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


Sunday, 9 September 2007

yesterday...


....was one of those idyllic days when everything goes perfectly .

CatCall to start the day , and watering plants in the lovely yard there with two friendly cats for company .

It was D's birthday and his daughter and her partner and their little one ( two ) arrived bearing croissants for breakfast . These were no ordinary croissants though , they had been laid out to prove the night before and were now waiting on a tray to be baked , a variety of different fillings . Reminiscent for me of American conferences ( the Day Job) , where you arrive from your hotel at the conference to be served the most amazing danish pastries , croissants etc . Nowhere does it better ! But thanks to J and D our kitchen was a pretty close approximation . All the more appreciated as J was due to go back on night shift later ( she is a midwife not long qualified and if ever you want to watch in admiration as someone manages a really busy life at such a young age , take a look at her blog http://www.motherwifemidwife.blogspot.com/). Alina seemed to enjoy picking up tiny red hearts off the floor most of anything , but thats' how it is when youre two . The hearts had been added as sprinkles to D 's card and present , and there was a moment this morning when I spotted one sticking to his bare buttock which still makes me giggle now ....I dont quite know how it got into the bed but maybe Alina does !


Holy Island in the afternoon was magical . Very few cars there , so as we stood looking out to sea taking endless photos , all we could hear were birds and , when we walked around the headland heading for the beach , the eerie noise of the seals out on an outcrop of rocks , sounding like a cross between distant motorbikes and mermaids singing . Strange noise , which I managed to capture on the camera video function . The castle reflected in the sea perfectly for us in the sunshine for a few minutes and the same as we ate pear cake in a fairytale garden setting with a gang of birds watching us , starlings , thrushes and sparrows, squabbling over crumbs .


We sat on the beach searching for "St Cuthbert's beads ", or crinoids , the tiny fossilised remains which look like tiny beads crinoids st cuthberts beads - Google Image Search and which were spilled by St Cuthbert according to myth. Fossil folklore Incredibly satisfying to find , all different , all beautiful , and something which visitors to Lindisfarne have done over the years , and stil , with each turn of the tide , more of the beads are washed up . We left the island with plenty of time to spare , with the aim of returning at some later stage when the tide is close to covering the causeway , just for the fun of watching as the water closes in from both sides .


Saturday, 8 September 2007

Holy Island


Wonderful day at Holy Island .... just a picture for now , though there may be more , I see from the camera that we took 81.
D's birthday , the nicest day I've had in ages . He seemed to enjoy it too !

help, please ?

Just wondering if any of you people out there can help me with a blog thing ?
You will see from the last post that BetteJo has asked me a question about subscription to the blog . This is something which has long puzzled me ... when I first started reading the Freddie blog I subscribed which meant that each time Tim posted , I received an email which told me there was a new post and took me there via a link .
I hoped to set the same thing up on mine but wasnt able to find the way . Though I went through what seemed to be the right motions , having read all the blurb , it just didnt work like that though I was able with other blogs to use google Reader myself to get updates . But it was never quite what I wanted , which was the e mail way .
Now that BetteJo has raised this it has set me wondering again ... and also wondering about my other readers, and how you operate .
I'm fascinated , now I look at my stats , to see that there are people coming back and back to read , and I wonder whether you all do what I do when I read blogs which is simply to save links and log on each time .Another source of satisfaction is why people keep coming back , is it the cat connection , the pictures , the other pictures , or the bits of writing ? I started writing to publicise the CatCalls website and as far as I know none of my latest enquiries have been connected to the sites though I do know some of my catcalls families do read the blog as they've told me they do . So it all remains a bit of a mystery to me why I get returners , though very gratifying it is too, as Im sure all of you bloggers out there will know . And oh the joy of a Comment !
What I really need is to know more about you people ! maybe I should invite everyone who reads to make a comment and just tell me something about you and why you read , what else you read ( great way to find new blogs ) and what you like and don't like . Now there's a challenge !
And if anyone knows anything about Subscribe and how to , please tell me ?!!

Friday, 7 September 2007

Mini Pound Puppies


None of my cats are keen on conventional cat toys .
Moving rats with feathers for tails do nothing for them ( or me either come to that ) .
But all four of them adore mini pound puppies 6 1995 MINI POUND PUPPIES FROM POUND PUPPY on eBay, Branded Soft Toys, Soft To,( wouldn't you just love that little caramel one in the front ?) see the latest (above) I've been offered on ebay just this very minute as I sit minding my own business . That's the problem with ebay . Its hard to stop .
Months ago , I realised Kitty would be a happier camper if she had her very own supply of pound puppies . Due to some malfunction on her brain's hard wiring she views any passing pound puppy as her very own kitten and likes to carry specimens around , move them from room to room , presumably to protect them from the Horrid Humans living here , or maybe those nasty Vicious Birmans that she doesn't trust too far either . I think its safe to say Kitty has Trust Issues . perhaps simpler just to say Kitty has Issues .
N and I spent the best part of a Saturday combing the shops for Pound Puppies and found them now unobtainable so I did what you do now... you go on ebay ... and there were pound puppies galore . After several false starts , losing my nerve a few times , and balking at the reach for the stars price of the first "batch" I bid for ... I finally dropped out of bidding at ten pounds and they later sold for an incredible £28 ( for about thre or four used puppies ) . Finally however I got the knack of the thing and got myself a great bag full of the little poppets for around a fiver , all in perfect condition and providing Kitty with that Birthdays all at once Feeling as they tumbled out of the padded envelope.
Said Pound Puppies are now stored in a compartmentalised box , colour and size sorted , all ready each day for the cats to line up neatly and select the puppy of their choice to play with ( I did mention D's Tidying Issues didnt I ? )
Problem ? that despite several attempts to cancel the interest on ebay for pound puppies , I still from time to time receive a note to tell me they have found New Pound Puppies which may be of interest ....ever tried to resist clicking that ebay button ?

Thursday, 6 September 2007

Sea Monkeys ?

But you do have to find humour in every situation . Mine came after I had apologised to D for being a grumpy old misery when I was trying to speed him up finding the pills and he couldnt go any faster through my cess pits of drawers full of junk and pills .
But the humour was a private moment later when I was lying there thinking my thoughts , pain temporarily ebbed and my mind doing a re run of the night before . Just seconds before the doctor arrived I had been lying on the bathroom floor . In a final burst of action I threw up all over myself , all over the towel I was carrying and down my PJ s and , well , there were blackberries everywhere and I was choking and coughing . It went on and on , and Nat came in and the doorbell rang and D went to get it and I asked Nat to get me some new pyjama bottoms to change into quickly as the original pair were all puked . She ran along to the drawers , they got me a new pair , she came in to help me change , D showed the docs to the bedroom , trying to clear out the four cats who were all in there trying to assist ( last time Pearl went into his medical bag, tired of waiting for him )
. D made the right noises to the docs , I tried to clean up as best I could ( minging hair , face , teeth . Yuk) .
I bunged all the dirty stuff into the bidet and dragged myself along to our room .
Here I am .
I lie on the bed , D asks Nat to keep all the cats out if she can ( no mean feat to eject them all and answer questions ) .

The doc is asking me stuff now to try to work out if Ive got meningitis , if I'm always this dozy ( or just plain dim ), meanwhile teaching his student at the same time .
Nat answers a question about my preventors and suddenly D shoots off and is missing for a few minutes .
Out of the corner of my brain I register that he has gone and wonder ..... where'd he go ? Is there a problem ?

Later , after I'm injected and a bit more reasonable , he tells me two things
a) the reason he was carrying the sea monkeys in his arms during the latter part of the consult was he caught Pearl trying to tip them off the sill and it was the only thing he could think to do with them , under pressure ( you all know what sea monkeys are , right?)
and
b) no need for me to worry about the puked on clothes, he managed to slip out during a lull in procedings and pop them in to soak in the big sink downstairs . And now they're properly washed and out to dry on the line .

When he told me , I think I just stared ....

Later , when quite alone , I texted my sister .
Like I said in my profile , she and D have a special understanding .

Apart from Nat , they're two of my favourite people in all the world .
What would I do without them ?

Blackberry Crumble ....


....and this my friends was my sorry downfall on Monday night , or was it Tuesday night ? The days all merge into one . All I know is its now Thursday and its the first day Ive been dressed much less out in days .
I got two more migraines one in am one pm, on Tuesday, complete with visual disturbances and later , whilst I lay moaning to myself and begging D not to leave me whilst he waited for the emergency doctor to come out ( again, there was one here about a week ago ), vomiting of the above blackberry crumble in various stages .
Two points here , if you are not feeling well , blackberries are much nicer to eject that the usual carrots , and point two , its truly wonderful to have a lovely clean shiny bidet for that purpose and well worth the two hundred quid I splashed out on it about ten years ago . It means you can safely lie on the cool tiles on a nice smelling towel until the last minute , then lean over that ( from the floor) at the appropriate moment .
Commenting on such matters is clearly a sad state of affairs , but when there isn't much else going on for two days besides excrutiating pain in the head and neck interspersed with nausea and vomit and the dreaded almost above all else of being unable to see properly and thus unable to read.
I usually manage to contain myself , stay as quiet as possible , and talk in my head to myself about the fact that migraine isnt going to kill me ( though I sometimes feel like doing it myself to escape the pain ) , that it can go on and on and probably will keep coming back , but that like all feelings , emotions , sensations , it passes , and the pain will pass.
But it was harder this time , for some reason . Sometimes it just gets too much , the recurrence so soon after the last one when I haven't even had the chance to get to the GP to ask for another referral on , to look at changing medication yet again .
After the problems last time when I tried a new medication for epilepsy and ended up having a reaction to that over several months which affected my chest so badly that I broke four ribs coughing . Almost losing my job through the amount of time off . Watching people who have to live with me , watching me repeatedly vomiting and crying with the pain . Having to cancel things Ive really looked forwards to . Having to miss work and let people down . Etc . It goes on .
N always knows what to do , sometimes she steers clear , sometimes she comes and involves herself . On Tuesday night , late , when I was choking in the hall outside her room stayed put till I was past and the choking was over . The previous emergency night I was bending over the bidet , covered in mess and she was behind me pulling my hair back into a hairband . How did she know to do that ?
It was harder this time and I almost lost it whilst waiting for the doctor to arrive , getting in a sudden panic and begging D to get me tablets . I just think I can't keep on in this pain for much longer . My bedside cabinets are full of medications tried and tested over the months , years, and though I know exactly and in detail what they all are and how they work and how to use them , part of the migraine is that my speech becomes confused so that I can't explain myself to other people . There are anti sickness drugs , painkillers of varying strengths , anti inflammatories , and once , given by a GP when I was very lucky , again on an emergency visit , some diazepam ( oh joy, the muscles just flop and the pain seems to ooze away) .
I try to get D to find me an anti emetic and a diclofenac to take as a last ditch attempt .. but he is struggling to work out which is which ( no surprise as there are piles of medications all in different sizes and strengths and in a variety of colours and with different names . I'm asking him please just give me them now I can't wait any more and in a flurry he finds me something to take but its too late , the sickness is taking me over and that's it I'm in the vomitarium .
The doctors , when they come two of them this time , ask their questions and N knows most of the answers . I notice how she stands on the edge but takes control where needed ( having known me longer than D ) . They don't hang about and in twenty minutes or so the end is in sight ......

Monday, 3 September 2007

Blackberry Picking



Blackberry picking Sunday at 7pm .....
N joins in reluctantly but with a smile .

Migraine Days

Migraine Days

Flower and Bee on a Sunday

Flower and Bee on a Sunday

art on a sunday

art on a sunday