Seven years later

I started this blog with the intention of showcasing what we all got up to but it was felt at the time (not by me) that it wasn’t a great idea to put too much information about the family on line so it kind of fell into disuse. Then in 2017 I started to use it again only to have my website fall victim to a Russian hacker and it all got deleted. It was only after I deleted it that it dawned on me that I should have backed it up first – doh! Anyway I found that some of the entries were still on my phone and after a bit of a struggle I recreated all the original posts below!

You know when you’ve been…

Originally posted on 15th June 2010

So we have another new cat bringing the total to 4. I’m told that this is it – definitely no more! I was looking at my e-mail one morning when I saw a message on Freecycle offering a “Ginger fluffball” . Now I’ve always wanted a ginger cat so I did the pathetic look at Sarah and she told me to e-mail for more details. So to cut a long story short, his owner couldn’t keep him because he kept picking up fleas from her neighbours cats and one of her children was reacting really badly to bites from the fleas.

So after a few e-mails passing backwards and forwards the cat was brought over on Sunday afternoon. he is very similar to Diesel and Louie in that he is a huge furry cat with a big fluffy tail. He’s bigger than the other two and didn’t react quite as badly to his new home as Louie did. he hid for a while and is still wary of the other cats but he is starting to settle in.

tango 1

tango 2

His name?

…….Tango!

Louie Louie

Originally posted on 21st March 2010

After the sad demise of Woody we talked about getting another cat, the idea was mooted that we should get a young female cat that Tag could mother instead of Woody. Then the other day one of Sarah’s colleagues asked he if she would like her daughters cat as she was moving somewhere where pets weren’t allowed. So we said yes.

Then on Friday night Louie arrived.

Louie is very much like Diesel, except he is grey instead of white, sort of like antidiesel and he wasn’t very happy about being moved to a new home. He hissed and growled at everyone and even woofed at us! So musch for something for Tag to mother, to mother this ball of fur and razorblades she would need a step ladder and protective clothing!

And like when matter and antimatter meet, Diesel had gone missing the night before Louie arrived. When after 48 hours had passed with no sign of him we were starting to fear the worst. I’d even been looking around the streets in case he was lying somewhere. I hoped that if he didn’t come back he’d been taken in by someone nice and that nothing bad had happened to him. It was getting to the point where we were almost starting to think about making “Have you seen this Cat” posters when I heard a pathetic squeaking at the back door, I opened it and in he sauntered as if he had only been out for 5 minutes. I don’t think he understood why every one wanted to hug him.

Meanwhile back to Louie! I haven’t had a cat react this badly to a new home since Oliver who sat underneath a chair in the kitchen for 2 days without moving. He is slowly coming out of his shell and has even been known to purr when stroked but the big confrontations between the two males is probably still to come! Odd thing is that Tag and Diesel now seem to be best buddies whereas before he went AWOL they were often scrapping! United against the newcomer would seem to be the order of the day.

Watch this space!

Bye bye budgies bye bye

Originally posted on 5th March 2010

budgies

Sadly we have had to let our three budgies go to a new home. George, Mildred and Flo had been under constant attack from one of the cats and after the cage got knocked off the top of the piano once again it was decided it was unfair on both budgies and cat.

All 3 cats have had a go at the budgies and in doing so fallen attached to the cage sending, seed, shit, feathers and budgies flying. Quite how the birds have survived each time is a mystery. Diesel and Woody both did it once and never did it again but Tag never seemed to learn no matter how many times she did it. Just before Christmas we had to buy a new cage and the old one finally smashed to pieces as it hit the floor.

We weighed up the pros and cons of the cat vs budgies and decided it was better to give the budgies away. Ben and Lissi are both quite attached to Tag and if the temptation of the budgies has gone then we won’t need to have to lock her out the back when we go out. So Sarah put them on Freecycle and they’ve gone to live with a young lad who suffers from Aspergers Syndrome who love animals.

Y Viva Espania

Originally posted on 2nd February 2010

This year we’re off to sunny Spain….

Lissi has gone to Spain on a school trip to visit the Spanish school that came over here before Christmas and especially Luis who came to our house each night after school. As seems to be normal with these things the departure time was 6am from outside the school. This meant that we had to get up at 4:30am and be out of the door in an hour. Thankfully Ben didn’t wake up so we moved Bex into our bed so she could keep an eye on him!

Almost as soon as the coach pulled away Lissi started putting comments on Facebook – here are a few of them:
is on the coach going to Gatwick Airport!!
is bare tired so goin sleep now…Miss you brian ♥
Our flight is at 9 everybody so my last status will be as we taking off!!!
Just arrived at Gatwick!!!
is shopping at the airport!
Will be boarding soon!
IS boardin the plane!
is taking off at Gatwick! Adios Inglaterra! (9:45)
has arrived in Barajas!! Mum how do i do the code?*
is frikkin hot!
has nearly arrived at the hotel, is really hot yet there are patches of snow randomly on mountains and ground?!?!
will be at the hotel in 15 mins, got no batery on phone bye
is at the hotel
is walking around Tudela? Like wtf??
Is being dragged round deserted alley ways by spanish boys who clearly need a map!!! :@
is eating popcorn in bed, will be on here for about 30mins cos its nearly 11 in spain but really not tired. Talk 2 me!
And that was it – it turned out that they had been taken by some of the Spanish kids to a bar to eat but they didn’t know what there was so they decided to go to a Pizza place but they didn’t get there till 10 minutes before they were due back at the hotel so the whole group had nothing to eat. Sarah wasn’t best pleased – hope the organisation picks up today!
* She’d ran out of credit already and need a voucher code sending through!

Ben’s Science experiment

Originally posted on 29th January 2010

Question: “ Dad what will happen if I drop this bluetac from the top of the stairs?”

Background: Ben is bored at Lissi’s parents evening and has been investigating the Science labs and the Geography room. He has been frustrated by the the fact that unlike the Sixth Form open evening much of the school is closed and he can’t go and investigate the other buildings (like the music department with it’s lovely drum kit!).

While in the Geography room he has spotted a lump of bluetac stuck to the side of the blackboard which he now has a small piece of and he is now standing at the top of a staircase after again been denied the ability to investigate the balcony in the school hall.

Hypothesis: “I guess it will splat when it hits the ground”

Experiment: The bluetac is launched from the top of the stairs

Observed results: When it hits the ground it bounces and disappears under a trolley in the hallway.

The experiment was repeated from the top of another flight of stairs and the same result was observed.

Analysis: Dad……

The not so secret cake

Originally posted on 25th January 2010

It all started when I got home on Friday night and I found a message from Lissi on Facebook entitled “Read this when Mum isn’t near you”. It said:

I had this idea that sometime this sunday you could like do the food shopping in asda and take ben and mum with you, you’d have to take your time tho so that i can make mum a special tunis cake and decorate the edges with icing like i did before and i’ll find some sort of birthday decoration for her when i go shopping tomorrow, but you’ll have to go shopping on sunday tho or she’ll find the cake plus it will last longer if we do it on sunday 😀

Unfortunately Lissi being Lissi she couldn’t help her self and as time went on she became less and less subtle about the whole secret escapade. For example she came into the living room and announced Kevin can I have a word with you out here! Then just outside the door and within earshot of Sarah she said “I forgot to get a lemon can you get one when you go to the Co-op?”. Then on Sunday she also rang me when I was out buying prezzies for Sarah and asked me to get some eggs. However the piece de resistance was when she left the recipe for the cake on the dining room table and Sarah found it.

Anyway my instructions were to keep Sarah out of the way for 4 hours. FOUR HOURS! How long does she think it takes to do the shopping? And anyway on a Sunday the supermarkets close at 4pm and we didn’t leave till 2:30. So we did the shopping and then drove back to the house with it – Sarah had to stay in the car while I went in and put the shopping away. She made Bex take her a cup of tea out to her. We then went off to pick up a monitor from Sittingbourne (which I had bought on ebay and actually turned out to be broken) and on the way back we got a text asking us to stay out for another half and hour!

In the end we went back to the house and Sarah hid upstairs for a while but we had to stop Lissi as we needed to start dinner! She iced it in “secret” on the Dining room table after dinner! So was all the effort worth it in the end? Well you judge, what do you think?

secret_cake