December - Cooling winds and decorations up up up

Our variety of Christmas lights

The front garden

Well chomping at the bit at the beginning of December I attune myself to the new lights we have bought for outside. Last year we had got down to our last string but we are back on form again this year, not quite blackpool lights but our house does stand out a little with our neighbours as well.

It's amazing how long it takes! I start stringing then have a change of mind and then again. A good three hours finally gave results.

Bertie looking curlyat 8 months

The tree is now up as well and as ever with get rather carried away with size. Last year it touched the ceiling, this year however we had a hard time getting it in the car and then after soaking it for 24 hours it did not fit into the tree holding bracket : ( Out comes the saw twice once to take off and inch or two off the height and then cutting along the side to get it to fit in. Still however it has fallen over, my cutting straight is obviously left handed and NOT good.This tree is magnificent. It is SOOOOOOOO bushy everywhere, it does take up one sixth of the room.

I do have to say though if you want to see Christmas done properly my neighbour has Xmas mugs, Xmas tea towels, Xmas singing things up the stairs, wow it just is a grotto. Her hubby is of course doing the  "baa humbug" routine.

Luna, our girl, at 7 months

Pressies are soooo hard : ( I only have to do the kids. The eldest buys what he wants, the youngest needs to get his and let me pay as we need his feet, my daughter is the easiest  but even that is not that easy, now we are passed computer games I have no convenient back up!!!

Luna asleep

Soon hubby is home. Just a week and a half. He loves Christmas but he can do a bit of Gordon Ramsey grumps in the kitchen, here's hoping a change!!

Luna our lovely Selkirk variant girl cat has just been spayed, the vet wanted to do her midline because of her coat and wanted to get her weight up  to do it. Well what an amazing job!! Her shave was truly minimal, her cut so neat and as it was glued we have not had any weeping. Needless to say she did not wear those horrible head cones nor did she have a bland diet coming home, the others would have terrorised her and trying to keep her away from their food is not possible. Bertie is still entire and at the moment man-ing up. None of our boys have ever sprayed and we left them all to a year, Harvey 1 and a half, so as long as Bertie behaves we will go down that route.

We have found a great window cat shelf on ETSY which has been loved by the cats, extremely comfortable, safe and very easy bird watching from the window. As you can see our heavy weight boy fits and it holds up to the strain!!!!.

Monty trying out the new ETSY shelf

Gosh that looks comfortable

Just rushed off to get the cats their whole food prey, i.e. DOCs and small mice. We are very lucky to have one of the best suppliers in the UK literally only 20 minutes away. It's a bit gruesome but once you realise the DOCs are what are rejected from the chicken industry and they are so natural for the cats to eat and at 6.5p per chick it is a very, very, very, cheap addition to their diet.

A bag of 50 DOCs

Snoozing again

Cat Shelves - Yes, we've added these as well!

Well there I was at the computer looking at our  Dining room/Office walls when I decided that there was a prime area of green wall fit for a new purpose!! The cats always love being wherever someone is sitting and if I am at the computer that usually means on top of my hands while I am typing. I thought building some cat shelves could give them a perch and allow me to get on with work quicker.

Off I went to Ikea to look at shelves, and chose the Ekby Shelving system. What was so great about these was that you could cut the shelves to any length and as the bracket fits over the ends all the cut exposed shelf was then hidden. I purchased two lengths of shelving and ten brackets. I also knew that the shiny surface was not ideal to jump onto therefore cut carpet tiles adhered to the shelving with carpet double sided tape should work. The idea for these came from several websites.


I initially did mean to fit them myself but my dearest Father in Law took it upon himself to fit them. Our cats are not light weight so we used the strongest wall plugs available, enough to hold a human I believe!!!! and the shelves were put up.

Well they are great, I think they look professional and so neat. I come into the room to find often one or two of the cats asleep during the day and it is lovely to turn around when I am at the computer to see them watching me.

Yes another thing we didn't NEED but a cat enrichment which has certainly been used and enjoyed.