December 2006

Visitors

Linda's sister Mary came to stay for a few days, which is always quite cool, as it's somebody else who I can persuede that I haven't been fed. Also Linda's cousin Becky and Laurence came for a day too. They all keep talking about digging up the family history but us moggies have yet to see any juicy bones turn up!

If it's Jools Holland it's Christmas!

Now I know that Christmas must be coming, because the Staff and Paula & Ian have made their annual trek into Brighton to see Jools Holland. They obviously enjoy it, but being deaf, it means bugger all to me!

Inspector Tom (that's me, by the way) has pawed, sniffed and thoroughly investigated all the presents under that green plastic tree, but there's none with my name on - nor for any of my fellow cats for that matter. I guess they must have a nice big juicy salmon hidden away in the fridge for us.

Tansy and Katy

Both Tansy (appetite loss) and Katy (sore gums) are still unwell - but being treated by the nice vets at Acorn. Now Katy - who's a greedy cow and shares nothing - had caught a bird before dawn and actually presented it to Tansy. How sweet! So instead of The Staff listening to the dawn chorus that morning, they heard Tansy chewing the head off a dead sparrow! It doesn't get any better than that - does it?

November 2006

Concert

Brian Wilson is this month's performer. Although the staff managed to see him twice last year, they went to see him again in London. Brian and his band performed the whole of one of my favourite Beach Boys albums - Pet Sounds!

Poorly Puss Cats

My elderly mate Tansy has been off her food lately, and getting quite thin. However, a couple of days after a vitamin and steriod injection, she started eating the staff out of house and home. Katy, however, is quite poorly with a nasty gum infection that is quite painful when she eats. Consequently, she's been off her food and losing weight too. She's being treated, but it might take some time.

October 2006

Concert

It seems like the Moody Blues were pleased to have the Staff and their friends Paula and Ian attend their concert in Brighton. Linda has been a fan of the band for years, - so guess what we cats have had to listen to on the stereo over the past few days? They've also been to see John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and Stan Webb & Chicken Shack this month.

Getting About

Geoff spends days working at home (where he can feed me all day) and days when he's out (when he can't), so I guess he's still freelancing. This month he took the Eurostar and spent a few days in Brussels, and also flew to Belfast for a day. This is all very well, as long as someone remembers to leave my lunch out.

September 2006

On yer bikes

For her birthday in August, Geoff bought Linda a bicycle. They now spend an hour or so on weekend mornings terrorising anything which gets in their way. Linda has never ridden a bike with gears before, so she practiced on the roads in the local cemetery. Good job that most of the inhabitants were dead already!

Weddings

The Staff have been to two weddings this month. The first was Geoff's friend Krista who married Mike in Egham, and the second was Geoff's cousin Melissa who married Ade in Grimsby. Us cats offer everyone our congratulations. Now, where's my supper?

Family History

Before they went to Grimsby, the staff bundled us into a cattery and stopped off in Norwich for a few days. They went to rummage through the Norfolk Records Office, and tramp through church graveyards. No, they didn't take their bikes, but Geoff said that they had some success in unearthing more relatives. I hope he didn't mean that they were digging them up!

August 2006

We've lost DD

Sadly my little black kitty chum DD didn't come back from the vets this afternoon. Her tumour had consumed virtually all her fat and muscle, and there was nothing left of her. She stopped eating and drinking, which is us animals way of saying that we have had enough.

She was not always a well puss - having cystitis for most of her life, and then the cancer. We'll all miss her funny little ways.

Bye bye DD - you were a good mate to us all.

Football

If you are a regular reader to this column, you'll know that the Staff follow a football team called The Seagulls. Well, it looks like the matches have started again, cos they've been leaving home singing "Sussex By The Sea". Odd behaviour.

July 2006

DD isn't very well.

My little black kitty friend DD isn't too clever right now. She has lost so much weight over the past few months. The Vet has diagnosed a nasty inoperable lump in her bowel, which appears to be growing quickly. We're not sure how long she'll be with us - but we'll all keep her comfy.

The Lunatics Are On The Grass...

The staff travelled to Hyde Park to see Roger Waters play The Dark Side of the Moon - an album that us cats are more than familiar with. Linda was overjoyed that Nick Mason played drums, because it means that they've now seen the whole of Pink Floyd playing live in 2006 - although not all at the same time!

So, as well as seeing two halves of Pink Floyd (they saw David Gilmour and Richard Wright in March, and now Roger Waters and Nick Mason) they've also seen two Pink Floyd tribute bands too - all in six months.

The weather was really hot that weekend, and here they are sitting on the grass, wearing silly hats and cooling off with a glass of wine.

Holidays

The staff took a week off work for a holiday, - but they didn't stuff us cats in a cattery as they didn't go away. Cool. Instead, they asked Linda's sister Mary to come to stay, and they all went off for days out here and there. Their trips included such places as Sheffield Park Gardens, the Bluebell Railway, Bletchley Park (home of the codebreakers), Bluewater, Arundel Castle, Nymans Gardens and Portsmouth's Historic Dockyards.

June 2006

Summer!

Now the warmer weather has finally arrived (I keep complaining, but nothing gets done), my favourite sleeping place is at the bottom of the garden on the swing hammock thing. The staff bought some new cushions for it recently- "Great" I thought - but they put them away in the shed at night. Oh well.
I do love spending my nights snoozingin the garden, - but I wish those young fox cubs would keep the noise down a bit.

What's with this World Cup thing?

Not only is this World Cup business disrupting the TV schedules, more importantly it's disrupting our feeding schedules! The staff seem to be doing nothing these days, apart from sitting in front of the TV shouting "Oh ref, come on!" and "What a dirty ba*tard". I won't even tell you what Geoff shouts.

May 2006

Poor Old Tansy

Geoff took Tansy to the vet because he thought her breath smelled like it had come directly from Satan's bottom. (It wasn't that bad. Now, if he wants a real stink...)

Not only did the vet diagnose gingivitis, but he also found she had a heart murmur, and an overactive thyroid too! The vet said that in human terms, she was a 90 year old and still doing well. So, if she's ninety, then that makes me, er, ninety also! Tansy and me aren't old, - we're just distinguished.

A Human Kitten!!

Linda's niece Louise and her husband Greg had another human kitten this month. He's called Edward, and is a brother for Oliver. As you can imagine, great-aunt Linda is thrilled to bits. Well done everybody.

April 2006

Off to Scotland

The first I knew of it was when we were all bundled into our cat baskets and whisked off to the cattery, and we heard our staff telling the cattery staff that they were off to someplace called Scotland for a few days with Paula and Ian. Why can't we come too?

They saw the Royal Yacht Britannia (which seems like a good place for a handsome tomcat to live) as well as Crail airfield, where Paula's parents met during the war, and Linda's Mum was stationed after the war. They all stayed about three miles away from where the bird flu was discovered. Nice.

I've seen pictures of a strange Scottish animal that looks very odd and sounds quite terrifying. It has a number of legs poking out in all directions, a fuzzy belly, and can often be seen making a dreadful noise as it attacks scotsmen. I think it's called a bagpipe. (My picture shows a brave scotsman fighting with this frightening beast). Perhaps its just as well us cats didn't go to Scotland too!

The War of the Worlds

My staff and Paula and Ian went to yet another concert. It was Jeff Wayne's musical version of The War of the Worlds. The show programme contains pictures of the Martians fighting machines (right), which look as though they could well be a distant relative of the terrifying Bagpipe. (Compare the pictures and decide for yourself!). The people near Horsell Common took a bashing, you'd be mental to live near there!

The show had a band, an orchestra, singers, an on-going movie above the musicians, and even a huge Martian Fighting Bagpipe descended from the heights down to the stage.

More concerts

Both staff took the night off to go to see Chris Rea in Brighton. Linda enjoyed all the old hits that Chris played, while Geoff also enjoyed all the bluesy stuff.

March 2006

Biggles has passed away.

Sadly I have to report that my little blind bunny friend Biggles has passed away. He had to be taken to the specialist eye vet, who diagnosed painful glaucoma and recommended that his left eye be removed. In the week that followed the operation, he never started eating properly and slowly deteriorated, despite being well looked after by the Acorn vets.

We'll miss him charging through the house, running into us cats and putting himself under Linda and Geoff's feet in the kitchen. He was a character!

Jammy Git sees David Gilmour...

My sad anorak feeder has won another competiton. He won two tickets, and took Linda to a theatre in London to see the voice and guitar of Pink Floyd, David Gilmour, all thanks to BBC 6 Music. Us cats are quite familiar with the music of Pink Floyd, because - as I said in January - we do tend to hear it quite a bit. You can read about it on BBC Radio 2.

... and gets interviewed about it.

The BBC 6 Music people tried calling Geoff afterwards on his mobile phone to ask for his comments on the concert, but as they were both going home on a train, the tunnels scuppered that plan! Har har! However, they called back a couple of days later and BBC6 Music's Clare McDonnell interviewed him live on the air. If they had recorded it first, they'd probably have thought twice about using it. Anyway you can listen to Geoff on the radio here.

More Concerts

The staff also went to see Jethro Tull in Brighton and The Hollies in Crawley during March. I'm sure that this music is good, - but how's a deaf tomcat supposed to know?

February 2006

The Planet Rock Anorak

Geoff won a Planet Rock anorak (it's a digital radio station) in a phone-in competition. He got to speak to his long-time DJ hero Nicky Horne live on the air, and won the anorak by answering the question "In the late 60's, which rock artists wrote a jingle for a yogurt advert?".
Geoff knew it was... Mike Hugg and Manfred Mann

Now, the winner of the competition has to set the question for the following day, so the station phoned Geoff back the next day, so that he could pose his question to the rest of Planet Rock on the air! [Ed: You can listen to it here.]

Geoff's question was "In their 5 night residency at London's Earls Court arena in May 1975, Led Zeppelin used something that had never been used in a rock concert before. What was it?". And the answer is... Large back-projection Video screens.

Now, I know that Linda has often thought of Geoff as being a bit of an anorak, whereas I think he's a [Ed: censored, censored, censored, and a censored]

January 2006

I thought it was Pink Floyd

Geoff & Linda went with Paula & Ian to see a band called Think Floyd, which they all enjoyed - but I always thought that the band was called Pink Floyd. Oh well. Geoff has decided to get out their old CDs and play them loudly, interrupting all the other cat's naps - but not mine - I guess that's one advantage of me going deaf!