Not one of our cats, this time, but one of the many that visit our tiny cottage garden. This one often nests in the top of our ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) and can sleep up there for hours. (Click on all photos to embiggen/bigify).
Tag Archive | cats
The photographer’s assistant
To photograph the vintage jewellery I sell in my Etsy shop, I use the windowsill in our bedroom as my studio. It faces south-west, so gets the best of the sun on offer to our dark old cottage. I prefer photos that are taken in natural light, and so am limited by our gloomy winter weather in the times I can successfully take photos. But whenever I do, there is always one constant: Ballou, my photographer’s assistant.
Ballou in her natural habitat: on her (our) bed.
As soon as I get the gear for my photographing together (the board from an old flower press, some sheets of A4 white paper, some blu tack and an old kilt pin), she’s alert and ready to go. She’ll jump on to the windowsill next to my set-up, and oversee proceedings. Every single time.
Had enough now.
Thank goodness for the cropping facility in my photo editing software, because there’s often a paw (or even a sniffing nose) in shot.
She’s even managed to sneak into a couple of the shots I have used in my shop. Here she is reflected on the back of a fabulous N E From amethyst necklace:
Someone needs a pedicure …
Ballou, to be precise:
We have bank voles (Myodes glareolus) living in our lawn and in our flower beds, and this is the result of Ballou’s particularly vigorous attempt at excavating one out of the lawn.
(The little critter got away, I’m pleased to report).
A scented bed
Hecate sunbathing amid the marjoram today.
Mmmm, comfy: Part 4
Ballou often sits like this:
Mmmm, comfy.
She can spend long periods perched in this way. Strange creature.
Sad cat news – please help if you can
Ugh, this is so horrible and upsetting. I’ve just found out that the Gillingham charity shop run by the Mere and Gillingham Branch of Cats Protection was burnt down in an arson attack a few days ago. The shop was badly damaged and all the stock destroyed. The branch relies on the income from this shop to provide for helping all the stray and unwanted cats it takes in, vaccinates, microchips, neuters, rehomes, and generally cares for.
Andrew Hamilton-Muspratt, the manager of the Cats Protection charity shop in Gillingham, in the burnt-out shop. Photo by Blackmore Vale Magazine staff.
Cats Protection has set up a JustGiving page for donations to help with looking after the cats that the shop provided for. This is an urgent appeal. Please give whatever you can to help—no amount is too small. The branch is absolutely devastated, and as a result of this awful, thoughtless act, the cats are now in dire need.
Our little Ballou came from the Mere and Gillingham Branch 12 years ago, and she has brought us so much joy.
A little about Cats Protection, from their website: Charity Registration No. 203644 & SCO37711. Cats Protection is the UK’s leading feline welfare charity. We help over 230,000 cats and kittens every year through our network of over 250 volunteer-run branches and 30 centres. We find homes for cats, promote the benefits of neutering and produce a wide range of cat care information for owners.
JustGiving donations page for the Mere and Gillingham Branch charity shop appeal.
Fetch, girl!
Hecate spectacularly failing to secure our supper …
Photographed in January 2010. The cock pheasant hung around the gardens near us for over a year. There are shoots nearby, so I don’t know if he eventually succumbed to a gun, or a predator, or old age (what is a pheasant’s life span?) or simply wandered off elsewhere. We certainly missed him and his clattering call and beautiful colours.
Mmmm, comfy: Part 3
This was taken about ten years ago, when Hecate (aka The Humbug, Wabsy, The Piglet, Heckington Schmeckworth, The Wabulizer, Heckers, Tubsy, and any number of other nicknames) was fairly young and keen on finding herself comfy, already-warmed nesting spots …
She only did this a couple of times, but luckily I was on hand to record it. I don’t know whose dignity comes off worse—Hecate’s, or Chap’s. I mean, look at those slippers …
Hecate in her pant hammock. Mmmm, comfy.
Favourite websites: Kittenwar
Kittenwar is another of my favourite websites. It’s a real time sink if you are a cat lover (like me): once you start looking it’s hard to stop.
Basically photos of two kittens/cats are shown side by side, and they ‘do battle’ as you vote for the cutest. The ‘winningest’ kittens and their stats are listed (hint: take a photo with your kitten’s paws and tubby tummy in full shot and you’re in with a chance), as are the ‘losingest’ (hint: if you have a sphinx or angular-headed Siamese, your darling is going to be on this list …)
I put up a photo of one of our two fudsies, Ballou, on 12 January 2006, and in those eight and a half years she has done battle 4,235 times. Her stats are a pretty steady 49% won, 39% lost and 13% drawn. I think she’s the cutest thing ever in the photo I entered, but that’s because I know she’s enjoying having her ears rubbed and is not being tortured, as it rather looks like …
Ballou. Kittenwar warrior. Not being tortured, honest.
Favourite websites: iknowwhereyourcatlives.com
Oh lordy. Now I am going to get drawn into the wormhole of Catblivion.
Catblivion. You are powerless to resist.
A new website called iknowwhereyourcatlives.com features over a million cats, located Google Earth-style to their actual locations. The site’s maker Owen Mundy, an art professor at Florida State University, has taken photos of cats that have been uploaded on to photo sharing websites such as Flickr, Twitpic and Instagram, and used the metadata on these photos (which includes the latitude and longitude of where the photos were taken) to create this cat cyberstalker’s heaven.
There’s also a ‘random cat’ button. The very first one I got was a tiger in the City of Des Moines Blank Park Zoo. Too cool! He’s lying in snow and he looks like he’s got conjunctivitis in one eye. See, I’m already fretting about teh kittehs.
The second was of a lovely ?Bengal cat who lives in Finland.
And now I’m fretting even more—this is also a catnapper’s little black book with knobs on. But maybe I’m just a cynical old bag. Time to click random cat again and de-stress. Kitteh in Gold Coast Australia helps …
Kitteh in the Gold Coast, Australia.
They also have a Kickstarter to get funds to cover the web hosting for the first year. So far it’s on $775 of a $2,500 target; that’s 16 days left to meet the target.