A Very Pathetic Halloween To You Too

It's Halloween!!! Obviously as a black cat, today is my favourite day of the year. I'm going to go out and scare all the trick or treaters, and sit picturesquely by a pumpkin, and look directly at light sources so my eyes glow, and arch my back and stick out all my furs at right angles to my body whilst making a terrifying racket! Hurrah! 

What's that you say? The cat flap locked an hour earlier because the clocks went back yesterday? HOW VERY DARE YOU GMT!! *Sigh...* I guess it's another Halloween on the sofa then. At least I can jump out from behind it and scare Mia, even if I do do that every day...

So anyway, we asked Rachel a month or so ago if we could dress up this Halloween, she said that sounded like a good idea and she'd make some cool kitty costumes for us. We collected together some ideas for her, which you can see here, but we let her have the final decision on what exactly our costumes would be. So by this evening, we were beyond excited, even I was having trouble maintaining an aloof, dignified exterior. Just what marvellous disguises had she whizzed up for us on the sewing machine? We waited with bated breath... to be presented with...

Well. What can I say. DISAPPOINTED. The first one wasn't great... this was my costume, a mess of pipe cleaners and bit of fabric which was, apparently, supposed to be a spider...

This is rubbish. I'm so depressed.

Even depressed spiders have to eat sometimes...

And then when we asked about Mia's, Rachel looked a bit bashful, disappeared to the bathroom, and came back wielding a fist full of toilet paper. Yes, dear readers, Mia was to be.... Mummified Mia...

Um... I don't really know what to say about this...

My spider costume suddenly looked Disney-worthy compared to this. Obviously there was only one way THAT was going to end.

This IS clean, isn't it?

To be perfectly frank, this is NOT what we signed up for. How are we supposed to hold our heads up amongst other blogging cats with this pathetic Blue Peter-esque attempt at Fright Night? Rachel's excuses, of which there were many, included something about writing up a PhD by Christmas... something about having to prepare for a job interview today... something about a wholesale order... something about making lots of collars for the Christmas fairs coming up... something about how those cats in costumers never look very happy about it anyway and she just KNEW that if she tried to get us into a proper costume she'd be mauled (OK maybe that bit might be true... but couldn't she look at the positives and consider the deep claw wounds a shortcut to a mutilated zombie outfit...?)

After seeing our disappointment, she suggested one last costume idea. This one at least appeals to my intellectual nature although again the effort that went into this one was, once again, minimal. Mia, of course, did not "get it", even after an exhaustive explanation of quantum physics. Can you guess what I am dressed as here?

Yes, my scientist friends, I am Schrodinger's Cat.

Happy Halloween!

Black Cat Awareness Day

Today, apparently, is BLACK CAT AWARENESS DAY. According to Cats Protection, anyway, who say that black cats are the least likely to be adopted from their shelters, out of all the cat colours!!

Yes, I AM aware... that YOU are interrupting MY nap!

That doesn't seem very fair does it. Although, even if it is a bit unfair, why do black cats get a WHOLE day?! I asked Rachel why there isn't a Tortie Awareness Day, and she made a funny snorting noise and said something about being aware of me 365 days a year... But I didn't hear her properly, as I was too busy jumping off her tummy with all my might in order to belt around the room for no particular reason and end up on a top shelf, carefully knocking over all the knick knacks AND the light on the way up. Awesome!

Out-takes

It's been nearly a year since we started blogging! There have been so many photos taken over the past year there are plenty of good ones that we haven't managed to show you yet, so we thought we'd take the chance to share them ... BUT you'll have to wait until next time for that, this time we are going to show you some out-takes from the past year!

Most of them involve Mia... and tongues!

She was looking so pretty in front of the geraniums...

Maybe she's catching flies?

Slurp

Some of them, amazingly, AREN'T tongue related! This one was taken after Mia had been exploring outside in the tipping rain, she came in absolutely SOAKING, so shook herself like a dog to dry off.

Where did my ears go?

This one, well this is a perfectly good photo! I don't know why Rachel didn't want to share this. We were investigating the toilet and considering whether to take up careers as plumbers.

Where's the bleach...

Goodness, well I guess I had to appear in here somewhere. Somewhat ironically this one was taken after I had showed off my feline genius in our Scrabble tournament... not looking too brainy here. Sigh.

 

Duhhhh

Anyway... hope you enjoyed a laugh at our expense. Next time hopefully there'll be some more flattering shots. Hmph.

Nobody Likes A Fat Cat

Anyone got any exercise tips for us? We've heard that Fat Cats are the most hated people in Britain, so we need to do something drastic before we're lined up with Fred Goodwin and the like...

Sooooo... there's a gate in the fence at the side of the house that leads onto the driveway, and Rachel is always very careful to leave a couple of flower pots in front of it so that we can't squeeze under the gap. As it turns out, she might as well not bother.

Lila had sneaked round through the next door neighbour's garden to the driveway and was telling me about this FEATHER she'd found out there! omg! I thought I'd better go and have a look so decided to take the shortcut.

Yep, plenty of room for a svelte feline like myself...

Just slip through under here, no problem...

Um.... bit of help please?

Ah yes, I remember, I think there's a bit more room on the other side ...

No problem.

Ah crap...

Lila WOULDN'T stop laughing at me! So I gave up, and was about to go round the long way, when she said she'd show what a little chubster I was by coming back under the gate.

With my shiny fur I'll slip right through

Looks like it's not just me who's a little chubster!!

Curses! Foiled again!

Personalised cat collars

Just a quick post to let you all know that personalised cat collars are available until SATURDAY on our website. We think they are totally fab and love wearing ours!
(Sorry - they are out of stock now - please sign up here to be reminded when they are available again, probably in February 2011.)

Our friends like theirs too (click to have a closer look).

Annie... Jumper... Loki... Pie - aren't they lovely!

If your cat would like to look as TOTALLY AWESOME as us, all you have to do is go have a look at the personalised collars in our shop, and order by the end of Saturday October 15th. You have to wait a little while before receiving your collars, but we hope to have them posted out to you in the first week of November - so plenty of time for Christmas!

As well as our "Classic" style, which comes in blue, pink, purple and lime, Rachel has a new style in stock now as well, with pawprints. This time you can also have a phone number or first line of address printed on the inside. Lovely!

"Classic" style

Pawprints style

Pawprints, with phone number on inside

Paw-ge Clooney

Lila here - just time for a quick post - I'm in a bit of a fluster today.  A certain private snap has made its way onto the internet. I can't believe these photos have come out, this is so embarrassing...

He told me it was a bespoke cat carrier!!

What can I say, we're just good friends, I promise!

Bob the Big Issue Cat

It's one of those rare occasions where we allow another cat to take centre stage on our blog (I know, shocker!). Last time was after Rachel and Pete visited Marrakesh and we wanted to share some photos of the street cats who didn't have a sofa to cuddle on or a box of Whiskas Temptations between the lot of them, sob (you can read that post here).

This time we are (almost) gracefully making way for Bob the Big Issue Cat! [GET OUT OF THE WAY, Mia, it's not about you for once!]

You may have heard about Bob before. Someone on Twitter told us about him, and we were rather intrigued to read his story. You can read it here and here and see a video here but in a nutshell... Bob was a stray London cat who ended up worse off in a scrap (he wasn't even called Bob then...). He curled up on a doorstep and sat there feeling sorry for himself, and eventually someone living in the house found him - this was James. James doesn't really live in a proper house exactly but rather in something called a bedsit which is basically just one room, as he doesn't have much money, and he sells a magazine called the Big Issue on the streets of London.

Anyway even though James had hardly any money he took Bob to the RSPCA and got him medicine to make him feel better. Once James had finished giving Bob his meds and he was all better, Bob had decided he rather liked life with James and so stuck with him. Now it's four years later and they are inseparable. They make a great pair - while James sells his Big Issues on the streets of London, Bob sits on his bag and just chills out. He wears a harness so he can stay safe when they are walking around London, but the rest of the time he just stays sitting on the bag, posing for photos and generally just being a really cool cat!! He always looks very dapper, as he wears a wide selection of cat scarves which you can see on this flickr photostream.

Anyway yesterday Rachel was walking through Covent Garden and LO AND BEHOLD she saw Bob and James!! She was so excited to meet the both and after buying a Big Issue took some photos of them. Isn't he handsome in his lovely stripy scarf! I think we should have cat scarves for Christmas...

Bob guarding James' mags

Bob gets a fuss from a passer-by!

He's so dashing!

When we first heard about Bob, we weren't really sure about how much fun staying outside all day on the noisy street sounded, but Rachel says he looked ever so happy and content, and he had lovely thick fur like Mia and bright shiny eyes. Plus, he gets LOADS of strokes all day, and James even had a pot of Whiskas Temptations in his pocket to keep him happy - lucky boy!

Bob gets some noms.

Most amazing of all, James has written a book about their story which is out in March 2012. We can't wait to read it!