One Year

Today marks one year since Thomas and I brought Missy home from the RSPCA.

It has been the most wonderful 12 months with her and, at the risk of sounding like a total cliché, neither of us can remember what life was like without her. Although we'd both lived with cats before, they'd always belonged to housemates which, it turns out, isn't the same thing at all.

Missy chose us, rather than the other way round. We went to the RSPCA a couple of days after Brexit, desperate to take our minds off the horror unfolding around us, and wandered around the cat section admiring puss after puss, completely baffled as to how we were meant to choose just one. And then a black cat with yellow eyes pushed herself up against the glass of her pen and 'rubbed' her head against my hand to say hello, and we were smitten.

Missy is mercurial. She is assertive. She can be very aloof and she can be very affectionate. She loves being brushed more than anything else (apart from perhaps Dreamies) and she loves to greet us when we come home from work. She will only sit on a lap if you first put a yellow cushion on said lap: no cushion, no lap snuggles from Missy. She'll hiss when displeased and occasionally strike out, but she's always careful not to use her claws on us. She's an awful wimp who makes a song and dance out of jumping onto a table, and will run away from other cats rather than confront them. She does, however, like to hunt flies. To our great disappointment, she's never shown any interest in boxes, nor in sitting in small and amusing places. Her happy place is the back garden, where she can nibble plants and watch insects to her hearts content. Most importantly, she is - as we tell her often - the best little cat in the world and we could not love her more.

Photo An Hour: Saturday 18th March

Another month, another Photo An Hour day, organised by Jane & Louisa (thanks guys!).  My day was a fairly typical Saturday of pottering at home, reading, a bit of shopping, and hanging out with the cat, before ending the day with a glass of fizz.

8.30am:
One of my favourite things about participating in Photo An Hour is seeing what other people get up to, and I especially enjoy it when our photographs all synchronise. This month, it was a rare first photo that wasn't of a book in bed.

9.30am:
Leftover pancakes from yesterday for breakfast, together with banana and raspberries in an attempt to claim it as a healthy meal. I mean, that's two of my five/seven/ten/whatever they're going to claim next a day, right?

10.30am:
Shower time. It's like hammer time but with more water. And considerably fewer baggy trousers.

11.30am:
Reading through the first submissions for the two zines I'm currently working on. Laura and I are making a compzine about 90s nostalgia called Mixtape, and I'm also editing a zine about virginity called Cherry. I'm still seeking submissions for both zines, so let me know if you want to write or make something!

12.30pm: 

I only wear stripes on days that end in a -y.

1.30pm:
A vintage warehouse has opened up not far from where I live and I went to have a browse to see if I could find a chair for our kitchen: sadly I didn't find anything suitable, but there were lots of interesting bits to look at nevertheless.

2.30pm:
Time for tea and cake in Clarendon Park. I was feeling a little delicate after an evening in the pub on Friday and hoped that mint tea will settle my stomach.

3.30pm:

Home, via the bike shop where Thomas splashed out on a new ride (after being told that his old bike needed repairs that would cost 5 times what it was worth), and a chance to hang out with Missy cat. This photograph doesn't properly reflect how lovely and affectionate she was being: lots of of head boops and nose kisses.

4.30pm:

My pins and badges had been scattered across the mantlepiece in our bedroom - I found a scrap of linen fabric in my stash and 5 minutes of pinning later, had a much neater storage solution for part of the collection.

5.30pm:
For the past 6 weeks we've been in bathroom renovation hell, having tiles (and bits of wall) ripped off, walls replastered, new tiles put on and finally, applying coats of paint. Now it's onto the fun bit: Thomas had just put up the new wire shelving so I got busy styling it with vintage Penguin paperbacks, pretty toiletries, and a plant.

6.30pm:
Onto outfit two of the day (I was freezing and felt the need for a big cardi), ready to go round to my friend Leanne's for the evening.

7.30pm:
Doing Saturday night right with pizza and Prosecco. It's also where I abandoned the photos, as I didn't much move for the next four hours!

What did you get up to this weekend?

15 Facts About Missy Cat

Last week Kerri wrote a post titled 15 Facts About Sir Pork Chop (her hamster, for those of you who don't read her blog - although if not, why not?!) and I thought "aha! The perfect opportunity to bore on about Missy!" So, here are my 15 facts about Missy the Cat.

1. Missy will turn six in May and she's a domestic shorthair cat. We adopted her from our local RSPCA rescue centre, where she'd languished for months, in June of last year.

2. I don't actually like her name but we didn't have the heart to change it as, rather than a stray who the RSPCA named, she came into the rescue centre with it.


3. Before we adopted her we asked to have a one-to-one session with her in their 'meeting' room. This ended up not happening as, such is Missy's hatred of being handled, no-one could wrangle her out of her pod. Rather than put us off, this just made us want to adopt her more. Adult black cats are the hardest for rescue centres to rehome, and an adult black cat who was a bit feisty and grumpy struck us as especially hard to rehome, so we were determined to give her one.

4. She's still not a great fan of human-cat contact unless it's on her own terms. Things she likes include head rubs and chin scritches, giving us head boops to say hello, and little wet nose kisses when she's feeling really affectionate. She won't tolerate being picked up, being stroked for too long, or any hand-belly contact whatsoever.


5. Her favourite toys are, in order, an extremely ratty pink stuffed mouse, a second extremely ratty pink stuffed mouse (which we bought when the first one went missing for a while - later found hidden under the sofa), and an old leather shoelace.

6. One of her favourite places to sit is on top of our fridge freezer. Unfortunately, she often forgets how to get down and miaows pitifully from up there.

7. When she first arrived she was pretty much silent, but as the months have gone on she's become more and more vocal. Her range now includes an "I'm so happy to see you!" miaow, a "give me food NOW" miaow, a "where are you?" yowl, and a "why can't you make it stop raining?" grumble (which is very similar to her "leave me alone, I'm sleeping" murmur).

8. We suspect that Missy isn't the brightest of cats, as she can't seem to learn that head-butting a door she wants to go through will close rather than magically open said door. That being said, she was really quick to take to her cat-flap, so maybe she's not entirely hopeless.

9. Despite being a skittish and nervous little thing, she's not aggressive at all. She'll give a warning nip if your hand strays too close to her belly, but she's only ever scratched me when getting over-enthusiastic about Dreamies. Her more common form of warning is a hiss (or, weirdly, an open-mouthed silent hiss).

10. Her favourite game at the moment is to race up and down the length of the upstairs hallway, popping her head around the bedroom door every so often to check that we're watching.


11. She seems to have adopted me as her Person (it's common for rescue cats to be more wary of men, and with Thomas standing at 6'3" and hairy, he must seem very male to Missy) and will often follow me around the house, standing and staring at me until I give her a head scratch. Thomas calls her my shadow.

12. She's not a great lap sitter: the conditions need to be optimum (ideally her favourite yellow cushion will be ready on the lap for her to perch upon) and she rarely settles. It took her until October to sit on my lap and since then she maybe comes for a snuggle once a week, at most. Still, it makes those moments all the more special.


13. She is a great one for trolling us. Twice now we've made a vet appointment only to cancel when it becomes clear that no, she doesn't have a disastrous eye infection but instead is holding one eye shut while mewing pitifully for obscure reasons of her own (said reasons being to get food, I suspect).

14. Our nickname for her is poeshoofd, which is Dutch for cat head. Blame Thomas for this spectacularly unimaginative name.

15. Finally, she is (as we tell her daily) the best little cat in the world. She has immeasurably improved our lives and we are both completely obsessed with her. Remembering what a sad and angry little cat she was in the RSPCA makes it all the more lovely to see how happy and settled she is now.

Photo An Hour: Saturday 18th February

Saturday was Photo An Hour day for February, as arranged by Louisa and Jane. It turned out to be a day of pottering about at home, getting jobs done, reading, and a big gap in the evening when I forgot to take photos. Weirdly, February 2016's Photo An Hour was not all that different! Must be something about this time of year...

9.30am:
I'm tending to sleep so late at weekends at the moment, I'm not sure why. At half nine I'd been awake for a short while and had picked up my book - Uprooted by Naomi Novik - to read before breakfast.

10.30am:

What weekends are made for - leisurely breakfasts with a magazine, instead of rushing about like a mad thing trying to get ready for work.

11.30am:

This little cat is so silly. Despite yawning fulsomely, she just won't go to sleep. I think she has a severe case of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), as any day that we're in the house she really struggles to nap, instead following us from room to room to keep an eye on our activities.

12.30pm:
I went to the garden centre yesterday, as our hanging baskets and pots were looking very sad and brown after a long winter. Half an hour with the trowel, and everything's looking a lot better.

1.30pm:
In an attempt to earn a bit of extra money, I'm doing some proof-reading work. This is a frankly incomprehensible PhD thesis, but really well-written so it's turning out to be easy to edit.

2.30pm:
And she's finally asleep!

3.30pm:
Working on an IKEA hack. I think I'll write a post about this soon, it's been such a fun and easy project.

4.30pm:
I walked into town (stopping to chat to a friend on the way) and made a beeline for Oxfam to have a look at their book selection, before returning some bits at H&M and buying a new pair of jeans (which I need to return, as apparently I am now taller and the 30" leg jeans are too short).

5.30pm:
Strictly speaking, at 5.30 I was browsing in Waterstones, but I figured two photos in a row of bookshelves would be a bit dull. I've been racking up points on my Waterstones card for quite some time now, and finally decided to spend some: I got this and a Holly Bourne novella.

6.30pm:
Date night, and our first-choice pub was rammed so we went to Firebug instead. Vegan pie for Thomas, nachos for me, cider for both of us.

7.30pm:
Still in the pub.

9.30pm:
Home two hours later, and Missy was so happy to see us that she came and hung out on the bed with us (a rare occurrence, she doesn't usually like it if we're both in bed - she prefers having a full side to herself).

Photo An Hour: Saturday 29th October

Each month Jane and Louisa arrange Photo An Hour, and for the second month in a row I managed to remember in time to take part!

Saturday was a fairly quiet day: despite being our four year anniversary, Thomas had to work down in London all day so I mostly pottered around the house, did a wee bit of shopping, and hung out with the cat. Check out the #photoanhour hashtag on Instagram and Twitter to see who else took part and what they got up to.

9am:
Just awake and starting the day right: in bed with a book. I'm halfway through This Song Will Save Your Life and very much enjoying it so far. This quote felt very relatable to me: "Lord knows you can launch any kind of criticism at me... but don't you dare doubt my musical knowledge," because that was basically me when I was 16, too.

10am:
How every Saturday at home begins: listening to the Huey show on BBC 6Music while waiting for the kettle to boil. He's an absolute twat of a man, but his taste in music is impeccable.

11am:
Missy doing her best Batman impression. This is one of her favourite spots on which to sit, while she susses out whether the bed it ready for her to make the leap.

12 noon:
I'd pretty much finished getting ready when I realised I hadn't showered since Thursday! So, full make-up on and hair already put up, I dashed to the bathroom quickly and remedied the situation.

1pm:

Hearts or bees? I've been lusting after this bee-print Primark shirt since I saw it on Donna's blog and Rebecca's Instagram. Sadly, #bigboobproblems struck again: the only size I could get fastened over my chest hung like a sack everywhere else.

2pm:

I got bored pretty quickly in town when I realised I can't afford to buy much, so I came home to see this furry little face snoozing in her usual spot on the end of our bed. I sat with her for a while and read an improving book  faffed about on my phone until I felt I should actually achieve something, so...

3pm:

... to the office/craft room, where I finally - a year after purchasing it - started to use this cute fox-print fabric. I made a couple of zipped pouches, which will probably find their way into some Christmas gift swaps, and then got sick of my sewing machine playing silly buggers so I went to sort out...

4pm:
... the woodshed. I'd popped to Aldi earlier in the morning to get more of their excellent value kiln-dried logs (god I sound like such a nanna). I love a well-stocked wood shed, so this task gave me more satisfaction than it perhaps should have.

5pm:

Completely lacking inspiration for my 5 o'clock photo, so I snapped what was closest to me: the anniversary card I gave Thomas this morning. Black cats + stripes + staying in = very apt.

6pm:

This may look like your common-or-garden photograph of a sleeping cat, but it's a record of only the fourth time Missy has ever sat on my lap! After adopting her four months ago, both Thomas and I have used various wiles to try and get her to settle down with us but she showed no interest until a week ago, when she sat on my lap three times over the course of the weekend. Then a week with no lap action... followed by Thomas getting a precious 10 minute sit on Thursday and this long snooze on my lap last night. (Since then, she has run onto my lap when fireworks scared her last night, which just about made me weep with joy, and had a long snuggle with me this morning. Aaaaaaah!)

7pm:

Wine o'clock. Strictly o'clock. 

8pm:

Thomas is home! He'd had a good day at the London Anarchist Book Fair, his workshop had gone well, and, being the total boss he is, he'd brought me presents. Yep, this guy knows me well: forget anniversary flowers, what really sets my heart racing is anniversary zines about fat activism 💕

9pm:

And in a rather meta turn of events, my final photograph of the day was one of me editing this very post, while waiting for Thomas to finish watching Borgen.

Did you take part in Photo An Hour yesterday? Hit me up in the comments so I can have a peek at your day.

Life Lately

I've been pretty quiet on the blog front lately. Partly because I have the dreaded blogger's block: I keep sitting down to write and end up either staring blankly out of the window/at the cat or browsing Etsy for the nth time. But also because I've been busy (looking at this fluffy little face for upwards of five hours a day totally counts as busy, right?).

It's been strange to not have the summer off after eleven years of teaching. People keep asking me if I'm missing them and the honest answer is, "sort of." I mean, I'd love to have six weeks off, who wouldn't? But the truth is I don't need the holidays like I used to. When you work in a school you limp through the last couple of months of the academic year, desperate for a break, a chance to recuperate from the year just gone and prepare for the one about to begin. But my job now isn't so all-encompassing, exhausting and draining so there's no need for a long holiday to recover.

Not to be defeated by my lack of time off, I've nevertheless tried to make the most of my summer. I had a visit from my cousin, Mark, which was our first chance to spend quality time together since the 1990s (WHAT?!). My brother & his wife spent a weekend with us, which gave me a new appreciation for Leicester (or for the authentic Italian gelato from Gelato Village, anyway). Thomas and I took an awesome day trip to Nottingham for book shopping, cider supping, pizza eating and Ghostbusters watching, and I've had a mini bloggers meet-up with Laura, Elle & Becca. Sourdough bread was munched, Laura almost got taken out by a flying umbrella, and we poked around the new Delilah's Deli. Oh, and Thomas officially became a Dr, graduating with his PhD in a comically floppy hat.

I also spent an evening at Secret Cinema does Dirty Dancing. The set up was incredible, a mini Kellermans tucked away in East London. It was enormous fun to sit in the twilight, drinking cocktails and singing along with the film, and while the extras that justify the ticket price - dance lessons, mini golf and the rest - weren't particularly suited to a chronic non-joiner like me, that's my bad for buying a ticket in the first place, not theirs.

But honestly, a lot of my time has genuinely been taken up by hanging out with the cat. Missy has continued to settle well and although she still hasn't quite graduated to curling up on a lap or on our bed, she shows her affection in other ways - like bringing us her favourite toy (a small pink stuffed mouse), or following us from room to room to sit near us. However, I fear we are both becoming insufferable cat people. Talking endlessly about her, even to non-cat owners? Earnestly discussing her bowel movements when one of us gets home (often before even a "hello" has been exchanged)? Singing silly songs to her, swapping out the normal lyrics for ones about furry cats? I'm afraid Thomas and I are guilty of all of the above on an almost-daily basis. It was when I found myself telling a close friend who's just become a mum that, thanks to cat ownership, I now understand where parents are coming from that I realised I had a problem. So yep, crazy cat lady over here.

And now I'm looking forward to all sorts of awesome things in the next month or so: an overnight trip to Bristol this weekend, followed by a dash up the M1 to see another cousin who's staying with my mum in Bradford. A few days away for Thomas's 30th birthday (but shh, it's top secret). Then I have jury duty in September, promptly followed by a week in Crete and a chance - finally - to relax after an exhausting twelve months. And, hopefully, the return of my blogging mojo.

Meet Missy

This slightly out-of-focus shot is the perfect introduction to our new cat, Missy. It's blurry, because she never stops moving. It shows how tenacious she is, how determined to achieve what she wants (even when what she wants - for the blanket, which can't move because she's sitting on it, to move - is impossible). She's such a funny character and I already feel like I've known her for years, even thought she's been part of our family for less than 24 hours.

Thomas and I have been talking about getting our own cat pretty much since we met. We both love cats and have both lived with them before, although neither of us have been the owners of said cats. In the post-Brexit nightmare that was last weekend, we decided to visit the local RSPCA shelter to cheer ourselves up. And there we met Missy.

Because she's all-black and an adult (5 years old), the shelter had had trouble re-homing her; she'd been there for almost two months and was miserable, which she showed by acting out and being a right stroppy little madam. So we were prepared for a rocky start. Nothing, though, could have prepared us for how quickly she's settled in.

Within five minutes of arriving last night she'd come out from her hiding place (under the sofa) and begun to explore the living room. Within an hour she'd demanded, with loud miaows, to be let out of the room; off she went to explore upstairs. And, just three hours after we brought her home, she was curled up asleep at the end of our bed while we sat and read. She's eating well, coming to us to be stroked, and generally showing every sign of being a happy little cat.

It's been wonderful to see Missy - so reserved and so grumpy in the shelter - make herself at home, and I'm so glad that we decided to adopt her. Prepare yourselves for endless cat spam on social media...