Day to day musings of a cat minder/ sitter in North Tyneside and Newcastle upon Tyne . For details of services go to http://www.catminders.biz

Welcome to CatMinders

Welcome to CatMinders


Thursday 19 August 2010

Ms Catminder gets a strange Call

Back from CatMinding ... two old friends in the fairytale garden and two other old friends where the trick is to try to time visits when the DogWalker is out with the dogs otherwise we are battling against the odds with two huge dogs looking for attention and pushing and shoving as I try to go about my business. These two are gorgeous but strong enough to knock me flying .. they havent .. yet .. but mainly because I'm good at hanging onto things when the onslaught begins . ( I do love them really) . The male cat at this house climbs up alongside me on the bench and nips my elbow companionably .
At the first house one of the elderly cats is missing in action but soon emerges gingerly from the bushes when I call ...picks her way across the damp lawn and follows me into the house. Her family think she may be losing her sight and I'm inclined to agree but she is doing very well . After breakfast she returns to the sun and allows me to pet her for a while before settling herself on a bench .

Anyway back from CatMinding and a teentrip to the dentist to pick up mouthguard and get a filling . New dentist - who is a delight after the last one - thought she had done the filling at the check up appointment so did the scale and polish and handed over the mouthguard then waved us off. N was giving me frantic signals about the filling . I mentioned it and ... action stations ... it had been marked on the computer as done ! Poor N had to jump back in the chair , tip back , bib on , glasses back on and injection and filllin done in a couple of minutes . Phew! Glad we didnt just slope out as that tooth would have started playing up inn a few weeks and we would have wished we hadnt . Tempting though it was .

So , back from all that . Phone rings .
Young woman on phone who must have mistaken me for some kind of super-duper cat person who knows everything there is to know about cats .
She tells me she has an eight week old kitten and it has got into the wall cavity behind her washing machine and has been trapped there for twenty four hours . I tell her I am a cat minding service but ask what she has done to try to coax it out . She has called the RSPCA and they have suggested she warms up some tuna and wafts it about . She has tried this but the kitten is too scared to come out . "Its a very nervous kitten" . She has somehow set a camera up and can see its still moving just beyond the reach of her arm .
I suggest the fire brigade may help and offer to get a number for her from my neighbour who works for the Fire Service . I take her number and go along to find my neighbour who has taken another neighbour's dog out  , as she has hurt her ankle . A third neighbour B is in the gardens and says she will send S along on her return .
Soon S arrives and rings the local service to the address given by the caller . She manages to arrange for a fire engine to call out .
We are still waiting to hear the results .
Fingers crossed  that the Kitten was saved in time .

Visit to Cragside Rothbury
















After a wonderful day in Ambleside on Monday ( still on holiday) I took off to Cragside near Rothbury on Tuesday and to make up for the lack of lakes photos took hundreds of the bathrooms inside Cragside . Its forbidden to use flash and I think I may have broken the rules as though I thought I had turned the flash off but apparently not .
Hope you enjoy the pictures .

Migraine Days

Migraine Days

Flower and Bee on a Sunday

Flower and Bee on a Sunday

art on a sunday

art on a sunday