this week and also working and so I have failed dreadfully on such things as Christmas cards. 

Pussycat and I have been keeping the tree watered though and our decorations arrived by post, hurrah. 

And the advent calendar has being going strong. When I have a 12 hour shift this is what gives my very early morning a slight lift. 

So this week I finally did some Christmas shopping, I got in super early and asked the boyfriend to drop me off one his way to work. This of course meant that the shops were not quite open and I was forced to eat a delicious breakfast. 

And then, I struck, I was the first one in and out of all the shops, look at the emptiness - glorious!

I trundled along happily and when it started to get busy around 11ish, out of the city I popped off home. Brilliant. 

This is the future of Christmas shopping. In other news one of the previous occupants of our house has been sending us christmas presents by accident, so far we have been sent a game for people called Richard, The Hobbit on DVD and also a book about the game show Pointless.... all I can say is that I think we have saved someone from some mediocre gifts this Christmas. Also due to the digital age of information stealing the invoices included with each order have no information for which to contact the actual owner of these gifts! I wonder what we'll be sent by mistake next. A week ago I was at home and a delivery driver dropped me off one of these - http://shop.lego.com/en-GB/Millennium-Falcon-7965 

Very sadly he realised his mistake, brought us the correct package and building work was unable to commence haha. 

Uhm... I went grocery shopping and this happened...

I just saw him there (the Christmas tree is a he) and he needed a home, I know it's November but... look how bushy! 

So much to the annoyance of the boyfriend I got him, and took him home for Mr Pussycat to inspect thoroughly. 

Lovely and bushy... we're away over Xmas so I need to make the most of our tree. And he has a nice little pot so we I can keep him nice and healthy. 

I found this in the Christmas decorations bag too, mwahaha. 

Also the boyfriend and I got his and her mugs because they were on sale. They didn't have a Mario so the boyfriend got Yoshi. 

Feliway

This Christmas Mr Pussycat shall be accompanying us to stay at my Mum's house where his two girl cousin pussycats reside. And so of course chaos shall ensue... perhaps... I thought I'd trial out this plug in thing called Feliway which is some sort of Xanax for cats as far as I can gather. 

It's only been on for two days and Pussycat loves it and keeps sitting next to it which is fine by me. I haven't noticed any big behaviour changes apart from he's a little calmer but to be honest he's normally a well adjusted thing and doesn't misbehave. It lasts for a month so we'll see how it goes and if it's good it'll be coming on the journey to good old Devizes with us. 

Planting Time

I did some work on the garden this weekend and although it was all looking quite nice I was lacking actual plants so it was rather bare. I picked up a few from the Range. 

I got a pepper, tomatoes, rosemary and mint

And raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and I resuscitated a lavender and heather that the boyfriend has strimmed several times

Sunday Gardening

I decided today was the day, the day to sort my garden out. First the raised bed, I picked a really wonky uneven spot in the corner. 

Yes I could have flattened the ground and dug up the grass but this seemed like a lot of effort so instead I just covered the ground in newspaper. 

Got a bit of compost...

Petted my gardening assistant...

Et voila! 

Next stop the border, it looked lovely last year but since then the lawn just kept growing into it and I'm far too lazy to keep digging it up

So I dug it up, added in some edging then lots of compost... it's a bit wonky but it was hot and that's as good as it's going to get people

Last item of business, plant some cat grass courtesy of my mother for my gardening assistant, sorted!

Thetford Forest

They boyfriend and I decided we'd go out on Sunday to amuse ourselves and we decided to take a trip to High Lodge in Thetford Forest. 

We packed up some rations (NB less healthy rations not pictured)

And off we set

It is just beautiful to walk round, when I was a kid my family was big on going out for a walk in nearby forests but I have to say the boyfriend's family apparently was not because towards the end the air became punctuated with "my legs hurt" and much sighing. 

We took the fir tree walk which was three miles which I think was a comfortable length for a leisurely amble but I wouldn't have minded doing a little longer but there weren't any maps along the route and my phone had no signal to look them up online. Maybe next time some forward planning is needed. 

We looked into hiring bikes but it cost quite a lot really and the parking cost us £6.50 so I didn't really want to pay any more on top of that. 

Kitty was eager to join our picnic 

What I Do When I Have A Morning Off - Hex Bug

I've just started back at my nursing placement so I've been away from home the past week working, working, working. So I hadn't seen my cat for a little while, this means bonding time. 

In the boyfriend's Christmas stocking I....I mean Santa included a Hex Bug. 

You put them on a smooth surfaced floor and they run around like... well like a bug, if they hit a wall or an object they turn round and scuttle off. 

This means fun for pussy cat

I know what you're thinking, if it was in the boyfriend's Christmas stocking then why are pussycat and I playing with it? Well... don't tell the boyfriend.