Competition at Texere.

Texere are running a competition, and they very kindly give you the yarn to make your entry. Nice, eh? I`ve written for a pack, but as yet, no idea as to what I might make with it.

We`ve all been there..

We`ve all been there, haven`t we? Lengthy post, lots of pictures, witty jokes, pearls of wisdom...and then Blogger eats the lot. Even the allegedly saved draft.

I hate Blogger.

Anyway, it`s just gone midnight here and I really, really don`t feel I want to type it all out again tonight. So you`re just going to have to be content with a couple more kitten pictures. The furry duo are really settling in and making themselves at home...in all sorts of places.

This is an alternative idea for recycling your old cereal packets...into cat duvets.



Theo prefers a more macho approach to sleeping. Yup, he`s on top of the kitten pen.



Oh, and just in case you`re thinking that tomorrow I`m going to stun you with hundreds of pictures of finished knitting and spinning...well, I`ve cast on the second sock!

One more time!

Okay, this will be my last kitten-only post for a while. (Maybe.) They are just so cute though, and currently all we seem to do is sit around and play with them and watch them play. If they`re not eating or sleeping or using the tray then they`re playing. They never stop playing!

This is them discovering some of our vast Playmobil collection. It was hastily tidied off the floor onto the fireside surround when the kittens arrived, but as we discovered, this was a waste of time.....

This particular train wreck was once a fine collection of vintage and modern Playmobil caravans and camper vans.

The Vacation House proved particularly popular, though clearly the wrong size. Missy, as usual, takes pole position and Theo has to leave his bum outside.

But it`s good to share a cuddle....

Finally, a picture of the kittens with their mum, two brothers and other sister, taken when they were about six weeks old. Have you ever seen a grown cat eaten alive? Poor Shimano (that`s mum...she lives in a cycling family) is one very, very thin cat under there. But as you can tell, she makes fabulous fat, sassy kittens.

In the meanwhile, I`m off to the allotment today. Knitting? Spinning? What`s them? All I have to report is one sock completed and half of a giant mohair square I`m knitting for a throw. Well, one third perhaps. I don`t have time to knit, what with kittens, camping, kids off school, working on the allotment and processing the allotment produce for the freezer. I can feel a massive jam making session creeping up as well. (Jelly, for you American types.) And we go to Wales in two and a half weeks time. Summer holiday? Hardest working time of the year for me. I was podding broad beans for the freezer at 11pm last night!

But I will try to work up a very belated post on Woolfest soon. That WAS my summer holiday time this year, folks....most relaxing time I`ve had in ages.

Theo...

Try again. Theo..



Curiously, both pix look like there`s something weird up with their ears. Not so...that`s the camera flash reflecting off the inside of their little ears, lol. I don`t seem to be able to get decent pix of them. Will try again tomorrow.

Kittens are here...

Well, they`re here...after an exhausting day. Slight hitch when we got to my friend`s house to pick them up and discovered one of the other two boy kittens that were due to go to another home had been rejected by his almost new owners because...wait for this...he was a boy and not pretty enough. As if the other family hadn`t known they were getting two boys for about five weeks? And he`s a really cute, cute kitten...but he`s 8 1/2 weeeks old now and getting past the really tiny "awwww..." stage. He needs a family now. My friend is already keeping the other girl kitten, which brings her cat family up to four. She doesn`t really want No5.

So naturally my two kids decided we should have him as well. NO WE DID NOT GET HIM! I`m with Hubby on the feeling that there are only two correct numbers of cats to have...none or two. Two we had booked already, one boy, one girl. Plus the other kitten is a bit of a bossyboots...he`d have been great with his equally bossy brother, but our two are a bit more laid back. Not a good combination. I`m helping my friend find him a home.

I do however think it`s pretty shitty of the other family to ask for kittens, say they don`t mind what they get, not even bother to visit before the kittens are eight weeks old then start complaining they didn`t get the ones they liked best.(They wanted our girl kitten because she "matched" the boy kitten they eventually took home...two grey tabbies.) To me this is treating the kittens more as some sort of decorating accessory rather than small furry personalities. We visited several times and tried to choose a pair on the basis of how well they got on and whether we liked the way they behaved and how friendly they were to us. We took a blanket and toys for them to play with, so we had something familiar to bring home with them. I bought all their familiar brands of food and litter and even the same type of litter tray. We were prepared!

Oh well, ours are here and settling in well. This is Missy....



She is definately the more adventurous of the two. She was out and exploring the minute we opened up the door of the kitten pen.

Theo is a bit more laid back about things. His main visible talent so far is for eating. However once he finally feels he won`t starve to death for ten minutes or so he`s quite happy to chase after Missy and see what new things she`s found. And they love to wrestle each other...and sleep in a heap.

(I`d love to show you a pix of him too, but b*&&&dy B*****r is playing up again. )

Today is the day...

Today is the day we go to get the KITTENS!

Pix to follow later, but I have to say now that we`re all very excited, even Hubby who`s definately been the least enthusiastic person here about getting cats. He likes cats, don`t worry, he just thinks they might require the odd bit of effort on his part. Like opening a tin of cat food occasionally? He was responsible for the arrival of our last cat though. (He was sitting out in our back garden having a ciggie after a long night at the pub and there was this hungry stray cat around...and that was we got Misha.)Cats usually like Hubby too, btw. He sits down a lot, has long enough legs to provide a comfortable lap and he doesn`t try to make them do anything apart from get off him. Challenge...cats like a challenge.

We got back from holiday the day before yesterday, but yesterday was spent trying to get the laundry under control again and shopping for food etc, plus we had Gourdongirl`s two boys round as well. Busy. We had a nice holiday, incidentally, very relaxing. We tend to just veg out on holidays and slob around the campsite a lot, but usually manage to go and look at or do one activity a day so we don`t actually take root. This year the campsite was in the heart of the ancient land of the Picts, so we went and did a lot of Pictish sightseeeing.

Camping...

Gone camping......back soon. Mind you all behave yourself while I`m gone.

New spinning forum.

I joined a new spinning and fibre related forum that`s just been set up, The Dropped Spindle. Nice to have a UK based spinning forum, I thought...so much of what`s on the web is American based and full of Americans. NOT that I have anything against America and Americans, belive me, but it`s nice to have a forum closer to home that might talk about our kind of sheep and fleece and our kind of spinning.

It was only when I was looking at the profile and web page of the moderator, Natalie, that I realised just how close to home this forum is. Natalie`s from the Edinburgh Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers, and in fact I sat next to her at the spinning demo stand at the Guild Open Day! I even gave her some of my gold Angelina fibre to try...

Small world......

Back from Woolfest......

Back from Woolfest. If you weren`t there, you should have been. It was amazing.

But I`m tired and it`s too late to blog much tonight. I`ll just give you one pix. This is of the Newcastle contingent that we met up with on the campsite, Gourdongirl and myself, pictured with our communal shopping haul.



Okay, two pictures then! Close up of the haul........



(You just don`t want to know the rough estimate of how much that little lot cost in total. Let`s just say everyone that was there has a taste for classy yarn and fibre, okay?)

More to come.