In the garden

I spent most of the weekend in the garden trimming, sweeping, tidying and pruning.
I'm still aching today but it feels great to have been outside in the sun after all these months. I've even lost my grey hue I've been cultivating from too much strip-lighting.

Flowers and line-dried washing. Could it be any more perfect?

 Planting seeds is so satisfying and exciting. I'll be checking back every day till they sprout.



Deryn and Meg love the sunshine, this is Deryn watching Meg discover the outside for the first time. She alternated between concerned supervision, and jumping on her while she was distracted. Meg discovered bee stings with her paw.

On Saturday night Meg fell fast asleep on the sofa with her paws and whiskers twitching away. Such big adventures for a little cat!

Brideshead Revisited, revisited

Ah, Monday again. How does the weekend pass so quickly? Still, this weekend was a pretty productive one for me so I can't complain.

Today's outfit - I made the blouse myself yesterday!
Cardigan - EWM, Trousers - M&S

I went to my German class which was sehr gut although I have come away with a slight fear of asking for directions, least someone responds with a stream of incomprehensible instructions. I do feel happier about shopping though (very important!), and explaining that I don't eat meat or fish, something that a lot of continental Europeans can't quite get their heads round! I think I'll have to do some hard work with Michel Thomas before we visit Germany, but I feel more as though I can learn now, which is a start!

I also watched 3 films on Sunday (no husband for the day so I got to catch up on all the films he's turned his nose up at!) while I was sewing.

First I saw Brideshead Revisited on iPlayer. I own the series with Jeremy Irons and love it, so I was curious to see how this modern version compared. Poorly, I'm afraid was the answer.

The costumes were pretty fab

Truth be told I found the original series hard to get into and very slow going at first. However, it wasn't long before I was drawn in, along with Charles, to the Flyte family's bizarre and dark world and I was hooked. Rewatching the first couple of episodes I found them more captivating, given the rather sad conclusion.
Sadly, there's only so much you can do with 2 hours of screen time and it just wasn't long enough to draw me into the story. Sebastian Flyte is, lets face it, not a particularly likable character. In the series, though, his friendship with Charles has time to develop and we come to see him as Charles sees him, mad and bad, yes, but also a dazzling and exotic wonder in Charles' rather drab life. It's because of Charles' growing love that we can sympathise with the horrifying mess that Sebastian gets himself into, the effort to which Charles goes to try to save him and, ultimately, the full significance of his return to Brideshead in the war.

In the film, none of this has time to develop and I rather wondered why Charles would bother, given how ridiculous a figure Sebastian is. In addition, I found Ben Whishaw's portrayal of Sebastian rather strained. His attempt to be effete and decadently camp seemed false and stilted, his mannerisms put on. Compared to Anthony Andrews' stunning performance (for which he won a BAFTA and was nominated for an Emmy) in the TV series it was just flat. The same goes for Charles Ryder, played by Jeremy Irons in the series - a middle class boy caught in the headlights of the decadent world of Oxford's elite and gradually coming to find himself in the madness of his lifestyle. None of that was evident in the new version. And I won't mention Laurence Olivier's Emmy winning performance!

The original and best!

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing intrinsicly bad with the film - the performances and the script writing are pretty good throughout, it just can't hold a candle to the series!

The other films I watched were Dorian Gray, which I thoroughly enjoyed and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I've never read the books, though I've heard so many people recommend them, so I thought I'd give the film a go, seeing as it's free with my Lovefilm package. I'm glad I did, it's a sophisticated crime thriller and stands out from large crowd of films in that genre. I liked Lisbeth from the start and found the mystery gripping. Both these films come highly recommended by me!

The other thing I managed to find time for was more cat-fussing. Meg and Deryn are getting on much better today and they even had a slightly frightened game last night where they chased each other around for a bit. While I think they both wanted to play, neither seemed totally certain that the other wasn't attacking them in a rubbish way, but they seemed to have fun and I think it bodes well!
Also, I saw Meg sitting down for the first time since she arrived! I think we've finally managed to tire her little kitten legs out!

Meg the Mog

My exciting news this weekend -

Meet Meg. She's only about 7 months old and this is the best photo I could get of her, as most of the time she looks like this-

She's so full of energy she's a blur most of the time. I'm pleased that she's so confident and full of energy because she's settled in wonderfully.

We were going to wait a while before getting another cat, but Deryn, our other little girl has been very lonely, and the rescue said that Meg sounded like a good friend for her, so here we are!
She eats everything we can throw at her, loves catnip and is very talented at 4-foot-football.

Her and Deryn are getting on OK - there's been a little hissing and some hasty backing off on both parts, but they're both warily getting used to each other. She's mostly confined to a spare bedroom for the moment but I don't think it'll be long before she's able to run wild in the rest of the house.

We've named her Meg partly to continue with the Welsh theme of our cats (Deryn is Welsh for 'bird') and partly for the fantastic Meg and Mog books (Meg is the witch, but we thought it was a better cat name) which were my favourites as a kid.

If she ever takes a nap I'll get some more pictures!

These are a few of my favourite things...

As I've mentioned in some previous posts, I've been feeling a bit down in the dumps recently and had a pretty bad time of it this week. Thank you for all your kind words, it means a lot to have you all being so kind.
I understand from your comments on this post that I'm not the only one feeling a bit down at the moment! In an effort to cheer myself and hopefully the rest of you up a bit, I've put together a list of my favourite things. Stuff that makes me smile.

I'm also tagging a challenge to those of you who said you were feeling down too. Your task, if you choose to accept it, is to list 6 things that make you feel happy, contented or relaxed. Then you ask someone else to do the same, and in no time we'll all be smiling!

1. Fresh laundry
White sheets cracking in the breeze, the smell of laundry dried outside in the sunshine and the feel of clean sheets in bed. Even the view of a washing line covered in clean clothes makes me smile. I can't stand synthetic perfumes in laundry powders, so I usually use soda crystals which leave just the fresh, sweet smell of clean clothes behind.

2. Water
I love water in all its forms. The sea, rivers, lakes, even rain. Swimming in it, boating on it, listening to it, looking at it. I find it all magical and therapeutic.
I love the sound of ships' lines pinging against the mast in the wind and can sit and watch water for hours at a time. One day, I will live by the sea.

3. Lol cats
Yeah, cats who can't spell. I know. But can you really resist laughing at this?

4. Reading in bed

As far as I'm concerned, the greatest luxury. There are so many other things to be done and yet I'm off in a fantasy land and I'm doing it from under the duvet. Get a cup of tea and a pile of soft pillows to prop yourself up and life doesn't get much better.

5. Cleaning

Yup, I'll come clean (hehe, see what I did there?), I like cleaning. Not all the time, but I love the focus that goes into cleaning and then when you step back at the end to see a gleaming surface, or kitchen or cupboard, it's so satisfying. Again, I don't like chemical smells, so most of my cleaners are just plain soap with either lavender or tea tree essential oils added and the smell of clean and fresh rooms is just magical!

6. Unstarted craft projects

Blank note books, uncut fabric, rows of embroidery silks in every colour. Endless posibilities. There's something about craft and sewing supplies untouched and unstarted that makes me all giddy.

OK, over to you. What are your favourite things?

In particular, these ladies said they were feeling a bit down too, so I'm challenging them directly to come up with some of their favourite things, but consider this an open challenge.

The 'Raindrops on Roses' challenge!

Lady Cherry
LandGirl1980
Miss Magpie
Rosie-Alia

Sick cat stress

 Warning - entirely cat related post

Me and my teddybear

What a week.
I've been dealing with a sick cat this week and it's really taken its toll. From staying up through most of the night on Sunday as I was so worried about him, to spending a stressful hour at the vet on Monday (happy Valentines day!), we then spent several hours wringing our hands waiting for blood test results after a trip to the emergency vet on Tuesday around midnight.

What?!

With a £160 charge before you even get through the door of the emergency vet, all I can say is 'thank God for pet insurance'. He's been in the vet's on a drip for 2 nights now and had every test you can imagine, including an ultrasound scan! The charges shot past £1200 last night and I honestly don't know what we would have done if we weren't insured.
If you have a pet and you don't have cover PLEASE get some. We're paying about £8 a month, so the cost has already more than paid for itself.

He does love to sleep

It looks as though he has an inflamed pancreas, so he should get better soon. He's still not well, though, and is having a feeding tube inserted so that we can get some food into him. All that said, he may be able to come home today and we can look after him ourselves, though the prospect of having to tube feed him is rather daunting.

Pet owners and animal lovers won't need any explanation of how I'm feeling right now, and non-animal lovers won't understand it even if I give one. Suffice it to say I've barely slept since Saturday night and am spending my days worrying about him.

How did you get so dirty?

Socks is a rescue cat and we've spent the best portion of his 18 months with us getting him to relax and trust us. He spent the first 3 months or so behind the sofa and was scared of everything and everyone. He's still a skittish cat but has recently relented to being picked up and stopped running away when the front door opens. I'm seriously worried about what this stay in the vets is going to do to him mentally.
I'm sure once we get him home things will improve, but right now I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed by it all.

I am planning a couple of happy posts soon (and my apologies at the morose tone to this one), one being a general 'cheer us all up' post and the other being my first giveaway (welcome to my 100th and 101st followers!). Stay tuned!

Today's outfit

I was going to post long and hard about Halloween today, since I've been thinking about it for 24hrs solidly. Sadly, I'm knackered, so you'll have to make do with a picture of me when I arrived home tonight.

I have discovered that;

1. My hair and makeup are best best before I leave the house in the morning.

2. The light is most flattering before I leave the house in the morning

3. It's easier to pose without my husband looking at me as though I'm mad

4. My cats only love me when they're hungry

As a result, I'm going to try to take my photos in the morning in the future, and keep my cats hungry. Their love will be mine, oh yes! Ahahahahahahahahahaha

Top - Zara

Cardigan & trousers - Marks and Spencer

Shoes - Poetic license