Merry Christmas Everyone!

Ho Ho Ho!  Lila here.  I do hope you've all had a lovely time over Christmas and are looking forward to 2011.  Our Christmas was a bit mixed...
First of all we had a Christmas dinner at home with Rachel & Pete's friends, it was loads of fun!  Unfortunately we had to have the smelly allergy stuff rubbed on our fur, but it was worth it, as some of our favourite people were there, including Oli - you can see him in the picture below with Mia.  As you can see, we were a little inconvenienced by the festivities - see the wine rack in the background?  Well it's not actually a rack - it's our scratching post!  How cheeky!  But we did get to eat the turkey giblets which was a fantastic treat. Nom nom.

After all this fun - can you believe it - Rachel & Pete left us in the house to fend for ourselves for a couple of days!  Sure, the Christmas tree lights came on every evening to keep us company, and the funny whirring food dish kept us from starving, but really!  Now obviously I was livid, but even Mia was most unimpressed by this turn of events... see her doing her best cross face:

But eventually they came home!  I knew it wasn't for long though - so although Mia was happy to see them, I gave them the cold shoulder and stalked off whenever they tried to stroke me.  Hmph.  They did bring us some presents though, which smelled fantastic; it took all my strength to resist the catnippy goodness and maintain my aloof behaviour.
Anyway, as expected, after a few hours Rachel and Pete went away again, and once again we were on our own.  They did at least fill the food up again, so we were fine, I guess.  By the time they came back again, I had decided to forgive them for being so mean, and so we had a nice cuddly evening on the sofa.

It's nice having them around all day.  But I do hope they go back to work soon - it's hard to relax completely knowing you could be disturbed by a tickle at any time...
PS - Rachel says to let you know that the Christmas and winter collars are all half price in the Mog's Togs shops - and you can get them posted to you for just 75p!  For such a bargain price, you too could look as good as us!

How (not) to wrap a cat for Christmas

Hmmmm, OK, we don't really know what this was all about, but it was quite fun. Rachel said that we'd be like some kitty on the internet or something, and then she tried to wrap Mia up ...! Personally I think just putting her in a pretty gift box would have been easier, but what do I know?!

Pine Fresh!

It's Mia here, and a rather confused Mia at that: you will NEVER guess what the humans have done now.  We finally got rid of the cold white stuff covering the garden (which was all pretty wierd, and I really wasn't sure I liked it), and now they've put a tree in the front room!  Don't they belong outside?  Having said that, though, it does look different to the ones in the garden, as there's some pretty sparkly lights on which are fun to look at.  It also smells lovely, I like to sit on the windowsill and rub my face on the branches, mmm, but when I do that Rachel and Pete look a bit panicked so I usually can't do it for long.  It makes a great place for hide and seek - I love waiting behind the trunk for Lila to come downstairs so I can ambush her. Ahahaha!
Ooh - other news - we've FINALLY got our Christmas collars on!  Yay!  Lila did really well and lost her halloween collar in the garden twice in one week, so at last Rachel gave in.  I have a green one which matches the tree and says "Merry christmas" on, and Lila has a gold one with snowflakes - very bling!
 
Well that's all for now, I'll be sure to keep you up to date with any other odd things happening around here...

On the Catwalk

The other day, our human Rachel asked us to model some of the new christmas collars that she's been making.  We weren't really sure what that meant, but it involved the camera with the flashy light, which Lila doesn't like much as she says it makes her fur look greasy.  So she quickly disappeared, leaving me in the limelight.  I didn't know what to do, so I just sat down, tucked my nose under my tail, and tried to nap.  But Rachel said that wasn't what modelling was about, and that I should sit up and look cute.  I tried my best, but apparently I was posing too much and looked nervous (well, what do you expect with all the flashes? I'm not a show cat!).

Anyway, she finally gave me some of my favourite treats (whiskas temptations - nom nom), and tickled me under my chin (yay!) and then told me to just act naturally.  Well, why didn't she say that before?!  I can easily do that!!  So I set to behaving in normal cat fashion, just doing what came naturally.  The photos are below - I think they came out great, and show off the collars really well, but Rachel just laughed and told me (for the 1000th time) that I am a silly cat, and went to take some photos of Lila instead.  I still got another treat though, hurray!

Get my drift?

cats_in_snow.wmv Watch on Posterous

It's been pretty gosh-darn cold here for the last few days, with some freezy white stuff swirling around in the sky... Some of it landed on the ground, but not much. But when we woke up this morning, there was LOADS of it everywhere!  Magic!
Rachel got all excited and put her coat and big scary boots on and came outside with us, not sure why, but we did have a fun time out there.  The white stuff (snow, apparently) came up to our tummies! It wasn't too wet though, so it was nice, in a way - I went dashing around the garden in it (I was pretending to be a Snow Leopard, if you must know, but don't tell anyone!).
Typical Mia ended up trying to attack it and pounce on it, as she does with anything that moves, but she just got it up her nose and had a sneezing fit, silly girl. Then she decided that actually it wasn't snow after all but a new type of revolutionary kitty litter - and went for a wee on the patio!  OMG I was so embarrassed!  So at that point I went back inside and curled up in the warm.  I don't know, these torties, you can't take them anywhere.
Argh, Rachel's asked me to remind you all that our collars are 15% off in our Folksy and Etsy shops at the moment, if you are a fan of our Facebook group or follow us on Twitter.  Apparently on Folksy she'll send you some money back through Paypal (I think she might mean PawPal?) and for Etsy there's a coupon code, just send an email to find out what it is.  Does this mean we can have our Christmas collars now?
'Til next time: stay safe & keep wrapped up warm, blog fans! 

Oh Baubles...

Well, this tree thing has certainly got more interesting since I last reported to you. As well as the sparkly lights, I can exclusively announce that THERE ARE NOW SPARKLY CAT TOYS ON THE TREE!  Wow!
I've been practicing my meerkat impression and standing up as tall as I can to try and reach the shiny red ones.  Sometimes they fall off and I can chase them around the room until they roll under The Sofa Of Lost Toys.  This has helped me finally figure out the real purpose of this tree - it was clearly designed as some kind of keep-fit course for us - how thoughtful of Rachel and Pete, they must have noticed that we are getting a little soft around the middle in this cold weather. As well as the stretching and batting, I've also been doing some lunges off the windowsill into the tree; after this the humans usually encourage us to do a little sprint to the other end of the room, by waving the spray bottle at us.  Nothing like a bit of interval training!

 

Lila's not really taking part though, she is conserving her energy - she's finally realised that the back of the sofa is the best place to relax (I've been chilling there since we first started living here). 

I've generally been winding down in front of the fire after my exercise, so much so that Rachel and Pete have been calling me Toaster-Face... But there's nothing like piping hot fur to ease the muscles after a hardcore sesh in the feline gym!
'Til next time, stay healthy, everybody!

Economic Cat-astrophe?

I know you all think that I'm just the silly baby cat of the household, and it's true, in a way. There's nothing I like better than rolling around on the carpet like a kitten; unless it's chasing a bit of wool, or making squeaky noises at a fly.  Yay!!  BUT there is more to me than this!  Well, I think there could be anyway.
So I heard there was a recession happening, I'm not really sure what that is, but it sounds tasty.  Plus, our human Pete has got a new job which is something to do with eek-onomics; I thought that that meant he was doing something with mice, but apparently it's more important than that.  Anyway, he's reading a book about it, so I thought I'd get stuck in too, and try and make myself a bit more cleverer.  It's very interesting actually, particularly the bit about how the British government sold off the 3G mobile network to make 30 billion pounds!  We tried to tell Rachel about that bit, but she kind of glazed over, and I think she thought I just wanted more dinner.  (Well, I did, but that's not the point).
I think this whole reading thing could really be good for broadening my horizons, I might try Vince Cable's book next.  The only problem is, I read much faster than Pete does, but I have to wait for him to turn the pages due to my lack of opposable thumbs.  That's when I get distracted by something; a speck of dust, or the corner of a photo frame, or my own tail, and I forget all about quantitative easing and go racing around the lounge instead... WHEEEEEEE!

Spot The Cat Contest

Can you see me in this photo?

I'm cleverly hiding from Rach and Pete.  I am having to do this kind of thing every night at the moment...
The usual course of events is as follows.  Mia and I are perfectly happy, cosily snuggling on the big bed for most of the evening, and then the humans decide it's time for bed and turf us out downstairs.  It's really not an appropriate snoozing environment down there.  In the living room there are only 2 sofas, a hammocky chair, several cushions, 2 fleece blankets, and a designated cat sleeping shelf with a comfy bed - how on earth are we supposed to sleep adequately?  The big bed really is the best place to catch some ZZZ's and even better with the humans in it as it's much warmer that way.
Anyway, I have to resort to silliness like this at bedtime; hiding in the wardrobe, or under the duvet, just to try and get the point across that our current sleeping arrangements are unacceptable.  They aren't getting the message though.  Mia's no help - one shake of the treat box and she's away like a shot downstairs, what a floozy.  So much for intra-species loyalty.
Sometimes I like to pretend that they've won, and I'm going downstairs, but then at the last minute, when their guard is down, I sneak back through their legs and take up residence on the bed again.  They always get me in the end though - usually they try and roll me up in the cosy blanket, like they do when it's worming pill time, and that always has me straight downstairs.  I MUST build up my defences to this kind of attack, though.  I know I'm wearing them down, every day it takes them a little longer to get me out.  One day they'll give up and let us stay, I just know it.
CAT-KIND WILL PREVAIL.

Helping!

Ooh, busy weekend. The study had got all messy and so Rachel had to tidy up. It's where she makes the collars, so there's lots of fun stuff to play with.  I decided to pitch in and help organise the webbing and ribbon, I think I was pretty helpful, to be honest.
You can just about see my collar in one of the photos, it's got pumpkins on for Halloween - bit out of date now - but Rachel says it is too early to have our Christmas collars. But, I know some other cats have already got their Christmas collars, because she's been sending them out to their owners! It's so unfair!! I WANT MINE NOW!!

A Place To Rest

Urgh. The weather's been simply atrocious recently. High winds, pelting rain, it's enough to drive even the most hardened adventurer inside. I got blown over while trying to attend to the call of nature in the flowerbed, most inelegant, so have retreated back to the litter tray for now.  I know the humans are enjoying all the extra presents we're leaving for them at the moment so that's one bonus at least.
It's important to find a good, cosy place to hunker down when it's like this. Recently I've been enjoying this "Ikea" bag. It's great - roomy enough for two (not that I'd ever deign to share my chosen sleeping spot with Mia), quite insulating, and makes a good crinkly noise when you stretch.  Lovely. I highly recommend you try to obtain one too; although it may be difficult - I believe they are quite rare, and certainly extremely expensive. Only the best for us, naturellement.

Box!

What an exciting weekend!  I got to play in a box! All by myself, cos Lila was too grownup to play.  YAY!! It tasted good too, nom nom.
There were loads of bangs outside on Friday and Saturday night, we didn’t mind though. The flashy lights were sooooo pretty and sparkly, I sat on the windowsill and watched them for aaages. Hope they do it again next week…
Now it’s Sunday evening, so as usual our human Pete is ironing his shirts, so as usual I’ll go help him in my own special way…

Furry Bits

Bonjour, Mia here again. As for Lila “countering” my supposed immaturity (so what if I like to have fun?), well I shall counter THAT with this photo of her napping in a rather undignified pose.  She’s right by the window too!  Anyone could see her!  OMG!  I’d never have my furry bits on display like that!  (ok, I would, but not so brazenly…)
That reminds me, I haven’t checked what’s happening outside for at least 17 seconds. Must go sit on windowsill again RIGHTNOW.  Seeya!  *boing*

Seriously?

Hello, followers. I am Lila, the more grown up of the Mog’s Togs mogs, as you can tell by my solemn face here in this photo. I shall be countering Mia’s flippant, immature LOLcat-type remarks with some more serious - some might say cynical - commentary. Thus is life; ever the dark with the light. Adios, friends.

Cat-a-blog

Hiya, Mia here from Mog’s Togs, just trying to get a hang of this blog thing.  IT’S SO EXCITING!!!!  It’s almost as exciting as an elastic band!  Ooh, an elastic band, where is it? where? where?!!