Look, No Feet!

I liked Sarah’s series of photos that glance down at her shoes (especially this one). Loafing round the garden yesterday, I decided to be a real copycat and try something similar. Turns out there are certain obstacles to this kind of shot here!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused

Oops, this is an old photo challenge, but I have gone to some trouble preparing the photo for publishing, so I’m posting it anyway.

We were out this morning, and when I came in the front door and saw the way my two cats were sleepily regarding me, I took photos, trying to capture their mood. Unfortunately the girl cat (Delilah) first of all just put her head down and closed her eyes, and didn’t look at the camera the way she had looked at me… then she sat up and did a very sweet green-eyed yawn, and at that precise moment my camera decided it had run out of card-space!!!!

That sort of thing is enough to throw you into a screaming tantrum.

I behaved myself though, and fetched another camera card… by that time Delilah had hopped off and left through the cat flap. Thank goodness for Samson, who stayed in bed, occasionally blinking at me, though with not quite the roguish grin that he had before.

I tried to focus sharply on him (dark room and ageing eyesight), and sometimes managed; other times it was way off, like here… I would have deleted this picture without a second thought, but I suddenly remembered the photo challenge.

Well, I thought, if I have to post a fuzzy photo, it might as well be this one! I made it even softer in Photoshop, mostly round the edges. Will have to look and see what other challenges I can respond to… my camera has been a bit covered in cobwebs recently.

Cutting Edge Cat

For cat lovers — Iggy Investigates an iPad. I liked this video clip.

Bond Cats

Another blogger said a couple of times how, when he feels really strongly about something, he can’t bring himself to speak. It reminded me of when I was saying to Mum how Samson was ‘Octopussy’ because he’s my eighth cat. I opened my mouth to add “Sharky was 007″ and the words refused to come out! I only meant it for a joke, but when you know those cats so well and are so fond of them — it’s not funny at all. They’re all special to me, but especially 007.

I miss him.

I wonder what Delilah is, though…. the 9th Bond girl, perhaps! Who was she?

Just for fun, I typed ‘ninth Bond girl’ into Google, and it said there was no such thing. It kept mentioning Olga Kurylenko, though, and said she was in something new called The Eagle of the Ninth… also in the Bond film Quantum of Solace (which I’ve not seen yet). I wondered what she looked like and clicked on ‘images’, and found myself faced with ranks of bikini-clad photos. “Oops,” I thought, “I better get off this page as I don’t know what Mum will think!”

I switched to a Wikipedia page about Olga, and there was a mug shot of her there. Her eyes are like Delilah’s, perhaps… all cats have beautiful eyes, but Delilah’s are stunning. She knows it, and does that innocent ‘Puss in Boots’ sort of stare (from Shrek) when she’s trying to make you fall under her spell.

Mum came out from her bath, saw the head shot on the Wikipedia page, and toddled over rapidly. “Who’s that?”

“It’s a Bond girl called Olga — I was wondering who she was. She was in Quantum of Solace.“

“Oh,” said Mum. “From where I was standing, I thought it was you!”

Ahhh, mothers.

Even the Cat Finds Me Annoying

Today Samson (one of my cats) was lying on my lap, and the TV was running long commercials I’d already seen a million-and-one times before. Because I was bored, I was repetitively patting his flank.

He got fed up with this, so he gently grabbed hold of my fingers, curling his paws inwards to hold them, and carefully stuck his claws in till I stopped moving! Then he plucked up both his hind feet and plopped them on top.

That’s a cat who brooks no nonsense.

Samson

Samson… a cat at his coolest.

Poppa Sam

A rather shaky photo of Samson, as he was moving quickly, but a keeper, I think. Have also been trying out some Photoshop tips from camera magazines (my sister gave me a bundle of old ones for my birthday). The problem with it is that I keep seeing other cameras and wondering if they would be better than the one I have! Low priority, I would say…

PS: I was reading my camera instruction manual at bedtime (as one does) and found a bit where it says if a battery is running out too quickly, it might need to be replaced with a new…. battery! Not camera! I know, bang goes the excuse. In my case I think the battery is plenty good; it’s the way I autobracket everything and use RAW files as well as large JPEGs… the cards are hard-pushed to keep up, never mind the battery. On top of that, the new zoom len uses a lot of power in image stabilizing. It can be turned off if the camera is very steady and won’t shake, but today I was lazy and left the tripod indoors.

Vole in Our Kitchen

Delilah brought a vole in yesterday — it was lightning quick, but she was faster, and she was really beating it about (spots of blood here and there). I grabbed her and shut her in a room. I couldn’t think where it had gone meanwhile, and Mum said it had probably wriggled under my bedroom door. Looked under my bed (glad I hoovered out the dust bunnies…) saw a lurking vole shadow. Ah ha.

We hoped it might find its own way out when the coast was clear. Today we saw it running around downstairs, so I left two doors open so that it could run out the kitchen door into the garden… so it ran into the kitchen and then dived behind the boiler!

Sigh. Hopefully it’s just being cautious, and will go outside when it’s sure there isn’t something lurking just round the next corner.

Blanket Hogging

Samson and Delilah resting. But guess who’s hogging the blanket??
(Click photo to enlarge).

The Hyacinth Bear and the Water Fountain

There is a Hyacinth Club in our house. I don’t mean one like the one in the book… this one is composed of bears, cats and snails who like to watch green things grow. Elizabeth wrote a charming poem on her poetry blog about the president of our furry Hyacinth Club — who is over the moon about it.

Picture prompt… that’s an interesting idea! Usually we write something and find a picture to suit the words, but why not the other way around?

I’m not feeling inspired tonight, but I have a photo of one of the club members dabbling in the cats’ water fountain. They love it, and it saves us having to turn on the tap for Samson every five minutes. It was getting a bit much; he would hop up and demand for it to be turned on, then stare at us with a raised eyebrow as though to say “did you want something?” Five minutes later he would be back, asking for the tap again. He would leap on the sink just in front of you when you went to fill the kettle. He would streak rapidly into the bathroom if you were headed that way, and demand a long, leisurely lap at the hand basin.

We were relieved when my sister gave me the water fountain! After setting it up, we took Samson to it every time he requested the tap… he soon got the hint, and drank from the fountain instead. So did all the other cats. We had to prop it up on a footstool, as that was one of the conditions of Samson using it… he simply isn’t interested if he can’t tip his head back, open his mouth and have the water splash in.

A few days ago, some furry unknown knocked the fountain off its perch. Water everywhere! I was in a hurry to turn it off, as apparently the motor burns out if it runs dry. Then I left everything to drain while the carpet dried.

There was a big bowl of fresh water, but the bats — sorry, I mean cats — got increasingly upset about the loss of their fountain. Mum found Delilah pummelling the coffee maker in frustration. When I went down to set it all up again, the cats watched every move, and Delilah put her head in the reservoir to peer at the water. Maybe they were making notes so that they could reassemble it themselves if they had to.

Finally the water was flowing again, and Mum said to Samson, “you won’t knock it over again, will you?” He said nothing, but beamed from ear to ear, his tail wrapped tightly round his feet.

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Song in my head (apparently from nowhere): He Aint Heavy, He’s My Brother (Neil Diamond).

The road is long with many winding turns
That lead us to who knows where,
Who knows where?
But I’m strong,
Strong enough to carry him.
He ain’t heavy; he’s my brother.

No, just realized it’s not from nowhere. I began a blog post earlier (then deleted it) saying Mum was blaming the mackerel pâté for making her unwell. I had some and was fine… but then I’m younger and stronger, so that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the pâté.

Corny? Nah. I’ve always loved that song.