Kittens!

… as we often do, this’ll keep you happy all day.

I’m off to do interesting stuff like looking at bedding plants and popping out for shampoo and catfood and some lozenges for my vile sore throat as I seem to have picked up some horrible opportunistic warm weather virus. I feel like shit, my bones hurt and staring at the screen isn’t helping. Ibuprofen and throat sweets are required.

No doubt some astonishing news event will occur the moment I turn my back on the pc; it always does, but blogging-induced agoraphobia is an ever present danger so no, I must harden my heart and go out.

Enjoy the kittens.

Oy. This is one cat only a mother could love.

Both Martin and I are daft about cats and we have three, but I’m not sure even we would go this far:

Cats’ 2,500-mile cab ride

A New York couple hired a yellow cab for a 2,500 mile ride to their new home – for the sake of their cats.

Pensioners Betty and Bob Matas feared their two cats would freeze to death in a cargo hold if they took a plane to Sedona, Arizona.

Cabbie Douglas Guldeniz agreed to turn off the meter and charge a flat rate of £1,500, plus expenses, for the journey.

“I feel a little sad, but I’m going to a beautiful place,” Betty, 71, told the New York Daily News as the couple set off on the 38-hour drive.

Mr Guldeniz seemed happy to pick up the Matases for what he said was probably one of the longest-ever cab rides.

“I have good passengers, nice passengers,” he told the newspaper. “I’m a little bit excited.”

The cats will be in separate carpet-lined cages fitted with litter boxes in the back of the taxi, said Bob, 72, adding they would likely rip each other to shreds if they had to share a cage.

“They hate each other,” he told the Daily News.
More…

Yup, they’re like that. I’ve taken cats in cars on trains and on the front of my bike but the worst of all was taking my old cat, Maxwell, the one who could open the fridge and get the bacon despite the child lock, the one who deleiberately peed down the air vent of my hard drive, on the bus to the vets. He got the cat box open and ran round the lower deck yowling like a banshee till one of the other passengers grabbed him.

Never again.

[BTW, isn’t that a fantastic picture? It’s an Original Bigcathead by Bruce Andrew Mckay – (a.k.a. BAM), whose paintings and limited edition prints are published though Washington Green F.A.P.C. and available through W.G. partnership and select galleries worldwide. See here for details and webgallery, should anyone want to know what I’d like for my birthday…]

Cat adopts mouse

A mother cat in China has adopted a mouse, letting it join her family of newborns.

The cat was brought into a children’s clothing store to catch mice, reports Yanzhao City News.

Ten days ago, the cat gave birth to five kittens.

“She stays in the box all day long, taking care of her babies, but three days ago, my colleague found a small mouse playing with the kittens,” said a spokesperson for the store in Shijiazhuang city.

“The cat was protecting the mouse, and would become alert if anyone came too close.”

The store staff threw the mouse out once, but immediately the cat ran to bring it back and let it play with her kittens.

Experts say it’s quite exceptional, but that maybe the cat became lenient after becoming a mother.

As I type this our own elder statesman cat Monty (aged somewhere between 11 and 15, we’re not sure exactly) is playing like a silly kitten with the little toy shark we got him at IKEA yesterday. Every now and then he stops, collects himself, remembers his age and dignity and looks guiltily embarassed – then it’s back to biting that pesky sharky again.

I love cats, the daft things.

It’s the dog’s expression I like, talk about a guilty thing surprised.