Showing posts with label Motorbikes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Motorbikes. Show all posts

Wednesday, 26 August 2009

Cats, Birthdays and Oil Drums

It has been so long since my last blog I am not sure where to begin. There are new family members to say hello to and sadly to say goodbye to as well.

Let’s start by getting the tears out of the way and say goodbye to our oldest cat, Rocket. Her start to life was not unusual but as you will read, she came from a chap in my circle called Dick who is rather better known now as the chap who built the custom bike for Ewan Macgregor on BBC2 programme Long Way Round. My partner (W) was heartbroken when his cat Star was killed outside our house, more so because the driver did not stop and he vowed no more cats as this was the third cat killed in a short period of time. Dick said he had kittens and W (after being badgered quite hard) said he would only have one if it was pure black. Six weeks later a large motorbike roared up at home being ridden by Dick’s friend M. As a biker, M was adorned in his best Bell staffs and then, from in his pocket, he pulled a six week old, pure black kitten. She became Rocket, and W decided to give her a fighting chance by putting her in the dog basket with our Dobermans. As Rocket grew she decided she was, in fact, a very small but agile Doberman. This included rounding up the dogs, eating their dinner whilst they watched and refusing to use a cat flap but will “bark” at the door (well cat whine really). Out of all our animals Rocket had always been “Top Dog”, and as such every animal irrelevant of species, answered to her. She had odd habits such as falling into oil drums and bringing home presents such as a rabbit on Christmas day to share with her pals. She also preferred to sleep in boxes and on a fleece, oh and never, ever, wake her up! Rocket would use a human arm like an Etch – A – Sketch if woken wrongly. Rocket put up with children of all ages and was really friendly most of the time and only became grumpy as she became a pensioner of the cat world. She taught cat skills to all the other kittens we brought home and had a very special relationship with W, quite often they would spend evenings curled up together which was lovely to see. Rocket was a unique kitty who was loved by all that knew her and even now as I type this I have tears in my eyes for the friend I miss most dearly. RIP Rocket.

As I had a birthday over the summer I thought a day out at the pub was in order as, to be honest, the house was a mess and neither of us could be arsed to do anything about it at the time. My sister S and family popped over to the house before the pub so, after tripping over all the stuff in the yard I had not cleaned, up her youngest 2 girls, J and K, gave me a box with the smallest, cutest kitten you have ever seen. Her ears were and still are way too big for her head and we are hoping she will grow into them one day and she is white and silver tabby so in honour of Rocket we called her Comet. Welcome to the family.

More later and keep smiling people

Angie

Wednesday, 28 January 2009

Green Living & Death by Chocolate and Cider


Ok I am sat in work bored to tears, can’t surf the web as we had an email reminding us we are being monitored, can’t do any work as I have done it all, can’t chat as my colleague is on leave this afternoon, no one else likes me enough to make conversation (their loss) and to top it all no bingo tonight. How on earth am I supposed to manage without my weekly Scary Mary dose?


The good news is the major project W has been working on has finally left the house. The bad news is W has just ate my leftovers from the Indian takeaway which I was really looking forward to tonight. It is bad enough I have to hide chocolate like an alcoholic hides their booze but W calls it “Mental Torture” knowing sweeties are in the house but he cannot find them. Well honey, men have died for a lot less and quite frankly devour them during the wrong week in the month and I guarantee I will walk out of court cleared of your demise… All of this could have been avoided if he had remembered to take the fish out of the freezer when asked yesterday but he forgot and by the time I got home from work to make the Fish Pie I had been planning all day, the sodding lot was still solid. Tonight I have the wonderful task of gutting and filleting a dozen herring and a conger eel. Yeah my life is just one long exciting road. I don’t mind but it is not like I can have a drink while I am completing the gutting as the knife is way too sharp to risk it!


I won 4 tickets for a Motorbike Show this weekend and then found out no one wants them as everyone is busy and I ask myself “Do I smell” then remember most of my biking buddies are single parents and babysitting at short notice is not an easy thing to arrange.


W and I are what my sister refers to as “Hippy’s” personally I think it more of a green lifestyle for instance we so not have mains water and collect and recycle rainwater instead. We have not had a bin collection in over 10 years because we:
A. Don’t have a bin collection
B. Recycle everything
We have a log burning stove rather than any other heating in which we burn all the fallen logs we find lying around and we make our own Cider from apples we collect from trees that line our local roads although the next time W says to me first thing on a Sunday morning “Come on babe, get dressed we are going out” I will know better than to expect a visit to a boot sale or a fry up at the greasy spoon as last time he took me to the A127 and had me picking apples from the trees on the central reservation! Although I have to admit the Cider was superb and we will be doing the same next year. I buy all my vegetables and fruit from the local farm shop and my meat from a local butcher and worked out I save over £100 per month compared to shopping at my local Tesco and I get much better quality and all my food is produced locally, no air miles on our dinner. I try to grow as much of my own vegetables as possible too and I cannot tell you how fantastic the difference is in the taste. The only problem is I don’t have a garden so everything is in pots and containers but saying that, I have managed to grow Parsnips in a half cut barrel, spuds in a car tyre stack and strawberries in our hanging baskets! I urge you, even if it is Basil in a small pot on the window sill, grow your own as it is a choice you will never regret.


Take Care People xxxx