catnip

To sleep? or not?

/ Loony Feminist / 1 Comment

Sometimes I wake up at the normal time, thanks to the alarm, get up and have breakfast and have to go straight back to bed. My brain isn’t working properly, I can’t cope with easy crosswords or even Solitaire. Sunday (I think) I went back to bed and slept for five hours straight. Then woke up and had a shower, and felt ok.

Today is Tuesday. Same thing, but I only slept for two hours, and felt ok-ish. I needed to do my ironing but really couldn’t muster the energy until about forty five minutes ago. It only takes ten minutes, because we each do our own, and one of my little life rules is that I do it every week. So there’s not much. Schlepping the ironing board from utility room to lounge is the hardest bit, to be honest, but that’s what makes me want to put it off. Anyway, long story short, I did it because I could feel the energy needed just getting to the right level, and of course I felt much better afterwards.

A shower always helps me feel better. Always. But I don’t always have the energy! how frustrating.

Looks like we’re in for the long haul with Covid/lockdown, so I’ve been trying to find at least one positive thing in every day.

Today was the ironing! and then, as the sun was out and it’s not actually freezing cold, I pottered round our small garden and found these snow drops. Love them.

Also tried to take a photo of the cat, but she would not look at the camera. I pulled a little weed out of her catnip pot – it’s real catnip in there, just a bit sad and wintery at the moment – and her reaction was priceless. “What are you doing? That’s mine! Have you changed it? I need to investigate all of it right now!” she is such a doofus.

A strange little episode

/ Loony Feminist / 1 Comment

Our cat, Bertie (female) is nearly 9, and weighs 3 kilos (7lbs). She’s very shy, and not at all aggressive to anybody/anything.bertie

But last night, while I was eating my dinner, she started to growl. I looked outside into the garden, and there was a large long-haired ginger tom cat.  About twice Bertie’s size. He’s a regular visitor. He’s very handsome face on, like a lion, but sideways on you can see he’s quite old. I think he wants to be friends with Bertie, but she’s not having any of that nonsense.

Anyway, she growled, then she turned her back on him (her tail wasn’t fluffed up or anything), so he watched for a few seconds then pottered off.

(The pictures of the ginger tom are library pictures, from our wildlife webcam, last month, as you can see from the date stamp!)

gingertom1ginger tomThen he smelled the pot where I grow some catnip. Bertie loves it and regularly gets right inside the pot for a little sleep.

catnip

My hand is in there for scale!

He kept his back feet on the ground, put both his front paws in the pot, and had a good old headrub and sniff at the catnip. He was actually trying to lie down in it, but only his top half was in the pot.

Eventually, he managed to get all four paws in the pot and curled up, still rubbing and sniffing at it.

By this time I’ve got right up to the window (wishing like billyo I had my phone camera with me) and just watched for ages.

His eyes were almost closed, but he gradually realised he was being watched. He could also tell I was no threat, so instead of jumping up in alarm and running off, he slowly and carefully, with as much dignity as he could muster, got himself standing up, got down from the pot, and strolled off. He was clearly thinking “I’ll just, erm, go, erm, this way . . . and perhaps she won’t think I’m an idiot”.

I laughed and laughed and laughed. As much as is possible with no voice!