The central heating is not yet on, though I’m inclined to think it might be soon, but the log burner has been in good use for the last couple of weeks. Percy has discovered a long-lost-love: the beanbag fell out of favour some time ago but its strategic placement in front of the log burner has won his heart.
Long-lost-love
….though it would be fair to say that it is more definitively occupied at one end than the other. Sergeant Stripes and Percival, otherwise known as mini me and maxi me.
Wormy is still around, but currently in favour is Catnip Dynamite, a highly bitable stuffed cloth cylinder attached to a rope with a bell on the end. It is the best thing ever for dragging up and down my studio floor at high speed and then biting. The way to get the better of it is apparently to go into attack mode whilst at the same time attempting to stand one’s head. This catches it out every time.
Meanwhile the Kickeroo (bought for Sergeant Stripes by Tony who had clearly forgotten the Sergeant’s diminutive stature) has become definitely and firmly Percy’s, and he is guarding it. He attacks it with enthusiasm on a nightly basis. It looks a bit like Arthur, but that is only coincidence. Probably.
Catnip Dynamite
The Kickeroo
Percy is STARVING* and is expressing his anguish with all of the waggling his considerable ears can muster. He can keep this up for the full our between now and actual cat teatime at 5pm, his protest punctuated by a strident “MwaaaH” and finally a gentle claw in the backside.
* For the benefit of cat-lovers, I should add that no cats were in fact starved to make this drawing, that there is actually still food in Percy’s bowl, and that as soon as this sketch was finished I walked Percy to his bowl and he began to tuck in, thereby ensuring me about 20 minutes peace. Percy likes me to accompany him to his dinner bowl at regular intervals throughout the day.
“Listen to my Ears!”
Merrymakers, make merry quietly.
Revellers, revel softly.
First Footers, please enter in your slippers.
See in the New Year for me please, and bid it wait until breakfast, when I shall be ready to greet it.
Do not disturb till 2016
My exhibition is closed Mondays and Tuesdays and I have a few hours off! I may only have been open for two days and an evening so far but this exhibition has been some weeks in the preparation, and the sudden cessation of activities has left me a little unsure what to do with myself. So I drew some cats.
Meanwhile Percy is guarding the last Swimming Calendar by washing his bottom on it (it’s ok, it’s wrapped in cellophane and underneath a cloth). Freyja is observing in case Percy needs to take a break.
Yes, you did read that correctly, I have a single swimming calendar left (apart from a handful out in galleries). I am feeling rather pleased, thank you, all you swimming enthusiasts 🙂 . The cats are slightly unimpressed that it was more popular than pictures of themselves. If you still want one I shall be gathering orders and putting in another order at the printers in early November but I shall only be ordering as many as people have paid for at that point, there will be no spares, so do please let me know soon.
The Guarding is in Progress
For the last 3 nights Percy has eschewed the bed. Perhaps he feels that it is not soft and yielding enough to a cat of his considerable size. Instead he has taken to sleeping on the sofa that lives in the bedroom, on top of a pile of at least seven folded towels. He reminds me of the story of the Princess and the Pea. Unlike the princess, however, Percy is quite comfortable; Percy would be comfortable sleeping on the pea alone, in fact Percy could sleep in an entire field of peas.
The Princess and the Pea
Waiting for Kitten Food:
Outside is a beautiful day, but Percy is lurking in my studio in the hope that the bowl of kitten food that I have hidden will magically re-appear. Freyja is lurking in my studio in the hope that Percy will do something interesting. it is a sort of three-way stand-off. We shall see who breaks first.
Waiting for Kitten Food
Yesterday I had a visitor at 2am, at the open door of my bedroom no less. Percy went out to have words. It was Percy’s words which woke me up, but this is the way he tells it, and considering there was a chunk of Percy’s fur outside my door this morning, his tale is probably accurate.
It was Bad Frank. Frank is quite fat, and very, very bad. He lives two doors down: a fact which Percy has to remind Bad Frank of on a regular basis.
Percy and Bad Frank
Do not think that this greenhouse vigil is because it is warm and sunny in here, nor even because of the nice blanket one finds discarded by a careless owner. It is because of the frail and vulnerable Aubergine seedlings that one has discovered yet again stand out here without protection. Two nights ago one’s human forgot them entirely and left them out all night and they almost died, so one has to ask, if one’s human forgets the Aubergines, what else might be forgotten?
Guarding the Aubergines against the carelessness of one’s human
