Strange Tabby Mystery Solved……almost!

I thought I’d post an update on the little stray tabby cat who seems to have adopted me. I took him to my vet to see if they could scan him for a microchip and yes he did have one! His owner was Brighton Cat Welfare. My vet left a message with them to call me and the lovely Julie from Cat Welfare called me yesterday.

It turns out he was originally an un-neutered tom cat living on the streets and breaking into people’s houses and generally making a nuisance of himself. So he was caught and brought to the rescue centre where they had him neutered. As he was semi-feral he was taken on as a stable cat and it was from there that he escaped and travelled the 4 miles to my house. As the ‘owner’ never bothered to report him missing the rescue centre is sending me the adoption papers and the microchip will be transferred to my name. I’m so pleased that I didn’t have to give him back to anyone as I’ve become so fond of him. I do wonder though how he managed to travel and cross 2 A roads to get here. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know the answer to that one.  I’ve named him Ben.

Ben sunbathing

Ben playing with the daisies

Slainte

Linda xx

Dad

 

It’s Father’s Day today in the UK. This is my Dad who sadly passed away in ‘92.

 

 

This lovely gentle man loved animals with a passion, wrote amazing poetry and supported all my crazy schemes with incredible enthusiasm.

 

Second to animals, surfing was the love of his life. He could be seen most days riding the waves down at Whitsand Bay in Cornwall or frequenting Bilbo’s Surf Shop in Newquay. He even gave his surfboards names, his favourite being his longboard Big Whitey.

 

I like to think there is a spot for him in heaven where he is paddling out from a silver sunlit beach into cool blue waters looking for the perfect wave.

 

Rest in Peace Dad xxx

My Desert Island Discs – part two

Welcome to the second instalment of my favourite eight discs. Seems weird writing the word ‘discs’ but it would be even weirder writing Desert Island MP3s. Just doesn’t gel.

 

Jessica by The Allman Brothers Band from the album Brothers and Sisters

 

This is my instrumental ‘classical’ piece. I’ve never tired of listening to it despite BBC’s Top Gear hijacking it. It’s a long track at 7 minutes 28 seconds, but you just go along with the music. Love it!

 

The Ballad of Cursed Anna by Jonathan Kelly from the album Twice Around the Houses

 

I’ve no idea how I got to hear this song, I suspect it was by listening to Radio Luxemburg a long time ago. It’s a beautifully written folk song about a young man who ignores an old man’s warning about the beautiful but cursed Anna and finds himself trapped as a gatekeeper who can only be released when another young man ignores his warnings about her. On Friday nights a few of us used to take our guitars to a wonderful old pub in Donaghadee called Grace Neill’s Bar. You would order the drinks, find a table, sit down and if nobody else was playing you’d simply start strumming. I remember going there with 2 friends Davy and Maurice and we started singing Cursed Anna. For ages before we hadn’t been able to find anyone else that knew the song, but that night when we performed it a couple of groups joined in – bliss!! We made some great friends that night!

 

Crazy Man Michael by Fairport Convention from the album Liege and Lief

 

A beautiful slow folk song performed by the ethereal haunting voice of Sandy Denny. Liege and Lief is my favourite Fairport album and any song performed by Sandy would do but Crazy Man Michael just has that extra little piece of magic. I still listen to it a lot.  So sad that Sandy has left us, but her voice will go on for ever.

 

Sebastian by Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel from the album The Human Menagerie

 

Steve Harley has got one amazing voice and Sebastian highlights just how incredible it is. I don’t know why but this song always reminds me of Venice, masked balls and red velvet cloaks. It’s the sort of song that should be playing in the background while you’re reading The Da Vinci Code. It’s another song that I would belt out at the top of my voice on my lonely beach, especially the line “Somebody called me Sebastian”

 

Book to take with me would be Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. It’s a book you can pick up for a quick browse and before you know it a few happy hours have passed. My luxury would be a couple of tons of ruled writing paper complete with fountain pen and a few gallons of violet coloured ink as I would envisage having enough time to pen the great British novel!

 

Well those are my 8 discs, what would yours be??

 

Slainte

 

Linda xx

My Desert Island Discs – part one

Listening to Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs this morning got me thinking to what 8 records I would take to my desert island.  I have many, many terra bytes of music stored on hard drive, probably the equivalent in vinyl to fill every shelf of a mega superstore. Yet it did not take me many minutes to come up with eight musical milestones of my life. So here they are, albeit not in chronological order.

Carey by Joni Mitchell from the Album Court and Spark
Twisted by Joni Mitchell from the album Court and Spark


Where I grew up in Holywood, County Down we didn’t have a record shop for many years and when one finally opened I swear I was its best customer. I was eventually banned from bringing any more records home with me, so I used to smuggle them in in my school satchel and hide them at the bottom of my wardrobe.  The record shop owner who got to know me very well used to play me records that he thought I’d be interested in and one day he played Court and Spark. I loved every song on it and from that moment became a lifelong fan of Joni Mitchell. With Carey I love the opening line, “The wind is in from Africa, last I couldn’t sleep”. It makes me think of exotic climes, tents in the desert, mosquito nets. When I think of travel I think of Carey.

I would also take ‘Twisted’ from the same album.  I have one fun memory attached to this song. When my best friend’s dad used to pick us up every Saturday night after the disco had finished, the pair of us used to sing this song at the tops of our voices in the back seat of his car.  In retrospect the man must have been a saint to have put up with our caterwauling. We always tried to hit Joni’s high notes but could never quite manage it. So I would have fun sitting on the beach of my desert island singing this at the top of my voice knowing I wasn’t hurting anyone’s eardrums.

Lola by The Kinks



I was a fan of the Kinks from the very first minute I heard ‘You Really Got Me’ I love Ray Davies’ song writing. He writes about real people, emotions, places. I love the story of how Dedicated Follower of Fashion came about. He was refused admission to a well known fashion designer’s party so Ray straight away immortalised this precious pedantic in song. As I was very young when Lola was released I didn’t immediately twig what the song was about, all I knew was I loved the sound of Ray Davies’ voice, especially how he sang C-O-L-A cola. He originally wrote coca cola but was forced to change it to cherry cola due to copyright laws. I always thought Coca Cola missed a big marketing trick by forcing him to change it. I remember going to see the Kinks when they played in Sussex a few years back. I couldn’t persuade anyone to go with me, so I went on my own and had a fabulous time.

Next song – Always Look on the Bright Side of Life from The Life of Brian by Monty Python



I went on an archaeological trip to the Eastern Desert in Egypt many moons ago – we were looking for prehistoric rock art. I didn’t want to be without any music on the trip so I compiled a cassette tape (pre ipod days) with my fav music on it. As we experienced disaster after disaster in the desert this track was rapidly adopted as the trip theme song. I have this wonderful memory of standing on the top of a sand dune in glorious pink and gold evening light waiting for the rest of the party to come in when one jeep came hurtling up the dune with six people inside singing ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ at the top of their voices – magic.

More tomorrow……..

Slainte,

Linda xxx

The Sublime to the Ridiculous

Bargain time again – I found this pretty silk top by Alexon in my local charity/thrift shop for the bargain price of £1.50. Yes it is 100% silk!!

 

 

 

It will go beautifully with fuchsia or lilac summer skirts. I love it!! Well that was the sublime part of the post. Here follows the ridiculous bit. I spotted this table for sale in a garden centre. It has a drinks cooler built into the centre of it and costs a whopping £1100! Looks like the original price was £1440.

 

 

I stood there looking at it working out how many bottles of Bushmills Irish Whiskey that equated to! I think for that money I would rather have a bog standard garden table with a cooler bag and invest the rest in alcohol. Well maybe not all of the rest, just enough to fill the cooler bag. Think of the money saved!! What will they think of next (gosh that sounds old).

 

Here is a cheap date. This is Jasmine (Jazzy for short) lying in her own sun puddle. For more on sun puddles read http://justcats-deb.blogspot.co.uk Debs blog is where I first read the phrase sun puddle – very apt.

 

 

She’s got her arm around an old cat and fiddle statue I bought years ago from an antique shop in Arundel. My friend came with me and helped me load it into her car boot. It was sooooo heavy, I dread to think what it did to her car’s suspension! The end of the fiddle has broken off over the years, but the little mouse at the cat’s feet is still there. Jazzy is conveniently lying on it. When I want to move it around I have to roll it as it is too heavy for me to lift, needless to say it’s still stayed pretty much in the same area in the garden!

 

Sláinte

 

Linda xx

Portable Sewing

Here we have the ultimate in portable sewing!

 

 

I got this machine some time ago from a man via Gumtree. This machine  had been his mother’s and was given to her brand new (1934) as a present for her birthday when she was a young girl. Apparently she sewed on it all her life until she sadly passed away. I’m so honoured to have it.  As it was a nice day I decided to take it outside and clean it up and oil it ready for use. It took about an hour and with the minimum of tweaking on the upper and lower tension I have a lovely portable sewing machine! As it is a hand crank one I can sew in the sun to my heart’s content! No stopping me now!

 

 

This is the Aeonium Zwartkop I bought the other day at the garden centre when I visited their cacti display.  I have a love for ‘black’ plants and this is one of my all time favourites. It is such a deep purple that is almost black. I’ve named it Ian after Ian Gillan from Deep Purple.

 

I’ve had them before but I’ve never managed to keep them going as I killed them with kindness and watered them too much. Hopefully I’ve learned from my mistakes and will be extremely cruel towards Ian!!

 

The tabby cat I mentioned in this post has been back a couple of times. It’s visited my friend who live across the road where it’s been fed and the last couple of evenings it’s trundled over to see me. I managed to get close and stroked it and as you can see from the picture below we are now sleeping together!!

 

 

Actually, no we aren’t really!! My back door was open this morning and it wandered in and hopped on to the bed where it commandeered my laptop. I think it wanted to send emails to all its mates about the new B&B it’s found! If it carries on like this I’ll borrow a scanner from my friend who runs an animal sanctuary and see if it’s been microchipped. It is a lovely little thing and is so affectionate.

 

Another small ta-da. This is my pink crochet skirt all finished and sewn up. It is the first all crochet garment I’ve made and I am really chuffed with it. It’s from Debbie Bliss’s book Simply Crochet.

 

 

I’m going to make a little pink half slip to go underneath, otherwise it my be a bit draughty in a following wind!!

 

Sláinte

 

Linda xx