Sweet, hot cat,
Belly showing
Asleep in the heat
Paws poised to poddle
And knead my hand.
Belly rub time.
Purrs emanate loudly
He is content and happy
An electric fan
Wafts cool air over him
Purring and snoring
Asleep. Dreaming.
Purring
Thundery downpours
Current lightning over us. It’s gone dark and rumbly above us. Although the main storms seem to be swirling around Congleton and Stone tonight. The map is from Blitzortung.org and I hope I’m not breaching their copyright. I can hardly see its gone so dark, cumulus clouds boiling above us. I’m glad we live at the bottom of the hill, I think we are less likely to get hit! God’s certainly moving a lot of furniture!
Eyedrops
Our big cat has a runny eye. He’s been diagnosed with conjunctivitis. The problem is that the first lot of eye drops irritated his eye and so we have been back to the vets for a gentler treatment. We have come back with an ointment for his eye and liquid antinflamatory drops to add to his food as he can’t have it on an empty stomach.. Now I’ve just got to catch him twice a day!
For information about cat care try finding the @katzenworld blog here… Not sure of its address…
Hydrangea
Little buds into purple flowers or bracts. The flowers on our new hydrangea are coming out. They were a surprise. Hydrangea usually have blue or pink flowers depending on the acidity or alkalinity of the soil. I’ve heard of people putting copper nails in the soil with them to change their colour. I don’t know if it works as its probaby a old wives tale? A good garden plant and can grow into a small shrub.
A Tagline?
If humans had taglines, what would yours be?
I had to look this up:
“In entertainment, a tagline is a short text which serves to clarify a thought for, or is designed with a form of, dramatic effect. Many tagline slogans are reiterated phrases associated with an individual, social group, or product. Wikipedia”
I would say I’m a “pattern loving gal”? Does that work as a tagline for me? I add patterns to most of my art, and the older I get the more I seem to do it. The three words explain my feelings about art. My genuine enjoyment of entanglements and textures. My enjoyment of and involvement with pattern in my art and designs.
I cannot think of any better description.
The thunder missed us
There is a website called blitzortung.org you can open up, and if you look at the live maps you can see lightning strikes as they happen. The site covers the whole world but you can zoom in on it.
Tonight it got very dark and cloudy and we had a few flashes of lightning with rumbles of thunder about 5 to 3 miles away (10 and 6 seconds), Light travels fast, sound follows, so 2 seconds equals a mile away.
We just had some heavyish rain but the storm petered out. Looking at the lightning map, the storm split up into two. The storm stopped about three miles away from here
, but a branch of it was heading towards Crewe. There were over 5 thousand strikes in an hour!
I’ve been interested about lightening since I was talking to an elderly lady about 25 years ago. She said she was in her house several years before that. She had the window open because it was so hot, suddenly a ball of lightening came in through the window and bounced off the floor. She didn’t explain what happened afterwards, whether it just dissipated. But clearly it was not too traumatic. I have heard of ball lightning, so it might have been true….
Cat names
Snuggle, buggle..
Gooby goo
Twoozle
Prettle
Plip.
Names I call my cat?
Tweest, cara, snook..
Pootle, pools, sook…
Flimp, shust, flust..
Pooku poo two..
Just be with me always
My sweet
Jubby lue!
Trifle time
Made a birthday trifle, raspberrysugar free jelly with blackberries and port, strawberry blancmange with a bit of sweetner, whipped cream with chopped strawberries and grated dark chocolate.
Now that’s what I call a trifle!
Monkey and bug hotel sculptures
Monkey made by willow weaving, tree trunk carving, bottle kiln shaped bug hotel and a large house shaped bug hotel. These are in the entrance compound of the Monkey Forest before you actually walk around the money enclosure. It’s interesting to see the different ideas that the sculptors have come up with.
Trentham Monkey Forest
Macaque Monkey at Trentham Monkey Forest. We visited today.
The monkeys live in a forested area south of Trentham Gardens on the A34 in Staffordshire. It’s near the city of Stoke on Trent.
Two troops of Barbary Macaque monkeys live in the enclosure. They are being raised to support the species which is in decline in North Africa. The climate here is equivalent to there natural home which is the Atlas mountains I think.
This year they have had eight babies. They are thriving. You can walk around in the enclosure but you have to follow strict rules, getting no closer than 2 meters, not trying to feed them, not touching them, not taking food into the enclosure.
We really enjoyed it despite the heat of the day. Seeing a baby that was less than a month old climbing up branches was amazing. It was a god walk up and down hills and along a stream in the cool of the forest.
Mallaband-Brown 