Helper cat?

Seems like someone wants to give me a helping hand with my crafts...

Well....I say 'help'...

How is it

When you go out shopping for someone else you end buying something for yourself too? I'm sure it can't just be me!

My phone was getting clogged with pics so I dumped a few onto my comp today here's a selection of my month so far -

A trip to Poole to buy for my Secret Santa (which of course required a stop at Starbucks) -

Pussy Cat No Name hiding under the stool while I'm crafting (yup he's still here and still adorable!)

Warning - there's a spider in this next shot! This lady was living on my window for a while then vanished. Turns out she'd moved above my window and tripled in size - super...then she vanished again.

Turns out she moved round the side of the house and built the biggest spider nest I've ever seen. Double super! *shudder*

The day before I took this pic she'd started to cover it up with leaves and bits, there's even a chunk of plastic under one of those leaves - very well protected! But still...shudder!

Here's my stack of holiday/doc 2011 pics with a nice screen grab of Howard from Big Bang Theory. I'm telling you, when you're adding 217 pics to print off it does *not* seem as big as it ends up!!!

Well, wasn't that a nice a boring/pointless post. Can you tell I'm bored!?

Is anyone else ready for Christmas to be here already? I don't like wishing the year away but there's something about the nights drawing in that makes me yearn for twinkle lights and glitter. Sigh. Probably doesn't help with all the Christmas bits and bobs in shops and on TV already. They just showed another one of those sofa store adverts promising that you'll have your new sofa before Christmas - it's October 23rd, I should blimmin' hope it'll be with you buy Christmas! How long do they normally take to deliver!?!

I realised yesterday that I still haven't finished last years Dec. Daily!!! Eek!! Better get that done before it's time to start this years! Still need to decide how I'm going to do it. I still love how my one from 09 turned out so I might try to replicate it somehow (diff. papers and embellies obv!). I'm hoping this year I'll be up to making a bit more of the month/season. I was so ill last year and only left the house twice and that was the 23rd & 24th!

I've eyeing up Studio Calicos kit for the Dec. Daily (they've joined up with Ali Edwards) but for $79.99 I'm not sure it's the best thing for me to do! Particularly when you look how many Christmas bits and bobs I already have...*I must resist...I must resist...*

There you go, rambly photos and rambly words, wasn't that a treat! Must go find something to entertain my brain!

Can you feel the tension?

The growling at first sight has slowed down a bit but it's each cat for himself come feeding time. Thing is Pip has this habit of eating half, going out then finishing the rest off later. Yeah, not for the past couple of days!

It was so cute earlier though, Pip had his usual sniff of The Newbie's feet (not sure what that's about) but didn't growl. He did this twice so Newbie takes this as his cue that he's friends now and bounds after him to play...yeah...not the best plan buddy! Still no phone calls about him. I hate the thought of someone missing him, but I hate the idea of giving him up! Dilemma!

Here's my answer to this weeks challenge on UKS. (ignore the apparent spelling mistake. It wasn't, but it looked like it so I tried to 'correct' it and it made it worse! Stupid! It's annoying me, I may have to cover it up lol)

This one is one of my favourite photos from the holiday. Funny the things the camera captures that the eye doesn't see!

Anyhoo, challenge was -

* Use a photo other than 'standard' size (6x4) - Used 5x7 on an 8x8 page

* Use Halloween colours - well, I think so!

* Use a hardly used stamp - I was just going to use the AC Amy Tangerine's feather (tag top left) but after my new grey ink wasn't all that obvious on the kraft card I also stamped the 'oh snap!' that was in SC's September Glee Club kit.

In other news, I'm hating this auto spell check thing on my browser! I mean, it's handy for the most part but stop telling me I'm spelling things wrong when I put the U in colour and put an S instead of a Z in realise! I'm not American!! Sigh.

House Guest

So yesterday afternoon this little guy followed mum into the house, ate some of Pips food and promptly curled up on the sofa and fell asleep.

He was taken to the vets to see if he was chipped so we would know where to take him home. He isn't chipped (side note - grrr).

He then fell asleep on my lap.

Darn it, I'm in love.

He has the loudest purr I've ever heard.

We've put up posters round the area so we'll leave them up for a couple of weeks and see if we get any calls. (our theory is he's a house cat, my theory is they might be on holiday and the person who's feeding didn't notice/care he got out).

Pip's mildly tolerating him. As long as he doesn't eat his food. He seems to have set up a 5 yard exclusion zone, I think that's because it's the limit of his eyesight.

There's been a little sniffing, a lot of growling and 2 hisses. Other than that, I think we're ok. In fact, the neighbour cat Hugo seems to hate him more than Pip does.

Wonder how long he'll be here for?...

Funny old time of it

Lately I seem to be having a day on then a day off health wise. I suppose I should be grateful for the days on but I really wish the days off would vanish!

Here are a couple of layouts from my I.O.W album. Managed to dig out an old 8x8 album that I was planning on using for something else but never got around to it. It's odd doing things on a smaller scale than usual but it's fun putting the layouts together!

This first one is for this weeks challenge on UKS -

Bling - check (though it's hard to see in pic - it's on bottom left of the photo), Different shapes - check (square, circle, rectangle, heart, feather...), Journalling - check (why can I never keep to the box I pick?!) And a 'mum' theme. Technically this is a mum theme as far as I overheard a conversation at Seaview where a group of people seemed very confused as to who the little fluffy yellow ducklings mummy really was. For some reason they were of the opinion that they were baby flamingos (as they were in the flamingo aviary). Never mind the big grey fluffy baby flamingos that were all beak and legs, nope. I actually heard them wondering at what point they turn pink...bless...

This next one's about something very dear to my heart...

Banoffee pie! (the big letters are actually very glittery but they haven't come up well in the photo.) My question of the holiday - is it still called banoffee without any toffee? Is it?! There wasn't a hint of it in the slice I had at seaview but the slice I had the next day (as you can see) had more than enough to make up for it - yum!

(it wasn't until I uploaded the pics that I realised I caught a bit of the ep. of Bones I was watching - thankfully it was just Brennan and Booth and not a body otherwise I would have had to retake them!)

Anyhoo, that's enough rambling for one post. TFL!

xxx

What were you doing last week?

I was sunning myself on the Isle of Wight (can you believe this weather? I know we Brits have a bit of a weather obsession rep. - I don't usually - but seriously, the third hottest day of the year was Oct 1st. Fun!)

Anyhoo, here's some of my week (back to front of course, thank you blogger!)

Pulling in to dock at Lymington-

Slinky little lizards at Ventnor Botanical Gardens -

Quick snap of the fab view through the windshield

Cool beach huts at St Helens

Curious robin at Rylstone Gardens in Shanklin

Mum and dad fed the penguins at Seaview - I didn't yet got wet as I was in my chair and couldn't run when they got a bit carried away! Seriously, you think penguins are cute? Try feeding them! Argh!

This little dude was sunbathing while the watchmeercat was busy keeping his eye on the passing planes and butterflies (so cute!)

There was a bit of a scrap for the leftover lettuce dad threw between this chicken and a guinea fowl - it was hilarious. Chicken went to walk over to it (different piece, this story happened too quick for me to get any pics!) and out of nowhere the guinea fowl stormed in grabbed the lettuce and legged it with the chicken in hot pursuit. Probably funnier to watch than read about!

Baby flamingoes!!!

The mist made it an interesting drive home in the dark...(took this through the car window on the way)

Appldurcombe house - it's in ruins but it appears to be being restored. It's stunning though - part of me hopes they keep at least a bit of it looking ruin-y.

Dad's mission for this holiday - see a red squirrel (in the wild). Ta-dah!

On our way-

So there you go. Fun times! I could have shared about 100 pics but I think you get the general idea - great weather and beautiful things to look at!

Hope you all enjoyed the lovely weather too, thank you for stopping by!xx