She pushed Me!

I woke at five thirty and in keeping with one of my new ( anti migraine ) regimes - which I should add are largely not working - and which also explains why I have been missing from my Blog since February - I tried to get back to sleep after a few minutes of reading .

A perusal of the latest migraine research and how it is affected by menopausing seems to suggest lack of or broken sleep is a factor . So , I have a new room in the Rafters , I try to go for at least seven hours instead of the four to five I was averaging in competition with the dogs and cats in the water bed ( everyone squabbles for the best spot in the hot water bed and we are too kind to close the door on the beasties ) . So I am experiemneting up on the top floor for a while . There I have black out blinds ( newly fitted ) , a coffee machine ( takes pods) , my own mugs , a tiny bathroom , and my BlackBerry . Oh , and my Kindle . And when the wind is in the right direction I can even order books up there and see new tweets . No need to come down really . Except when I want to rejoin family life as we know it .

So , this morning . Five thirty and I am back to sleep and dreaming I attend a meditation session at a lovely lakeside centre .

I am met by a serene woman who takes me on a tour then shows me into a beautiful therapy room and asks me to lie down on what looks suspicously like a therapy couch .
I feel I should protest " Therapy , Moi?" but decide instead not to resist and try to lie down . This proves tricky as at the other end of the couch the tiny therapist is alo trying to lie down . Same couch . Now why is this familiar ?
Is ths ok I ask as I push my legs out and bash her head ... oh she says , a tad irritated , eactly as our greyhound does as I push her gently out of the way when she refuses to do proper sharing on the sofa .
I raise myself up on my elbows and query " you did ask me to lie down I think " Yes " she confirms but I didnt expect you to take quite so much room .
A degree of polite push and shove continues and before long we rise and she beckons me to follow her into a coffee shop where she orders me a lemon tea . When it arrives I see it floats with hunks of fatty meat . We look  out across the lake and I wonder , where is the space for Me ? When will the therapy ( which I didnt want) start .....


Time to start blogging again I think ?
How are you all ?

NatWest

I’ve banked with NatWest for longer than I care to remember and I went in to see them in Thursday ( yesterday) and put my foot down . It has paid off .

Today I am prince(ss)ly sum of twenty eight pounds ( or thereabouts) per month better off as a result . Not to be sneezed at in these straitened times.

As I thanked the very helpful young woman who advised and guided me through various processes yesterday , and trotted down the stairs , looking slightly askance at the cracked and shabby linoleum flooring along the back passages leading from the Customer Services area in the bowels of the real bank ( I’m one of those wimps who gets to see the slightly seedier areas being wary of tiny service lifts) I thought about my Grandad and his many visits to his Bank in Hexham all those years ago.

My Grandad drove an Austin Allegro for many years , a lovely shiny gold coloured car smelling of leather and new stuff when he bought it . Oddly enough I was never travel sick in his car though always very ill in our family car. Thinking about it now I’m transported back in an instant across the years to primary school . Friday afternoons. The spelling test . Those of us who had achieved twenty correct spellings every day for the full week were allowed to leave school half an hour early. The excitement of an early escape and knowing my Grandma and Grandad were coming for me to take me to the farm for the weekend- I could hardly contain myself .



Now though , in the seventies , he had had to give up driving, having had a few “episodes” and having landed himself in a ditch had reached a decision that the bus to Hexham would suffice for his needs. At least weekly he would set out , smartly dressed and come back with his “shopping” . The thing I remember him coming back with was “distemper”- his name for emulsion paint . Occasionally he would slip up and buy eggshell or even full gloss and paint that on nevertheless – all over the bathroom walls. It was never clear whether it was intentional or he didn’t want to admit a mistake.



His weekly trips to Hexham sometimes increased in frequency to twice or thrice a week . It was never very clear why he was going . On one memorable occasion he locked Grandma in their tiny greenhouse before his departure and she was forced to sit on an upturned bucked until his return later in the day. How she managed for food, a drink , and other matters which she would never have acknowledged in polite company , I have no idea .



After his death , and when we were going through a file of papers , we found a neat pile of letters from the bank . Almost identical , typed , they all seemed to come from the same person , some bank person whom Grandad had latched onto . All in all there must have been twenty or thirty such letters.



Dear Mr B

(they read)

It was good to see you again today . I am writing to clarify once again the position as regards your investments and to reassure you that you really have no need to worry about a thing. Everything is quite in order . There is no need for you to do anything . We will ensure that if anything needs to be done or any papers need to be signed we will contact you .

It is always good to see you when you call at the bank but there really is no need for you to call in every few days.

Everything is in hand .



With our best intentions

Yours faithfully

Blah blah .





I myself have insisted that I no longer need the “Advantage Gold Account” as I wasn’t taking up all the lovely free services on offer. When the young woman asked me why not I explained that I really couldn’t imagine managing the palaver of registering my mobile phone at a call centre for insurance purposes when I don’t even know its make and model number. The young woman kindly offered to do it for me . However for the moment I’m sticking to my guns and reverting to free banking – the sort that worked perfectly well for me when I was a student and first joined the bank when I was eighteen. We’ve agreed that if I don’t like it I can go back to Advantage Gold and she will register my phone for me and make sure I get all my free services.

She also suggested I ring my house insurance company and put my foot down there – which I did today – and negotiate a reduction in my monthly premiums. So I’ve done that.

It wasnt difficult . Just a matter of explaining I was paying too much and as a loyal customer I didnt want to pay that much any longer. They readily agreed a cut . Smples - as my sister would say.

I like this putting my foot down lark .

What’s not to like?

So long as I don’t have a hundred letters from the bank lurking in a little file somewhere when I am no more …..

Goodbye Tinkerbell 13 01 2011

Tinkerbell d.13 01 2011 RIP

Kitty offers solace to Hedgehog

Yesterday afternoon we discovered that our beloved Tinkerbell was no more. Such a shock - she had taken her late night grape , which she always squealed for when I did my final exit from the kitchen before bed and though Hedgehog , her companion would take one too , it was always more reluctantly. Tinkerbell always grabbed hers and ran to eat it so that she could capitalise on Hedgehog's reluctance if it included a dropped grape . She was up for breakfast and no signs of illness at ill though we had noticed her slowing down but put this down to her size.

Poor Old Hedgehog was as shocked as we were and was running about her quarters trying to "find" her friend , and attempting to coax her still form back to life . It was not to be .
We all said goodbye and did the necessaries.

Concern about how Hedgehog would cope alone led to my perusing the internet last night and it seems we must watch for signs of depression and if that exists we should consider introducing a new companion but with care . We would know she was depressed if she showed no signs of interest in her human companions , stopped making her usual noises , stopped eating or drinking and basically sat around staring into space . So far so good . She is quiet , and still "searching" but seems reasonably chirpy.
Oven mitts are suggested for our protection  if we do introduce a new friend. Introductions should take place on neutral ground , and a towel should be held ready to throw over warring parties in the even of a squabble . two cages should be kept for a while until the pigs are happy together . We should be prepared that it might not work out and separate living arrangements might be needed .

However if she is ok , we may be better to allow her to grieve alone and see how she goes .

We kept an eye open last night and when I settled down to watch the news at six I sat her on my lap to watch with me . She seemed very relaxed there and in a few minutes , Kitty came to join us . Kitty , who is renowned as the most ferocious of our cats , has taken to cuddling up with me recently as soon as I sit down , for reasons best known to herself . Last night was no exception and as the evening progressed , she snuggled noticeably closer and
closer to the piggy and Hedgehog's breathing suggested she was quite relaxed with this and eventually out came the piggy foot to the side which suggested she was going to lie on her side and have a snooze. The little eyes flickered and eventually the days events were too much for her . Poor old piggy . I knew how she felt .

We found ourselves listening to Nigel Archer's funeral ( very fitting ) and then Trevor Eve Kidnap and Ransom and finally Piggy went to bed quite tired out at ten thirty pm . Although she checked piggy house a couple of times searching for Tinkerbell she soon settled to eating hay and sleep .

As for you dear old  Tinkerbell , you will be sadly missed with your pink eyes and your little caramel swirls of fur . We won't forget you .
Goodbye Tinkerbell . We will take care of your friend .

How the Sky Changes

Click on image to enlarge if you want to

.... in a matter of minutes ...
This morning's walk with the dog at the sea at nine am . One minute dark and stormy looking , the next a fabulous shimmer across the water. Red sky behind the lighthouses for a few seconds, black skies the next. Maybe the weather is menopausal?

Collages

I have today discovered a photo editing whatsit and Collages !!

So here we have one of our between Christmas and New Year Family GetTogether Dos .....

I am going to be collaging everything from now on . Thats me up in the top left hand corner in the middle if you want to know .....and the dog of course is between me and my sister.
Kitty is the big cat to the left , and one of the Birmans features centre right ish .

I wont say too much about the other characters lest I am not forgiven .

Christmas update in pictures :Snow: CatMinding

We spent Christmas Day here . Hair raising /exciting drive to get there

A quick walk before dinner

Chilly Sheep watch the silly greyhound skidding in the snow on Christmas Day

The week before Christmas. Alice checks who has been on her patch

Front of House

Close to Home

Warm View

Is it a Cat or What ?

The week before Christmas we had so much snow I was travelling to the Office on the metro. But CatMinding needs to be done either on foot ( best in this weather ) or if further afield by car .

I wondered whether I would manage to get to my cats with my car well and truly bogged down in snow drifts on occasion but the assistance of the shovel and plenty of de icer and sometimes finding nothing more helpful for scraping ice than my good old credit card ( will it ever be the same again) , all visits were managed though there were some interesting twirls on the ice .

Some of my longstanding families now have cats with special needs due to increasing age and I particularly enjoy these visits , seeing cats whom I've known for years still enjoying life and feeling part of that and glad that they are not having to be uprooted to a cattery at this time of their lives when they love nothing more than curling up in their favourite armchairs and coping in part  because of the familiarity of their surroundings .
I love the fact that I will receive lovely long notes which give me a sense of how the families do things so I can follow suit and keep things as normal as possible for the cats and I try to leave a note of reply which gives a feeling for how things have been in their absense.

As to that final photograph - I'd been Christmas shopping and returned to find the little picture on my car window . How I laughed!
I posted it on Twitter. My sister immediately suggested it was actually a Cat in keeping with my most obvious interest in life .
What do you think ?

Brown Scufflers

I took a packet of bread buns out this morning to make Nat's sandwich and found the name on the packet: Brown Scufflers. Sounded like a very good description of our TinyChums (Copywright@TheTiniestVole). I couldn't help smiling . At the minute everything seems to point to my complicity in the likely  demise of Mr Rat and his Gang .

RatWatch continued over the weekend while we waited the arrival of Envirolink .

I was begged by one friend to try a humane trap and I hoped that the council would assist us by humanely trapping our unwelcome visitors and letting them go in some neighbouring park . In my heart I knew that on a scale of one to ten of liklihood it was probably at a minus four.

Everyone seemed to have a view about RatWatch .

From initially being an OverBench Rat , Mr R soon made the transition to FloorRat , presumably after the FaceOff with Kitty . We had a feeling about this after Kitty changed into the Subdued Timid Mog who no longer wished to be first into the CatFood at breakfast time and  preferred to wait for us .

We began to think we had a gang after seeing the vast quantities of catfood that was polished off at one sitting . And the footprints. The footprints! Which RatMan informs us are in fact WhiskerMarks left by rats who are short sighted and have to woffle their way around . Our lovely china cat bowl was covered in whisker marks .

Anyway , as I write , things have moved on apace .
I myself have now met RatMan , who is called Russell . I dont know why that should strike me as so funny .
Russell was smartly dressed in council attire , workaday uniform of the navy army surplus wear variety but with a tie , and with wellies and a beanie hat due to the snowdrifts . He carried a tupperware box full of "the stuff" . I cannot bear to describe any of the information he gave me about what is happening and will happen .
I am too full of guilt .

Traps are not permitted in case the men nip their fingers " health and safety " .
Russell was not allowed to pull out the big fridge freezer " political correctness you know" he said somewhat enigmatically , asking me to do it .  No Russell I wanted to say . Political correctness is about not causing offence . The council are making sure they don't have to pay out if you hurt your back .I think he was embarrassed, at having to ask me to do it . I was after all marginally smaller than him , and  female to boot .
Anyway eventually the deed was re done .




Now we wait . Again .

I am expecting a Smell .