Animals part two

We got as far as Pongo, Inky and Celie. Although we didn't have Pongo long, he made a lasting impression on me. A fabulous cat indeed. Although they all were in their own ways...

Inky lived for a number of years, happily and quietly. she was a gentle cat and kept a low profile among all the rowdy kittens! But she had a lovely nature and liked nothing better than to curl up beside me or Marion and purr in the evenings.  Celie lived for  I reckon 15 years, although we had a debate about this today. she was so full of character - a naughty kitten, a very vocal adult: she would shout at spiders and butterflies, her extremely loud miaows warning the creatures that she was coming: never a big hunter! She wasn't a knee sitter as an adult, until one day I came in to find her on Marion's knee - highly honoured she was. Celie never sat on anyone else's knee. She was Marion's cat.  she died a few years back after suffering a stoke. Best for Celie though as she didn't like being poorly.

The next kitten to come into my life was Skippy. Christened May, because she was rescued on May day, I changed her name to Skippy. she was found by a decorator in the Raffles area of Carlisle (those of you who are local will know the area by reputation!). He brought her to our charity after lifting her dripping wet from a toilet, where someone was trying to flush her away. she was 5 weeks old - too young to be away from her mother really and already she'd had three or more 'homes'. A beautiful tabby, how could I resist? anyway, she needed someone who could give her a lot of care at such a young age. At night, she would sleep in the crook of my arm, sometimes sucking on my am, often doing that little paddling dance that kittens do to stimulate their mother's milk. I had many a morning with stiff, aching arms! Skippy was almost 20 when she died - in fact she was the last of the cats to go. But she was so definitely my cat :) I think those early years acting as her mum made a very strong bond between  us. she would follow me everywhere, always by my side. she would sit on my keyboard when I was using the PC; on newspapers and books if I was reading; on my shoulder if I was cooking and she continued to sleep on top of me bed until she died, moving around me as I turned in the night.  I still miss Skippy.  Here she is as a kitten and as an old lady.....  she was always small. Stunted I guess from her poor start.

After Pongo died, we had Inky, Celie and now Skippy. We were still working hard raising funds for the charity and still taking in strays. For a short time, we fostered a huge, and I mean HUG cat called Baggy Bertha. Boy, was she demanding! she'd been overfed for years and was just enormous, so when we tried to feed her properly, she shouted all the time for food. We had to wash her back end, as she was too fat to clean herself, as cats do by folding themselves in half. but she needed more TLC than we had time to give her and eventually found a home where she was the only cat and with owners sensible enough to feed her properly and get her weight down.

Here's Baggy.....

And by the way, she couldn't fit through the cat flap... poor Baggy.

Next time, how we got Jimmy Jaw and Cozzie and some others too :)

Unless this is very boring, then you must tell me so (please!)

Animals

Someone asked me why I was doing the big cycle ride for an animal charity. Well , I'd like to tell you why; a few reasons anyway. Before I go on, I would also like to say that I support many other charities too, like Alzheimers, Age Concern, MacMillan, etc, etc. But I decided to do the ride for the Mayhew Animal Home, a smaller charity who don't get nearly as much in donations as all those bigger ones I mentioned.

My love of animals started when I was very small. I was born on a farm and loved to be among the animals. I'd help collect eggs, watch calves being born; and adored helping at milking time! Dogs were always considered to be working animals and not pets; and cats were feral creatures that were tolerated to keep the mice down. they'd come into the milking sheds to get a small share of the warm milk as a reward.

We left the farm when I was 4 or 5 to move to a council estate in Peterlee. But my Uncle and his family stayed on at the farm and we used to visit often. that was when I started to notice cats. My cousin begged to keep two of the kittens that one of the farm cats had just delivered as pets, and finally was allowed to do so. My first introduction to the thought that cats could be pets...
But we're talking a long time ago and the old farm ways were still very much the standard way of life. Those two female cats were never neutered, and went on to produce litter after litter of kittens for years. I loved my Uncle, but even as a child I knew that the way he dealt with those kittens was very, very wrong. I would watch them being born, the most joyful of sights; then I'd watch as my Uncle would appear with a bucket of water and take the kittens to some unspecified location, never to be seen again. I can't describe the horror and the heartbreak that I felt, knowing that those little bundles of fur had been drowned in that bucket...

Fluffy and Sammy (the two cats my cousin took in) didn't live long. They were worn out with constant births and stolen babies. Before Sammy dies, I begged to keep one of the kittens. Dad said I could as long as there was a tortoiseshell one (there never had been in all the years). I watched eagerly as they were born one be one.. And sure enough, there was my little tortie kitten. Overjoyed, I rushed to tell my disappointed Dad! But he'd promised, so that was that. Or so I thought.

Unfortunately, Susie's arrival (that's what I called her) coincided with the onset of Mum's Alzheimers when I was 11 and it transpired that I couldn't keep her. she went back to live on the farm, then a few weeks later I was told she'd been run over by a car (coveniently...) I broke my heart.
Here's susie :)

My early experiences with dogs made me terrified of them for a long time. On the farm there were collies - working ones, not pets. when I was about 5ish, I was cornered by one of the dogs; a good worker but not good with people. She back me into a corner, put her paws up on my shoulders, bared her teeth and started snarling and growling in a threatening way. I was terrified!  But instinctively, I did the right thing and stood still, looked away from her eyes and tried to stop myself from screaming until she decided I wasn't a threat and left me. It was to be a long time until I could go near a dog again.

So, when I moved to Cumbria, I got involved with a local animal charity; just a small local one that took in feral and stray cats, neutered them and found them homes. Important to me, because of the history of un-neutered cats on the farm. I had just started sharing a house with my friend Marion, who is definitely an animal lover and we both did stuff for the charity. Trouble was, we ended up with lots of the waifs and strays.
Firstly, there was Pongo. A gentle giant of a Tom cat, who had come in , been neutered and was too old to find a home. Of course he came to us. And what a joy he was - spent his remaining years lying in the sun purring, in front of the fire purring or on his bed purring. When he got ill, he stoically got on with it. On his last night, he gobbled up some custard (hi favourite). when we got in from work, we found him in the living room, where he'd died peacefully.

while Pongo was with us, we acquired Inky - another older cat that was finding it difficult to get a home. She was a gently soul, who would wait for me every evening after work to welcome me home. We also got Celie - a ginger kitten, who we found with her litter mates on a pane of glass in Borrowdale. Celie turned out to be Marion's cat - they choose their own people!

The menagerie was growing!

Tomorrow I will blog about the other cats and dogs that I've encountered. And will then explain why it's so important to look after the charities that look after the animals...

Happiness

Hello :)

I wanted to follow up the last blog post I did on the train yesterday, while tired and travel weary...
Reading it back today, it sounds a bit moany - but I didn't intend it to come across like that. It was just an observation of how some women use their good looks to their advantage - and I guess I don't blame them; they just live in a different world to me!

The other thing I noticed about that post is the way it's formatted - typing on the ipad is useless. Even though I used the correct spacing, left gapes between paragraphs, etc. it still came out as one solid bit of test. Flippin ipads. Not as good as they're cracked up to be (except when David Hockney is drawing on them).  His exhibition was fabulous!

Before I went on the trip as talked about yesterday, I was at a Jazz singing workshop with Jilly Jarman. What a wonderful teacher she is and she really gets the best out of people who aren't particularly singers.  I can't believe she actually got me to sing on my own in a room full of people.. without any embarrassment.  Amazing.
I will be going back to her next workshop and any more she might be doing.

Today's walk around the woods was amazing too. Spring is finally here at last. Daffodils are out, birds are nesting, frogspawn is well under way. and thank heaven the clocks will change this weekend and the nights will be lighter. Enabling me to go walking or cycling in comfort after work. I've just ordered a bike rack for the car, though, so I can take the bike part way to work, park up an cycle the rest. I would cycle it all, but there's a particularly dangerous stretch of A66, where the road turns into a windy dual carriageway, on which the cars shave the edge of the road so closely that they couldn't possibly see cyclists round the bends.
So my plan is to take the bike on the car to Cockermouth and then cycle the 10-12 miles to work from there and back to the car after work. 20 miles a day should be a good start to building up to the 100km Nightrider event.

Better say goodnight now though as I've had a few glasses of red - not too many as the typing is still readable!

sleep well my friends x

does how we look make us who we are?

daft question you may reasonably think. But whe you sit on a train for long periods, observation and reflection pass the time very well. I`ve had a busy and tiring couple of days. Been darn sarf... on business. The business side of the trip was good and I achieved more than i`d intended. I even got into London just in time to see the david hockney exhibition, which was fantastic. Then I had to rush to Victoria and get another train to Croydon - an adventure in itself trying to find the hotel in the dark using the navigator on my phone! Today, travel was a bit esier as I hired a car to get around from Surrey, to Essex to Suffolk. Nice Mercedes... But then business over, I dropped off te car and it was back to trains. Which is the bit that got me thinking. On the platform at Ipswich was an extremely attractive woman. Beautful, really; not young, maybe 40, but extremely classy and elegant. She stood quite near me waiting for the train, pulling a bag similar to mine. It was obvious that she was receiving admiring looks from most of the men on the platform, and old cynic that I am, she seemed to be playing up to that us a bit. Maybe I am too harsh, but the way she stood, the flicking back of her long, blonde hair, etc, did sugget that she was all too aware of the attention. My thoughts were kind of confirmed when the train pulled in and severl men rushed forward to lift her bag up the steps and into the carriage. Very chivalrous, of course, but my bag being the same size, seemed to go un-noticed as I humped it up the steps and into the luggage rack.... Now this lady is obviously used to being treated in such a way and said her thankyous graciously enough. But I do wonder whether she will ever know what it`s like to be invisible. She won`t, just as I will never know what it`s like to be beautiful. So I reckon our looks have a huge impact on who we are. She had (or appeared to have) oodles of confidence, whereas I have very little - in the looks dept anyway! Plain, unattractive people like me have to become independent. I`ve known other beautiful women who find it hard to be i ndependent, but rely on the attention they get from men to get them through life... I prefer being independent of course, but a little bit of attention woldn`t do any harm now and again!! Anyway, I like to think that those of us that aren`t pin-ups are beautiful on the inside :) Just takes a bit of exploring to find that beauty.... night night from a crowded blinking train. xxxx sweet dreams all xx

The joy of lambs

Have you ever sat by a field of new-born lambs and just watched them? If you have, then you will know what I am talkin about when I sy that it`s the most joyful thing... my drive to work nowadays is much more enjoyable as its light again. Plus I pass loads of fields full of lambs. And I defy anyone to not smile at the antics of a little bunch of lambs exploring their environment. If you are having a bad day my recommendation is to go for a walk in the country and lean on a fence looking into a fielld of sheep. Wait and watch and you will go home feeling joyful. I guarantee it! on my walk this afternoon I had to stop and watch. they gather together first and then venture further from their mothers as they get just a bit braver. spotting a heap of soil at the far end of the field, they gambolled towards it, the naughtiest leading the way. discovering that they could jump up on this pile and then jump down again, made them so full of excitement that they were almost frantic in their play! jumping on top of each other,sliding down the heap, running back up again - so much fun! finally, exhausted, they all collapsed in a lambly heap on top of the soil pile And slept until their weary mothers started bleating, wondering where their new offspring had got to. waking slowly, the lambs. Decided to have one more quick game of jumping up and down, before skipping joyfully back to their mums across the field for dinner. So gorgeous. those little animals never fail to make me feel full of the joys of spring - along with the birdsong that's everywhere at the minute. In castlehead wood, the woodpeckers are going full pelt. amazingly fast pecking on the trees. I stood and watched one little woodpecker, who actually carried on pecking even though I was there... I'm so lucky to live in a place where I have access to all these wonders. Especially at this time of year, before all the tourists get here and make all that artificial noise. I love it. And I love those lambs...

Quick blog

This is a very quick log post to test my typing skill on my ipad. just getting ussed to using his new gadget... so if my typing is rubbish it is hopefully because of the ipad keyboard and not my spelling! Had an interesting weekend. a lovely meditation day on sturday at the Manchester Buddhist Centre. A lovely building, with a peaceful atmosphere. Fely at home right away; although nnot quite as fab as Taraloka... The bonus was that I found a Triratna Buddhist group who meet in Cumbria - at long last a local group! Plus, more exciting news today. I am going to see the Dalai Lama in June. Can`t wait to hear him speaking. Been doing a few miles onthe bike in prepaation for the humungous cycle in June. Got to start building up the distance... When the clocks change I aim to go out after work. The weather was so lovely yesterday - at the yop of Walla crag it was red hot! Wonderful :) Goodnight all xx

Sponsorship

At the risk of boring you all to death before I even get out on my bike, I'm going to mention yet again that I am trying to raise money for two great causes this summer.

In a moment of madness I entered the Nightrider cycle around London on June 9th. It takes place through the night and goes from alexandra Palace right through the City centre to Crystal Palace and back to Ally PAlly via another route. 100 km in all. So far I haven't done as much training as I should have done, mainly because it's still dark every evening when I get in from work. Once the clocks change, I intend going out every evening and weekends. Building up to tackle 100km, which is about 62 miles. So far I've only done 20 mile journeys, so I have a way to go! Think I may need some of those padded cycling shorts....
Anyway, I am doing the cycle rid to raise money for the Mayhew Animal Home in London. I've had many rescued animals over the years and without these lovely places, lots of dogs, cats, rabbits, etc would suffer a lot more and  may never find loving homes to live out their lives in comfort.


So, not content with cycling myself to death, I have also signed up for the Yorkshire 3 peaks challenge, which is a 26 mile walk over three peaks. this time I am raising money for Macmillan cancer care. IT's to celebrate Vikki being free of breast cancer for 15 years. And also as a tribute to my good friend David Tee (that's my personal other reason).




Of course, you may choose to sponsor me in neither event and that's completely your choice. I hate being hassled for money every week for charity races, etc.


But if you do want to pick one of those causes, I will really appreciate it.


And before you start thinking how altruistic I am, my ulterior motive is to lose some weight! I've been guzzling too much of late and looked in the mirror a while ago to discover a tubby person staring back at me....
Who is she? 
I'm not keen on her, so she's getting banished when I get this training going :)


There are links to the two Justgiving pages on the banner at the left of this page - so feel free to click and donate.


Thankyou :):)






and thanks to Wendy for telling me how to add the Justgiving widgets to my blog!