Dolly @ 3.

If my calculations are correct, Dolly turns 3 this month. It's a bit lame that I can only guess her birthday rather than know it but I figured she deserved another update all the same.

At 3, Dolly now enjoys making herself less white and sleeping on the sofa. She still loves playing with paper bags and string, trying to steal donuts and following me into the bathroom every morning.

She's now really affectionate and as needy as she can be for her, especially if you're first home from work - not something that's going to happen for a little while. Our biggest milestone in our relationship is that she now purrs and comes when she's called (sometimes). She's still breaking Moon's heart by ignoring him when I'm around but I'm now so much more tuned in to her selective hearing.

I wouldn't be without her and it's great to see that she's still maturing and what she's like as a grown up.

Me and My Cousins (and You and Your Cousins).

Just a couple of pictures today of my sister and I with two of our girl cousins taken at my sister's 'leaving for Hong Kong' party last month.

I like to think that I'm quite lucky when it comes to family, although now we're now mostly grown and don't see each other that often when we come together it's just as good as catching up with old friends and I really love that. ♥

I know I'll probably get a serious Face-Time from my sister when she sees this complaining about her serious footwear problem, but oh well...

:: Have you entered my giveaway to win tickets to the Royal Berkshire County Show on the 20th September? ::

I Love Every Kind of Cat.

Prepare yourself for some incredibly gratuitous cat photos.
My friend Laura recently moved to Reading so that's a total of two couples that are within reasonable 'pop round for the evening' driving distance. A couple of weeks after she moved she was dead set on getting a cat, unfortunately her boyfriend is allergic to life and that includes cats so a really hypo-allergenic one was the way to go - enter Reuben, a six-month old bargain sphynx cat who was perfect for the job.

Tim's still allergic to him but he's getting better, and some of his flare ups may be down to winding poor Reuben up which results in a bit of biting and scratching.

That aside, Reuben is genuinely one of the friendliest cats I've ever met, he even curled up inside my cardigan on our first meeting, now I've seen him a couple of times we're best buds. He's a bit strange to look at I suppose, but he more than makes up for that in personality by the bag full.




NUMBER ONE SPHYNX CAT QUESTION: What does he feel like?
He's really, really warm, like warmer than touching a person's arm and he's completely hairless so I guess I'd compare him to a freshly shaved leg. It's weird stroking him and watching his skin ping back to it's original position but you pretty much handle him like any other cat. He's not more scratchy or prone to being scratched but he does love to climb and that includes climbing people so he does use his claws then.


It's so weird how much 'give' he has compared to Doll's floppy manner. It was couple of months between our first meeting and our second one last week, and I'd say he's grown a bit but is still a pretty tiny cat. I'm so glad Laura decided to keep him after initial jitters over Tim's allergies, especially since it was obvious how much she'd fallen for him within a couple of days - and that's despite having to regularly clean out his ears with cotton buds (like a human!).

I would apologise for being a bit of a crazy cat lady but if I didn't have that accolade before, my Secret Santa gift from the weekend has certainly given me a few bragging rights for a little while.

Spontaneously Unspontaneous.

(source)
When I was contacted by lastminute.com to take part in their 'Spontaneity Champion' Campaign, I must admit that while I was quite excited, I was also left feeling pretty stumped.

Firstly, I never really get fun emails like that so that was nice, and secondly I'm really not all that spontaneous - I like nights in watching bad films with massive mugs of tea and most aspects of routine are pretty satisfying to me. Spontaneity to me is all about running off and not really caring much, but I think I always care - then again, the way I've settled down to my cosy boring life is probably one of the more spontaneous things I've done...

Once Moon got his first 'proper' job after we finished Uni, he had to move out - it was in Andover and as close as that is for nipping back to Dorking for a weekend, to commute over an hour every day is a bit much. So he basically plucked Newbury out of thin air as somewhere that wasn't too small, was cheap for rent (not the case anymore) and was close to bigger towns for jobs for me and places to go.
Aside from a few internships, I still hadn't had a job out of university yet but he asked me to come with him and with the savings I had left and my mum's blessing, that's exactly what I did. I guess part of it was because I couldn't really be doing with the long-distance thing again and the other part of it was a real need for independence again. It was a little scary, once we moved in I spent a lot of time on my own watching 'Real Housewives of Orange County' but I soon landed a job at the local cinema a few weeks later and have been able to look after myself ever since. It's not quite running off to Paris to be a painter but all of that happened in the space of just a month which seems crazy to me now!

Post-uni days you're probably not going to find me out on the tiles and I don't really have the money (the balls) to just up and leave my stable job for travelling around the world - even though I still hope to dip into that at some point - I'm currently thinking about mortgages so I don't know what that says...

But I guess spontaneity comes in lots of different forms and taking the plunge to move out of my mum's house and make my own home is one of biggest decisions I've made and 18 months later, I'm definitely glad I did.

Other Ones.

[source]
Here are things that are related to other things but don't quite fit in, mostly consisting of what I've cooked.


Is anyone else having trouble getting their tomatoes to ripen? I feel like all the sun did is make them grow and once it got rainy again it took away all opportunity I had to reap the rewards - fingers crossed the sunshine this week will mean I'll be coming back from Ireland with more tomatoes then I can handle. My main plan is sundried-tomatoes but I'm sure I'll be able to think of more things to do, Pinterest is my friend.


I baked a bucket-load of orange and poppy seed biscuits using a great recipe from Technicolor Kitchen, I should have frozen some of the dough for another time but they went so well that I cooked the whole lot in one go, at least it filled the cookie jar.


I got semi-bullied into baking a cake for work for my birthday, it was the best buttercream icing I've made in a long time - rule no 1, always read instructions on the packet.


The second un-birthday cake came for my Gran, whose birthday falls two days after mine. The loaf shape wasn't my idea, rule no 2, loaf cakes take 20x as long.


I surprised my Gran by popping over with my Ma and sister for lunch, I made the salmon tacos which I've mentioned previously on here and they were just as good if not better the second time round, I'm pretty proud of myself.


Suzie is my birthday-twin so it was nice to spend some time with her while visiting my Gran. 18 years old! So glad she's over the health-scare we had a few weeks ago and is back to normal, she sat on my knee for a whole half-hour.


Last but not least is this pretty necklace I got from Moon for my birthday from the lovely Oh Someday. I've maybe talked about Kate Holden's work before before but I love her style and there are so many other pieces of hers that I'm coveting. Unexpected gifts that turn out be to be something you've wanted a while are the best.
Not sure how I feel about this kind of post but I wanted to put these pictures somewhere, didn't want to delete them and didn't want them just sitting on my hard drive either, so there you have it.
Hope that you're having a wonderful Wednesday ♥.

Our Great Space.

The longer days and the recent sunny weather have really made me appreciate our garden a lot; the outdoor naps, the barbecues, it's pretty great. The amount of time I've been spending outside has also made me realise how much time Moon must have spent on his own while I was working at the cinema and he was working a regular 9-5. I really don't think that I spent even half the amount of time sitting on our lawn last year and I'm fairly certain the weather can't have been really all that bad, I think I was just always on the go.

Now we're spending pretty much every weekend together, doing things, seeing people and really using our spare time wisely, even sleeping in counts. I'm not quite sure when or how we got here, but it's quite nice actually.


I finally have French lavender in our garden and it seems to be taking to our (terrible) flower bed too, I hope it grows and grows!



I wish our strawberry plants would give us more strawberries, we only got a few - still much better than last year's mouldy offering - and even though they were only small, they were so sweet and juicy, much nicer than any I've had from supermarkets.



Even though there are ants, alfresco dining is pretty great.




Broad beans were the only thing we could grow last year, and they seem to be thriving again this year too - at least I can definitely grow something ♥


The sunflower that I didn't really look after last year has come back, and with 5 flowers, I can't wait for them all to be in bloom.


I made us refreshing fruity drinks last weekend as at that point it was far too early for Pimm's o'Clock, I knew saving the cocktail accessories from Turkey was a good idea. I can't get enough of mixing the Blood Tonic Cordial from this month's Flavrbox with fruit juices, it makes them extra sweet, with a little mediciney twang in the background, so good!




I guess all that fluff means she's extra hot at the moment, she hates us suncreaming her nose and ears and only walks so far before slumping down - a little pathetic for such a young cat but her recent wuss-puss tendencies also seem to mean she's much more affectionate in this heat too.



Just because we happened to bathe her last weekend - she wasn't happy at the time but seemed a little revitalised afterwards, the cutest E.T I've ever seen.
Being able to lay out on the grass with a pillow and a book, admiring the vegetables and plants we've actually been able to grow this year make me really appreciate how stable things are at the moment, yes, it's not perfect but I'm much happier than I was a year ago. Maybe it's the heat talking, but I just feel good - but still grumpy, and I thought you should know that.

In other, less wispy news, I've entered Belvoir Fruit Farms' Wildlife Photography Competition, since I last checked I was third on the leaderboard, so your vote would be very much appreciated, if anyone even read down this far that is...

Cat Bothering.

*Insert gratuitous speil about cute cat here*I don't think I'm ever going to get bored of my little lady, she's truly got her own personality, I just hope she's accommodating to her cat-sitters (my Gran & sister) while we're away. Her insistance on waking us up really early just for a cuddle and being super-excited that we're home from work but not really being bothered with us any other time apart from when we need chasing or to feed her, she's still far from boring.



I don't really understand people who are cat or dog 'people', I think because generally I'm an 'animal person', but I know somewhere (even if it is deep down) she feels something for us.

I know he wouldn't admit it, but there are times Moon feels as smitten with her as I am. Now she's completely calmed down and we're used to her quirks, he loves nothing more than a play fight with her and she's usually more than happy to play along.


♥

Kitty Friends.

I came home from work the other day to see these dorks perched smug as anything in our neighbours garden. Doll is desperate to be buddies with them, but they, particularly the little lady on the left, aren't having any of it. They can climb on their roof and we don't even have one, they probably hunt things other than worms too.




Did anyone else see The Secret Life of the Cat on Horizon last week? I wonder if Dolly and these two share territories or have learnt to tolerate each other, they didn't seem all that amused to see her trot out after me when I came out into the garden. Basically what I'm trying to say is that I really need at least a cat camera...

In other news, we've suddenly sprouted a ton of tiny mushrooms on our lawn, I'm no mycologist so I've no idea if they're edible and actually I don't even know if I would want to eat them if they were, I just think they're kind of neat.


I sure wish this weather would cheer up soon, my zombie strawberry plant is actually making an attempt to give me some fruit this year and all we need is a couple of days of solid sun and I reckon at least one of them is going to turn red. I'm so excited!