Upper class cat

Some of these pictures, though not the one above, have been seen before on this blog but it was in the dim and distant past.  Bertie is now 7 years old but he still maintains his position at the head of the household, always making sure he has the upper hand.

He's definitely above politics, unless of course it happens to be the upper house...

But he's not above trying to make his escape through an upper window.

What, me?

This is a two-in-one post for the two Photo Hunts. 

Dangerous by decree

Or, helping with the packing...

"After scolding one's cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word. And has filed it for reference."
- Charlotte Gray

"Cats can work out mathematically the exact place to sit that will cause most inconvenience."
- Pam Brown

"When addressed, a gentleman cat does not move a muscle. He looks as if he hasn't heard."
- Mary Sarton

PhotoHunt: squeaky

This isn't the picture I was thinking of posting for today. In fact I almost forgot altogether because I had to take this young man to the vet. Many of the noises he made in response to the vet were squeaky. Very.

Technorati tags: PhotoHunt, Birman

Good vibrations....

.... not to mention a nice warm bum!

The perfect place

Nobody can see me here.

If I keep perfectly still.

I could be wrong.

The climber(s)

No, indeed, you are not supposed to be up there!

He pushed the windows apart that you can see behind him, just enough to get out. It was quite interesting to see him go into reverse to get back in.

Caught in the act

If at first you don't succeed...

...try....

....try again....

Success!!

Oh #*!>#, she's seen me.

Photohunter: I spy

I spy a kitten - bored with all the paperwork, not a bureaucratic kitten.

I spy a bibliophile kitten. An interlekshull in the making?

I spy a black hole - an astronomer in the making?!

I spy David Beckham - not an interlekshull kitten after all ...

PhotoHunt

PhotoHunter: heavy

Nothing came immediately to mind this week. I thought of heavy rocks in strange formations, like these in Mexico (scanned from an old photo).

I thought of heavy books like this one, 1000 pages, and the content can be quite heavy too!

But then ...... The breeder who sold us our cat used to weigh the kittens daily, and asked us to continue to do so weekly for a little while, just to make sure all was well. We gave that up ages ago, so I was amazed to find him happily curled up in the bowl waiting, or is that weighting :).

But he is now too heavy - the scales recorded an error!

PhotoHunt

I should, of course, have saved my mirror post for today.

PhotoHunter: important

It is important .....

..... to understand that whiskers are a way of measuring whether or not the space is big enough.

It is also important to stop trying to fit.

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PhotoHunter: hot

I was looking through some old pictures of a holiday in Mexico and spotted one version of hot - market stalls selling more types of chili than I knew existed, both fresh

and dried

Old pictures, so they had to be scanned in.

Another type of hot is the type that seems to fascinate our cat - the fire!

In fact even the lesser fire of candles attracts him, to the detriment of his whiskers.

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Brave cat

Of all the places he could choose to sleep, why on those particular feet? His favourite place.

Taking the sun

Tiring, but it has to be done.

PhotoHunter: music

You're going to have to imagine the music that accompanied this evening of Eastern music and dancing!

But:

When the music changes, so does the dance ~ African proverb

And the music is changing for us again as we set off for France this weekend. This is a bag packed with our music, being guarded by the cat who realises we're on the move again.

Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast ~ William Congreve

I do hope that's true, the poor cat isn't fond of travelling and tends to make his own music:)

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Not amused

Today he was collected from his holiday stay at the cattery.

He may never speak to us agian.

Rules and regulations

Now that the quarantine laws are more relaxed and there is a Pets Passport system in place in Europe, to return with our cat who, as you can see, is completely unconcerned about the whole process, all we are responsible for is:

1. Checking the identity of our pet by scanning with a microchip reader (always handy to have one lying around).


2. Checking the pet passport presented relates to our pet, is valid and shows that our pet has successfully been vaccinated for rabies.


3. Checking that treatment for ticks and tapeworm has been carried out between 24 and 48 hours before check-in.

And with the third we have a problem.

We have our return booked for early afternoon on 15 July. We thought we would like to enjoy our town's Bastille Day celebrations before leaving - they are great fun.

We weren't particularly expecting the vet to be open on 14 July but on 13 July we did expect them to be working and as long as the treatments were given after 3:00 pm we should be fine. What we certainly didn't expect was the vet to say, "No we aren't open, but if you come in earlier I'll change the papers for you". We didn't expect it but somehow there is something not entirely surprising about it.

Now I just can't cope with that. I would spend the whole journey back looking over my shoulder for someone, anyone, coming to arrest me. Indeed it would probably be at least a whole year before I could relax in case anyone spotted some discrepancy on the passport.

So we're bringing our travel plans forward a day and will travel on Bastille Day. We'll be missing one set of fireworks in an effort to avoid a different set.

PhotoHunter: Clean

I am clean, honestly and truly. I don't need a bath. It's really not good for me.

PhotoHunter: Soft

So here he is, my entry this week. His fur is soft as silk and he's a big softy!

This is his favourite place to sleep at the moment. I think he feels the colour scheme suits him.

My helper

He's such an affectionate little fellow, eight months old. He likes to snuggle up close and be able to touch someone. Note the position of the left foreleg - it can cause havoc and frequently does. Any strange messages from me, it's his fault! A friend did point out that if he thinks the keyboard is attached to me, it tells you that I have a bit of a problem.