Mia the Vanquisher of Arachnids

That is me! Vanish... vanisher... of arra... arrows... Oh OK, I don't really know what those words mean, Lila thought up that title for me...

I have been being SUPER BRAVE recently as I've been protecting Rachel and Pete from a DEADLY INVASION of nasty icky (delicious) spiders. They're often spotted around the doors...When I see one, I give a warning sound (it sounds like mik-mik-mik-mik) so that the humans know not to approach. They are so stupid though, they always DO approach!

DON'T come any closer! This one's HUGE!

Then I round up the spider and corrall it between my mighty paws, and give it the patented Mia Smack of Doom.

I'm not scared of you, spidey.

I give it a sniff, to check it's been neutralised, and see if it might make a tasty snack.

Smells dead...

The small ones are the yummiest - the big ones I tend to just play with for a while until they are dead or disabled and then leave them for Rachel to clean up. Their legs can be a bit crunchy...

OK, you can clean it up now.

No need to thank me for keeping the humans safe, it's the least I could do. I hope your cats are protecting you too...

Distractingly Cute

Well... Once again we have to apologise for Rachel's poor blogging performance of late. Once again, she's blaming her PhD (which she assures us is nearly finished - psh, she said that last month!). She seems to think that this video from last year of Mia being super cute will somehow make up for it!! Ha! As if you blog readers are that easily bought off!!

Look out for another Mog's Togs Friend coming over the weekend. Hopefully there'll be some more of US again soon!!

Snoozing...

Sorry for the gap in blogging... Rachel has been busy typing, sewing, websiting, and hanging out with her new baby niece, among other things. She also says we aren't doing anything interesting enough to warrant a blog! The CHEEK OF IT!

Wake me up when you need me!!

Helping! (Part II)

Rachel has been ever so busy recently, you probably noticed, as she hasn't blogged for a while... She is writing up her PhD, whatever that means. She was trying to think of a title for this PhD thing, we suggested "How Many Kitties Do I Need And How Cute Are They?", she frowned but said she'd add it to the list of possibles...

As well as being ever so busy at work and having to stay there late, she also has been pretty busy with Mog's Togs. Apparently we were featured in an Etsy Finds email last week and since then lots of people have realised how amazing we are and bought collars for their cats from us, yay!! So she's been sewing away to finish all the orders that have been coming in, and we have tried to be as helpful as possible. I thought it would be helpful if I scrabbled around on the shelving unit and knocked things off, and then when Rachel didn't seem too impressed with that, I tried to pounce off the DVD tower onto the printer. Lila had other ideas though, I think she was on the right track as she didn't get told to go downstairs and bug Pete instead...

Gosh this is a huge mess isn't it... Do you want me to do some tidying?!

 

Do you need an extra paw?

I'm always here for moral support!

Don't Let The Cat Out Of The Bag For Life

Hello, Mia here. I've been enjoying spending the evening sitting in this French bag for life recently. I'm not going to tell you why, maybe because it's a bit crinkly, or maybe the other shopping bags inside it make it nicely insulated, it will remain a mystery to you. Rachel said I looked cute and took a video... 

Leftovers From Year One

OK, so Lila promised you some nice photos of us - here they are! They never made it to a blog post of their very own, so we figure it's time to clear them out in preparation for a new year of beautiful photos of us *preens*.

Firstly - us out in the garden. We love to hang out on the garden wall keeping a neighbourly eye on things. [nosing at the neighbours, more like - Ed.]. Cats make excellent guard dogs, you know... oh wait, not dogs, you know what I mean...

We'd headbutt intruders to death

Here I am watching TV at Christmastime - I never usually take any notice, but I loved these polar bears!

I want to play in the snow!

Usually when Rachel & Pete clean the house we escape to the garden - don't worry, it doesn't happen very often ;-). This time it was raining outside when they got the hoover out, so we didn't fancy going out, instead we bravely huddled together on this chair ...

We don't usually sit as close together as this...

Me hiding under the cupboard in the study. I probably can't fit there anymore...

Who's tail is that?

  Ahh look at pretty Lila! She's very playful sometimes, you know. But what's happened to her ear?

Pardon?

Out in the garden again, and double decker kitties! The best thing to do in the wheelbarrow is to roll around in the dirt in it. And then go inside and roll around on the carpet.

Mia it's your turn to push me now...

We do try to be helpful when Rachel is working hard on the business side of Mog's Togs. Look, I've filed myself away for future reference.

Should I be in C for cat or F for feline?

We hope you've enjoyed our posts over the last year!!! Don't worry, we've got no plans to stop. If you're new to our blog, why not have a look at our older adventures, there's a list over there on the right hand side.

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!

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!

O-strich Of The Imagination

Look what we've got! Giant feathers! Woooo! They are like normal feathers, but WAY WAY bigger, and so obviously WAY WAY MORE FUN!

Let me tell you the story of how we got them...  So, Lila and I were just relaxing out in the garden.

I was just having a wash, and was about to have a nap...

...when we saw these birdies out of the corner of our eyes!

They looked so yummity, and we hadn't had lunch so we chased them around the garden... caught them... and ate them, one each. After we ate them we were super sleepy so I had a snooze.

But then the scary man-cat from up the road came into the garden and we both ran inside, so we brought the feathers in with us.

And so THAT is how we got our new toys! They are so much fun to play with, they are big enough to stand up to a bit of bunny-kicking, plus you can really get your teeth into them, and they taste great when you lick them, mmm ostrichy goodness.

Like all our favourite toys though, they go away into a cupboard at night. Boo!

Not So Dramatic Cat

Remember the video of Mia sticking her tongue out like a muppet? Well Rachel was bored last night (I don't know why, she's got a huge to-do list, or she could have been feeding us treats or pointing the red dot around for us), so she added some exciting sounding music to the video make Mia a Dramatic Cat!!

Badger Badger Badger...

We had a special visitor this weekend, it was so exciting! It was shuffly, short legged and had a stripy black and white head. Can you guess what it is yet?!

Actually there were two of them. The first one at first glance appeared rather round and pudgy... but ACTUALLY it was just its fur.

It went for a little walk around the lounge, and had a good old sniff of the carpet.  I think it liked all the hairs we had carefully laid down on the floor.

Pete tried to pet it - he loves badgers, he even plays for a cricket team named after them!

Although you might think meles meles is rather solitary and grumpy, this one wasn't. It liked having its ears scratched.

The other badger was more relaxed. It had a nap on the sofa for a little while.

Then it too went for a little stroll and also had a close inspection of the carpet.

Gosh, they've got much longer tails than you'd expect, haven't they?! They were ever so lovely and soft and very well house trained. We did like having them around but after a while they had to go back to their sett in the woods, boo. Maybe we'll see them again soon one day?!

Look Before You Leap

Oopsy daisy! I was up in Rachel and Pete's bedroom and I decided to go sit in the laundry basket on the soft (and slightly smelly...) clothes. It's a great place to sit and sleep while pretending to be thinking DEEPLY. As usual I jumped in off the bed but...

Oh no! There was nothing in there!! I went straight to the bottom, whoops, there wasn't even a pair of Pete's pants in there to break the fall ... What on earth possessed the humans to be quite so organised, it's very out of character for them. I hope they are feeling OK.

Now this may seem embarrassing - but it could have been worse - Lila nearly did the same thing ON THE COMPOST BIN the other day! She uses it as a way to get up onto the shed, and didn't notice that Rachel was doing some gardening and so had left the lid off. She teetered on the edge for a while, but just managed not to land in the potato peelings and rotten tomatoes... now that WOULD be humiliating!

The Tunnel

Hey look at our new toy!! Rachel went to a big pet show and bought it for us. Pete rolled his eyes and said it would take up the whole room... but who cares what he thinks, we rule the roost around here!

We weren't actually that impressed with it to start with, but then Rachel undid the buttons and it popped out and OMG it was an ENORMOUS TUNNEL and made a FABULOUS CRINKLY SOUND! And it had HOLES in it to jump through and DANGLY things to bite and play with. I got so very over excited about it... my eyes went very big and round and eventually it had to be put away :-( But before it got put away we had so much fun, well I had lots of fun and even Lila had a peek inside. Which surprised me, as you'll see in this video...

Hunting

I caught a mouse!! It was so exciting!!

I was out in the garden and I saw it twitching and sniffing by a treetrunk and I stalked it silent as the night for ages for hours and hours as it scurried about looking for worms or something yucky and then I stepped on an old crunchy leaf and the mouse stopped and turned around and looked at me - right at me - right at me with it's beady little eye - and I growled at it and it looked scared as well it should I am terrifying and it shook like a leaf and ran away but then I found it again later on by the purple geraniums under the buddleia tree and this time I crept closer and closer and my paws were so quiet on the soil this time not even a rustle I avoided the leaves I was like a ballet dancer and eventually I was so close I could smell its stinky sweaty mouse smell and it was deep in concentration looking at something it was stock still not moving at all and I was just a whisker from its nasty tail and then I struck I pounced I leapt through the air so gracefully like a gazelle and BAM I landed on it and HUZZAH my paws closed around it - victory at last - and I put it between my sharp razor teeth still struggling and I ran down the garden like the wind dodging the washing line and the wheelbarrow whose wheel doesn't turn and the puddles of water from the sprinkler and the empty pots blown out of the shed by the wind and then I reached the patio where Lila was sitting by the barbecue and all I could see as I flew by was her wide eyes of surprise that yes I - silly little clumsy Mia - had been the first after more than a year to catch something other than a fly in the garden and then I was almost at the back door and I could see someone's feet and legs in the dining room and it was Rachel in her slippers I screeched to a halt as she turned to look down at me and I proudly laid my quarry at her feet brown and furry and dirty looking with its paws in the air and its body frozen in fear and its long long tail stretched out on the carpet I knew she would be so proud of me and tell me how I was her big scary tiger and so pleased to receive what a wonderful present from her clever clever Mia.

She did tell me how clever I was and what a wonderful present... BUT then...

She laughed at me! And she giggled at my savaged mouse! And she called Pete and he came downstairs and positively guffawed!

How RUDE!!!

Mia and her Tongue

Remember last week I was telling you how worried I was because I thought Mia's wonky whisker had made her unusually evil and cunning? And that she was probably busy planning all kinds of naughty tricks?

Well, having seen this video of her that Rachel took, I take it all back. There is no way Mia has the brain cells for planning anything at all, evil or otherwise. The wonky whisker is just that, a whisker.

Make sure you watch closely - this video is onlya quick one!! Mia was in the middle of washing her paws when she got distracted... bless her!!

A Terrifying Monster

Mia here, and I'm feeling very brave. I have been battling a scary armoured monster in the garden! It was really awful but I had to protect Lila and Rachel. Of course Rachel could have beaten the monster pretty easily but she just sat there videoing me, typical!



Eventually she did remove the monster, which was good, as I was getting pretty tired of battling. So as everything was now safe and secure, I went inside and had a sleep. Zzzzz...

Happy Birthday To Us!

Well, it was a big day yesterday - millions of people had been anticipating it for months. There were street parties across the country, 24 hour TV coverage with news anchors arriving from networks all over the world. Yes, it was our Official Birthday! (We are keeping our real birthdays a closely guarded secret). Lila was turning 3, and I was turning 2. I'm a big girl now! Perhaps Rachel and Pete will stop calling me Baby Cat now I'm a whole two years old?

We did think we might have a big day of celebrations with a constant stream of guests, a ton of presents, and maybe a tiered cake, but it was fairly low-key and in fact the humans' attention appeared to be somewhere else, humph.

We did get some really delicious special food though, which Rachel let us eat straight out of the can as a treat (well, Lila claims she was just too tired to wash up our bowls, but I don't believe that).  One of the tins had whole tiger prawns in, mmm! We had some party hats too, but to be honest we weren't that fussed about that. Here's a photo of me looking unimpressed.

But at least I wore it, Lila refused to have it on her head and pretty much set about eating it. However the birthday did start looking up as Rachel presented us with our presents: collars with our names on! Lila's was really bright, lime green to go with her black fur. Her she is wearing it while having a wash. We were getting ready for a Girls Night Out! But the catflap locked at dusk as usual, so it ended up as a Night On The (Bathroom) Tiles. Boo.

My collar was purple which is my new favourite colour. I thought there might be a spare prawn in the top of the birthday hat...

We do like our new collars. Rachel also made some for our cat friends Oz and Mollie - theirs were blue and pink.

If you like our special collars, you can have one of your own (with your name on, of course...)! If you'd like one, you need to let Rachel know by Monday (May 2nd) at the latest, as she'll be ordering the fabric that evening (British time!). You'll have to wait a couple of weeks to get your paws on them, as the fabric comes from America, but it'll be worth it, I promise!! For more information including cost see here on the Mog's Togs Facebook page and you can email Rachel at rachel@mogstogs.com.

PS We didn't get a birthday gift from you - not even a card! Sniff, sniff. Well, go put it in the diary for next year then, go on!

Snake, It's A Snake!

It's still really nice and sunny here, in fact it's been SO sunny it hasn't rained for ages. It's been so dry that Rachel has had to water the plants. She says that's just silly as it's April, it should be raining all the time.  We don't like it when she waters the garden as all the lovely dry sandy soil that we like to roll around in gets all muddy, ick.

Anyway it reminded me of when we first arrived here at Rachel and Pete's house last year, and we didn't know WHAT was going on with some of the funny things they did. The garden hose gave me quite a shock when I first saw it...



Rachel tried to video me with the hose again this spring, but it didn't work - I'm way more savvy and cool now! Hope you all have a great Easter!

Sunny Days Of Spring

Thought we had better get this post out before the sunny weather disappears!  We had a lovely girls-only weekend as Pete was away hitting a very small ball with a stick. It was so lovely and warm - actually we found the heat a bit of a shock and stayed inside, lounging on the cool tiles in the bathroom.

Rachel seemed to like it though, she put her shorts on and showed us her white legs (heehee) and then spent a lot of time putting more dirt into pots (we still don't understand this).  We meowed plaintively from the back door to try and make her come back inside so that Lila could sit on her and I could have my tummy tickled, but it didn't work, she was having too much fun out there.  So in the afternoon when it had cooled down a little and there was a bit more shade, we ventured out.

I found a great place to sit, amongst the wallflowers and daffodils. I discovered that if you find a big enough clump of daffodils, you can kind of lean your head gently on the stems without them breaking.  We found out the hard way that you aren't meant to break flower stems, we did that the other week when racing down the garden and got a bit of a telling off.  Whoops.  Anyway from this vantage point I was nicely shaded, but the soil was warm and dry, and best bit - I could jump out at Rachel and Lila as they walked down the path.  Yay!

Lila found a nice sunny patch and rolled around in it.  She got her bumblebee collar absolutely filthy!

Then she checked out the little baby plants in this funny box thing.  Hang on, these were just pots of dirt last week?!  Aha, perhaps I am getting closer to understanding the whole dirt-in-pots thing now...

The box thing isn't looking quite as smart now; since on Sunday morning before Rachel got up, Lila jumped off the fence onto it and broke it!!  Rachel was really cross and said some sweary words while she was fixing it.  Heehee.  Lila thought she'd got away with it but the dusty pawprints showed one of us was the culprit, and I'm too scared to go up on the fence, so Rachel knew it was her!