Big little kitty

This cat is big! He’s the biggest cat we’ve ever had. And yet he’s gentle and much more loving than he was when we first took him in.

He was known as ‘the outside cat’ at first. But we gave him a name and gradually he touched our hearts. He had been abandoned by his previous owners and was thin and a bit standoffish at first. For a long time he was outside and my other two cats stayed inside, they were rescues and we didn’t want them to stray onto the main road. We were also concerned they might catch something from the new cat.

I can’t believe how long it’s been since we let him in the house, and the other two out. Basically I would lock the cat flap so he could come in to eat but I would have to let him out so the two couldn’t go. But even then he was getting bigger and he would push and push on the cat flap until he broke it! We glued the split cat flap back together with a layer of plastic and sellotape. But eventually I got another flap and cut it down so the door to it would fit into the original mechanism.

Since then, this cat has thrived. He jumps up between us when we ask, he’s gentle with the other two (he eats as much as both of them put together though!). I love them all, but he has a special place in my heart.

Need more….

My craft stall

I’m running out of minature paintings, I’ve sold a few and given some as presents. They are all different and I need to paint some more. What to paint? I’ve done anything from a Morris minor car to the planet Jupiter. I’ve also painted the moon, birds, flowers, hearts, patterns and giraffes in the sunset. Cats of course and stained glass windows.

They are more craft than fine art I think, but if someone wants a tiny painting, matchbox sized, they don’t need much space to display it! It can go on a shelf or a bookcase, or anywhere else. They are not expensive despite the time it takes to paint them. I just love sharing art.

Waiting for coffee

Hubby yesterday, we had gone over to Middleport pottery so I could draw with the Stoke on Trent Urban Sketchers group. We decided to grab a cup of coffee but the cafe was very crowded and I’ve just got over a cold and didn’t want to catch another or worse. I decided to sit at one of the big round tables outside and so took the opportunity to draw my hubby and the canal and view behind him. The pointy thing about a third of the way in on the right is a church steeple but my ink brush wasn’t thin enough to get a point on it! Anyway I was pleased with the results.

Catnip

I saw some catnip for sale today, I usually get the cats catnip toys, but this was a bag of shredded plant material.

Basically the cats loved it. They all rolled about and snuffed it. One of them started chewing my slipper…while I was wearing them. He even chewed at my trouser leg. He also started playing and chewing my straps on my sandals. He ended up rolling round on his back where he’d scattered the catnip on the carpet, he had got underneath the towel I’d put it on and spilt it on the floor.

Now? He’s sleeping like a baby like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth!

Back to singing

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

After a couple of weeks off I went back to choir practice tonight. I still have a tickly cough and every time I tried to sing with any volume it set it off. It’s annoying because it’s hard to harmonise with a growly voice! It was throwing it down with rain, but there was a good attendance there. The first thing that happened though was I shook my hands because they were wet from the rain running down them from my coat, and the three rings on my right little finger shot off my hand and into a dark corner. I wouldn’t have realised that it had happened but they twinkled as they fell. Luckily the choir leader had a torch so I found them with a couple of other choir members help. I’ve lost weight and my fingers have got a bit thinner. Anyway, despite the problem with losing my rings, and the croaky voice, I’m glad I went out. It’s such a nice atmosphere there.

Musicals, My Fair Lady

I’m currently watching ‘My Fair Lady’ a musical based on the story Pigmalion by George Bernard Shaw.

The story is about a flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, who is trying to improve her cockney accented voice by taking lessons from Professor Higgins. She is taken in by the Professor who says he will turn her into someone who sounds like a duchess in six months. However his methods are unfeeling and really push Eliza. The film seems to sympathise with the professor rather than Eliza.

Songs like ‘all I want is a room somewhere’, ‘the rain in spain’ and ‘I could have danced all night’.

Audrey Hepburn stars as Eliza. She was able to sing the songs but they were dubbed by a singer called Marni Nixon, whose voice is in about fifty films!

If you’ve never watched it, you may feel the ideas in it are old fashioned, but it is set in Victorian/Edwardian times. The music is amazing and energetic. Worth watching.

Alien sky

Have I posted this before? By twisting an image by 90° and mirroring it you can get some strange effects. The lines on here are Street lamps going off into the distance. The light behind the clouds give it an alien appearance, what sort of atmosphere could it be. I can also see strange figures in the sky. Possibly faces? A bit of pareidolia? Symmetry does odd things….

Flying dog?

As I was finishing my charcoal drawing I saw a creature in the sky. A flying beagle type dog with a white muzzle floppy mouth and long floppy ears (alternatively it could be a loping hare). I don’t know how I managed it, but I didn’t alter it, I just chuckled! I’ll post a photo of the finished drawing later…