My Cat's Whiskers

I just have to share the news - which the cat owners among you probably know anyway - about cat bowls.  My recent purchase of a set of whisker friendly bowls have so far been a great success. It would seem that 21st century cats don't like their whiskers to be knocked by the side of a food bowl. These new bowls are shallow and wide and my girls love them. 

I've had cats all my life, from when I was a toddler to the present day with only the sad times between getting over a loss and heading for the rescue centre again. All my cats have come from a cat rescue centre.  I've never had any trouble with their feeding habits or, indeed, sociability... until Betty and Sophie arrived. 

I blogged about them in 2021. The rescue people assured us they were sisters and loved each other... wrong! To this day they will have a hissy fit if they pass too close and they have divided up the house. Betty has the conservatory, Sophie the living room. The dining area and kitchen are tolerated as shared feeding stations to be accessed when the area is vacant. They will never eat together!

Sophie on her striped chair in the living room and Betty in the conservatory.

Betty is rather overweight and tends to plod around. I do try to restrict her diet but she just eats her sister's food whenever I put her on rations. She will now allow me to stroke her when she's hungry. Any other time I'm likely to lose a hand, or at least a pint of blood. She is adorable in that 'only a mother would love her' kind of way.

Sophie will only eat dried food and is quite petite. She has benefitted the most from these new shallow bowls and it's a joy to watch her eating. She is much more loveable than Betty. I can tickle her ear and tummy with no fear of reprisals but if I try to pick her up then blood will be spilt for sure. The vet tells me that she has a heart murmur and possibly was born with it but I'm not going to subject her to tests, not while she is still performing zoomies up and down the stairs and in and out of rooms at record-breaking speed. 

With apologies to non-cat-lovers here are two more photographs of the girls:

Betty lounging in the conservatory

Sophie on a suitcase under the spare bed

Spring and new traditions

It's almost Spring... isn't it? So far this year the weather here has been grey and wet. At least we've had no floods... yet. Parts of Leicestershire have been under water for several weeks now. Is it climate change or is it the good old British weather? I don't know but I know that I need something to cheer me up, so I went into the garden early this morning and found a bed full of Hellebores. I took a photo of one. 

I love the way the petals show off such dainty spots, an artist's challenge if ever I saw one. 

So what has Spring got to offer? Lighter evenings and warmer days for a start. Mr A has not been able to work in his much loved garden lately and I've not been able to sit on my swing seat and watch him work! We used to have in depth discussions each Spring about which vegetables to grow for that year's harvest but not any more. Vegetables need such a lot of attention and it's time for a new tradition. We will discuss which flowers to order, plug plants to take the risk out of the seed sowing, and we will fill those beds with a mass of colour. There's too much grey out there.

Spring means that everything is beginning again, birds building nests, flowers preparing to dazzle but it's not all about looking forward. All that new life is tinged with sadness. It's so hard to accept that this Spring my sister won't be planting out her pots. My sister, who died last June, lived in an upstairs flat in Lyme Regis. She had no garden but the path beside her front door was packed each summer with all manner of flowers tumbling over the sides of pots. She spent hours each evening dead-heading and watering... until two years ago when her health deteriorated. I have a rose bush in our garden that she bought me for one of my big birthdays. It has the most amazing flowers every year and I have always sent her a photo of the first full bloom. This year I hope you will indulge me because I would like to post this year's rose photo on my blog. Like I said, it's time for new traditions.