Category Archives: Life

We had some good luck concerning the kitten: we took him to the vets and, lo and behold, he was microchipped!  Totally wasn’t expecting that, but glad nonetheless.  The vet phoned us say they’d gotten a number and address and would phone them and get back to us.  Super. Except… that was two and a half weeks ago.

Just as we were beginning to give up getting a hold of his owners as a lost cause we got a phone call from the vets!  They phoned yesterday morning and by 1 o’clock in the afternoon he was gone.  It was all so sudden it seems surreal – as if he wasn’t ever here.

Apparently, our lack of luck with getting a hold of the owner was due to timing problems (night shift worker) and the owner avoiding phone-calls from someone else thus missing ours, too.  The minute it went to a letter, they called the vet right away – surprised that the kitten they’d been missing for a whole month and a half had suddenly turned up!  Apparently they and their family had been out looking for the wee scamp for weeks, worried because they lived near a railway and land where foxes are known to prowl.  Given he’s such a teeny thing (six months old, would you believe!), it would have been easy for a driver not to see him or a bigger critter to get a hold of him.

Having given up on finding him themselves they realised they hadn’t sent away his microchip form.  D’oh.  Still not sure how the microchip company had him on the database – I can only assume they knew which vet had said microchip and traced the owner that way?  If anyone knows how the system works I’d welcome a possible explanation =)

The other surprise came when we found out he’d come from a good few miles away – in Larbert.  We’d not even thought to phone the vets further afield than Camelon assuming that such a teeny tiny cat wouldn’t have walked very far from home.  When he came to us, he looked a little underfed but not starving.  Given that they’d been missing him for six weeks, we’d only had him for three and he seemed to have not gotten into too bad a condition for his size we all wondered if he’d perhaps been taken from Larbert and brought to Camelon by some (possibly) well-meaning stranger who’d found him – only to run off again.

I had wanted to know what his real name was and found out inadvertently when I mentioned that, on finding him, we’d assumed he was a she.  Apparently this wasn’t the first time as originally he’d been called… Millie.  Hehe.  When the truth became apparent, Millie became Mills – a name which has a slight mischevious tilt, to my mind, and suits the wee man well – though I’ll probably always remember him as Cai =)

The place feels rather quiet without him and whilst I won’t miss him trying to eat everything (including my plants) I will miss the wee scamp being a cute addition to the family and generally adding some random to the house.

Sam, on the other hand, with probably be wholly relieved to see the back of the kitten.  Though I do think he was growing on him.  A wee tiny bit. Maybe. ;)

G’bye Mills

Miss ya, wee man.

I have fickle muses – when I do a lot of art my writing falls by the wayside and vice versa.  Thus, because of a recent spate of artyness, my blog has been somewhat neglected.  Typically, this has happened right at the time we’ve actually had quite a bit going on ;)  Given the picture-spam which would happen if I threw everything off my camera into one post, I figure I might split this over a few posts – so expect my posting drought to end in a small deluge.

The biggest change around the place has been the addition of a small, furry, meowing monster – Sam.

We got Sam from the Cats Protection shelter in Alloa.  We picked him because the minute we walked into his pen he head-bumped us and was eager to be friends!  Getting him from there was an adventure, especially since he did not like his carry case and hid the moment it came near his pen.  Despite a shy start – he hid behind the sofa for hours -  he now loves being petted, belly rubbed, chin tickled and generally pampered.  Behind the sofa is still his ‘safe’ space for when visitors are over, but the rest of his time is spent perched on top of it, or on the old pouffe, which is now covered in a layer of kitty-fluff.  He has an odd way of lying – he loves to stretch his neck out as you can see in the last photo.

Although he’s a pretty large cat he doesn’t eat much, though he’s not above mooching for anything in your hand:  grapes, bread, tomato soup… He doesn’t actually want them, no, he’s just enamoured with the idea of food which other people have, it seems.  He loves treats, too, of course, and tuna is great bribery material.

Being as we’re now official cat-people, you can probably expect many cute pictures to grace the pages of the blog ;)

Just before we got Sam, we finally finished our back bedroom.  In winter, a tile had been knocked off the roof and left a small hole.  Come the heavy spring rain we had, we noticed a leak which became a huge and very noticeable damp patch.  Once the rain had abated, and the roof was fixed, we decided we’d actually do the back room up entirely – something we’d wanted to do since we moved in.  In true changing room styles, we have before and after shots:

I’m quite proud of the results – although I’d painted before, neither Andy or I had papered.  We decided to go for thick lining paper under the paint to make sure the walls were nice and smooth.  It was a bit of a pain to work into the corners, but once we got the hang of it, it became a lot easier.  All in all, I think it took us several weeks to get it all done, though most of that was procrastination due to wanting to do it right and not being quite sure how to.  The fact it was scorching hot didn’t help either, as rollering, papering or even glossing the skirting boards became arduous in the sweltering heat.  It now has a tonne of bookshelves, a comfy couch, a lava lamp,and a reading lamp – the perfect den / study.