Goats on the Roof , Fontburn, Rothbury

A couple of months ago the notion of a day out once a month was born, and given the rather grand title " the Elders Day Out " was subsequently attached .
Last month's outing was to Haworth in Yorkshire to visit the birthplace of the Brontes so this month a somewhat less grand but no less enjoyable day was planned - to see the Goats on the Roof at Fontburn .
As we guessed might be the case the goats were not indeed quite on the roof and in fact showed no signs of climbing the ladders to the roof during our visit to the coffee shop , so we took photos of them lurking in their downstairs quarters near the piggies who seemed keen to show off their large bottoms and even larger and quite disproportionate testicles ( possibly not visible on the photos - despite clearing off hundreds of old pictures my camera is still not performing well ) . There were also hens , a fancy cockerel , and some sheep.
We took the one and a half hour walk by the lake despite our misgivings about the map, and spotted all sorts of interesting flora and fauna , including some big red toadstools , a fisherman relaxing by his rod and a cormorant making a display on the water.
All the while catching up on news of the past month .... Elders Days Out are a great thing .
Then on to Rothbury where we parked up and had a wander round the town spotting local landmarks now made famous - or infamous - by Raoul Moat , and finally back to Kirkharle where we met this morning and abandoned one of the cars. Fnally home to a house full of Teens getting ready for a party ...... I must get ready with the camera again .....

Phoenix Arizona . Visit to the Heard Museum

As I said yesterday not knowing how to switch the flash off on my camera was a major stumbling block at the Heard museum .
Consequently I have only three pictures to show you , of writing which struck me particularly up in the section called " The Boarding School Experience". Having looked at some of the beautiful artefacts downstairs , I had a feeling that this wasnt going to be such a good hour we were going to be experiencing next , as nothing compared to the years of lives suffered by the young children who were torn from their homes and families often with armed soldiers standing by in case of protest or problem , whilst the children were taken and placed in alien boarding schools to "civilise and educate" them according to the (white) ways of the world . We saw a barber's chair where their long plaits were shorn off. Black and white photos depicting their clothes being removed and showing children later wearing uniforms. Poignant pictures of native Americans with faces so dignified when they arrived looking ...what is the word... less.....faraway ... lost and alone and like stolen beings after the "boarding school experience".
Many of the children didn't survive and succumbed to TB , a source of some interest to me due to my friend's recent experience with that disease and my visit to her in the " isolation" of the local hospital .
The pictures I took , not knowing whether any of them would come out , reflected those interests.
There were many more I could have taken but it seemed wrong to be furiously snapping rather than just walking around trying to imagine the things that happened in the world , and are still happening , in different guises.

Just back from Phoenix Arizona

 Its August since I last wrote my blog !!
I think it had more of an impact than I knew having to change the name and becoming Catminders rather than CatCalls and losing my old identity , daft though that may seem .
Ive been fiddling about on Twitter and enjoying that but Ive been missing the blog so here I am back again , fresh back from a dayjob conference in Phoenix which was quite stunning .
Hey , I wish I could say the same for my photos!
I know -theyre rubbish !
Not really the camera's fault either . It has been pointed out ( D) , that it doesnt help a digital camera to store over seven hundred ( or was it nine hundred ) images , on a camera meant to store two hundred max . After which quality starts to deteriorate. Well , as you can see , and I can confrm , having seen those red rocks at their best , and a truly amazing experience that was . To see the real thing , shot with real cameras , probably best to have a look at Sedona on an internet site .

On the first day of the trip we also visited the Heard museum . I didnt dare take any pictures there as you have to turn your flash off . Guess what ? I havent yet learned that particular skill , though I do intend to . I did though take a couple of shots on my phone which I will download in due course .
Our guide at the museum who was an amazingly exciteable woman who seemed to know everything , told us that Sedona was the place to go and that when she saw the red rocks she started to cry and it was even more spectacular than the Grand Canyon . I didn't cry , except some tears of laughter at the dynamics between my colleagues in the car we hired to make the trip . Suffice to say it was a long hot day and at the outset we predicted there would be tears before bedtime . There was wrestling over the map . There was  a degree of car sickness. Pedantic quibbling . Interior lights flicking on and off ad nauseum . The driver had the patience of a saint .


Anyway enough of that !
Ive erased a lot of photos so any future pictures should be better .
I hope to attract new followers , though I no longer know how this is done ? How did I have such an initial following way back when ? Presumably that was in the ways before I lost my marbles to medication?

Any ideas let me know !

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 .

Abbi is leaving :-(

Nat met her childhood friend Abbi at nursery , I assume on their first day there though I can't remember that far back and it seems a lifetime away to me . Probably does to them too .

A year at nursery and we still have the teatowel with their little drawings on depicting their childhood selves, Abbi and Nathalia aged three.

Then on to primary school and many an after school outing and party . Abbi lived in the next street and like Nat loved animals . When Nat got her first hamster it was Abbi who helped us get Daisy out of the cage and scooped her up off the floor when she shot off and escaped ; we were a bit nervous at first but Abbi was fearless having had two of her own for ages and knowing just  how to handle them . She loved our cats and especially when our Pearl had her kittens Abbi would be along early before school to play with them and try to decide which one she liked best .

Later , just before the move to Senior School when complications came on the scene Abbi and her family where there for Nat and Nat was never to forget Abbi's support at that time .

Which  is what has made it so tough, this news of Abbi's departure for Scotland now that she is sixteen and heading for college and a new life with her family.  

A really tough few weeks anticipating the move , saying Goodbyes and finally today sending Abbi off with a box of our signature Brownies and wishing her well and knowing that she will be back in a couple of weeks to see her dad and keep in touch with her friends back her .

Abbi , we will miss you .

We won't forget you .

Enjoy the brownies on your journey north won't you

Have a great time at college !

And don't forget us .

Why Tweet? Why Twitter?

Why Indeed?
In my case its to do with the trickiness of Blogging these days .
I just can't find the words. I don't think its me- I put it down to the medication and the fact that the increased dose I have to take to take migraine at bay results in aphasia and means I just find finding words harder. Literally . Writing and Speaking . So I both say and write less. And when I do both I find it harder to locate the right words and everything takes me longer.
Writing the blog used to be a delight which took me minutes each day . In fact I used to often have ideas for new things I wanted to write minutes after I had finished the last blog post and would often find myself picking up the laptop again and producing a second post or sometimes even a third in one day . Now I find it hard to come up with anything much in a week or even a fortnight . Its not that less happens. In some ways life is as busy with as much if not more going on . Its just finding the words.
And then along came Twitter. I looked at it askance at first , finding it both inane and somehow missing the point ( of anything much ) . Then my sister showed me how she used it . I logged in and started following a few of the same people she followed and saw how easy it was to become involved in a little mini community ( yes , a bit like blogging really) , and the bonus for me was that you didnt have to find many words. In fact the maximum per tweet being one hundred and forty could count as a bonus. And , if you preferred , once you worked out how to post pictures from your mobile, you could instead post a few photos and forget about saying anything very much . Lurking was quite fine. No one seemed to object.
I live in hope that I'm going to be off this stuff soon and that all my words are going to come flooding back . Then my word count will improve again and there will be a blog revival .
In the meantime I keep on minding cats ( some recent changes in clientele with old favourites moving away. They know who they are and will be sadly missed :-(    And some new families contacting me and coming onto the books which is always good.

Ive had to turn some people away as they are a bit too far away - it seems there are less people out there cat minding at the minute and I'm getting calls from further afield which I can't always respond to due to other pressures.