Musings on a Feline

We have three cats in our house, Specs, Sooty and Ebony. There are no prizes for guessing what colour Sooty and Ebony are! All three are related, Specs and Sooty are siblings and Ebony is Specs daughter, father unknown as is often the way with cats, specially the slutty kind. All three cats have very different personalities, which leads to a definate pecking order. 

Specs thinks she is human and definitely looks down the other two, she bullies Sooty and absolutely hates Ebony hissing and spitting at her every chance she gets but she absolutely adores Daniel, my oldest son, he is HER human, his room is her domain and she constantly presents him with her trophy kills. I come a lowly second with Specs but that is only if Daniel is away or if she wants to get in his room and the door is shut.... See I know my place in this relationship, the affection she shows me is entirely a bribe to make me do what she wants. 

Sooty, or fatboy, as he is more usually known, is a laid back sort of chap, constantly on the mooch for food, loving human company, but usually from a distance, tolerating the odd cuddle, but only because he understands there has to be a payback for titbits and treats. He is the one with the loudest most persistant voice but the gentlest nature and is utterly thick, bullied by both the female cats, you give him a treat and he will sit there looking at it whilst one of the other two steals it...and then looks up at you as if to say "what happened there?" And then there is Ebony, the most angry, frightened cat on the planet and we have no idea why... Could be Specs constant abuse has made her skittish but she takes her anger out on Pie and myself, we can't even pass her in the hallway without her hissing and running for cover. 

You can see the hate...

The only person she seems to relax around is Conor. You can tell when the weather is bad because Ebony is indoors, she only comes in if the weather is bad or for food. Having said that, if you can calm her down she quite enjoys a stroke but you kind of don't bother as she is just hard work and even after stroking her for 10 minutes and even getting her to purr she will turn around and hiss at you if you twitch the wrong way. 

Whilst I can't imagine the house without them...actually thinking about it, no one using the furniture as a scratching post, no endless carpet of fur from Sooty yanking his out (weirdo) and no one hissing and spitting at me... hmmmm I may have to re-evaluate that statement... Nope even with all that, can't really imagine the house without them but I am grateful that none of them loves me enough to leave a headless mouse on my pillow.

Let It Snow, Let it Snow, Let It Snow!

I may be singing that right now but in a few days if it continues to be this cold no doubt I will be a lot less keen on snow. but for a first snow in a new home it is kind of exciting.

When we went to bed on Thursday night it was cold but clear but overnight it snowed quite heavily and we woke up to a thick blanket of pristine snow.

As our road is a bit of a deadend so there is no chance of a gritter coming down here the road has become a bit of a skating rink.

Something tells me we won't be in a huge rush to go out and fight our way up the icy road.

But we are very fortunate to have a lot of open land right next to the house and I really enjoyed taking a little walk with my camera to take some pictures of the views. I could hear lots of laughter from somewhere over the hill but it was too cold to go investigating. The sky does still look like it has more snow to let out in these pictures.

I saw some people heading off onto the snowy fields with their dogs. I did consider taking the cats for a walk but it was just a fleeting thought, I can't see any of our moggies actually taking too well to being put on a lead. Although it might be worth a laugh giving it a go... watch this space on that one.


This picture if of a dandelion that is still hanging in there trying to survive in the snow. You can even see the petals still hiding.

If the snow lasts a few days I think I will have to take some more walks and see if I can find some more subjects to photograph.

Having looked at the weather forecast although we are likely to keep the very cold weather there is no more snow expected... I bet the kids are hoping the snow hangs around to make it a white Christmas.

The funniest bit of the day was us discovering that Benjie is able to climb under the side gate... although we only found that out when we went to bring him in from his run around the garden only to discover that he wasn't in the back garden and was lolopping around the drive in the front of the house.

We were almost minus one house bunny!