jemjabella

Vote for Merlin

My mum has entered one of her cats into a competition being held by a UK supermarket to find the cutest cat. The winner will be awarded with a years supply of cat food. If you think this picture...

...is as cute as we do, please vote for Merlin by clicking on the stars beneath the picture. Five stars is best! :)

PS. still sick, not dead yet though.

Furry Friday: Catching Rays

Mimi mentioned on last week's Furry Friday post that Hex doesn't get enough posts, and focus seems to be on Fudge. This isn't intentional, I do not have a favourite cat. There are two problems, however, with posting new Hex material... firstly, he refuses to let me take his photograph properly, which means 90% of Hex pictures come out as a blur; secondly, he is such a dark cat and unless the light is absolutely intense, it's almost impossible to capture his features rather than a big blob of black.

Anyway, excuses aside, this photo is from last week:

And just to keep things interesting, a comparison shot from about 18 months ago, the week we got Hexynoodles:

As you can see, there's a bit of a size difference...

On Cat Books and Tom Cox

Karl's mum bought me a cat book for Christmas. The Cat Who Came in from the Cold by Deric Longden, to be precise. I must admit, I started it with a little trepidation. Just because I like cats does not automatically mean I like everything to do with cats. However, the book was great, and I went on to demand Enough To Make A Cat Laugh for my birthday, buying Paws in the Proceedings myself (also by Longden). Anyway, after having sped through those, I was desperate for a new cat book to read. Yes, I am that sad.

I did a bit of a searching and came across "Under the Paw: Confessions of a Cat Man" by Tom Cox. I ordered it using the gift voucher my brother (Kris) gave me for my birthday, and it finally arrived a couple of weeks ago. Given that I only read a few pages a night to get me off to sleep, I've only just finished it. Aside from the desire to leave Karl, run away to find this chap and usurp his current girlfriend so that we can share our obvious mutual cat love (he has SIX cats!) — about which I'm obviously kidding, I love Karl very much — I couldn't get over how funny I found the whole thing. I just couldn't help but nod along to the majority of it (although I questioned the author's sanity in taking on six cats, really.)

Unfortunately, Cox doesn't seem to have published a second cat book, but upon browsing his (rather crap, sorry) website I discovered that he does blog. Not only that, he blogs about cats. He blogs about his own cats, and other people's cats. How frickin' cool is that?! (Please, that question needn't be answered ;) )

Furry Friday: Big Soppy Fudge

Fudge is having a bit of a 'soft' day. He spent a large part of today rubbing himself up against me, the floor, the door and the walls. I pointed at him earlier today, and he came over and stood up to my finger, 'grabbed' it with his front paws and rubbed himself against it. See for yourself:

How adorable is that?

Cats Have Terrible Timing

Why is it that cats have such terrible — or perfect, depending on how you look at it — timing when it comes to litter tray business?

For instance:

• It doesn't matter how many times a cat has already been to the tray that day, the moment it is cleaned and stocked with fresh litter, they will find a way to pop out another poop.
• The only exception to the above rule is if you have visitors due, in which case they wait until said visitor(s) are in the room, and THEN they poop.
• Despite having five hours between their last meal and bed time, they always wait until you're brushing your teeth before they poop (even after a litter tray change poop) so that you get the delightful mixture of pungent turd and minty freshness assaulting your nostrils.

Such lovely creatures, aren't they?