A WOYWW Visitor and More on Infusions Mini-Album

Today Margaret (Glitterandglue) spent the day with me – she is down in Devon, about to attend a course on Pergamano being held locally. She really didn’t want to come all this way down and not meet up, and we had a really lovely day. I’d set up the table in my studio so that we could both work in there, but we didn’t actually do anything except natter and have a Really Good Time!!

My hubby was out, so she and I shared a home made soup and bread lunch. I’d made broccoli and Stilton soup, and a plaited challah loaf, followed by stewed apple and  custard and we tucked in!

She had brought some absolutely fabulous Pergamano pieces that she’d made. Here she is with some of them displayed on the table.

A detailed shot of the pieces.

The little pyramids are a selection from a total of 24 which she made as an Advent Calendar. Each one is numbered, and they are all different. They have a painted design on one face, with the number on the opposite face, and on the other two faces, panels of Pergamano work in different patterns. These parchment covers slide up the ribbon loop at the top, exposing a box underneath, with the ribbons attached to the top. The sides of the boxes can be opened in order to insert a chocolate or other small gift in each one. They were utterly and completely exquisite – I couldn’t believe the fineness and detail of the work. The flat triangular piece in the centre of the table is a card – the three triangles open to reveal a small card inside.

Margaret had, of course, brought her Pergamano kit with her, ready to use on the course, and she got it out to show me – there are lots of different tools for embossing and for piercing, and two different mats for these processes. She was going to get me going on this but when I saw just how tiny and detailed the work was, and how incredibly time-consuming, I knew it wasn’t for me – it reminded me of my abortive attempt to learn Honiton lace making before I was married – incredibly intricate work that you have to do for weeks before you get anything worthwhile to show! I may be a patient person when it comes to my creativity, but there are limits!!!

I admire Pergamano greatly. It looks like a combination of lace and embroidery, and the designs can be very pretty indeed. Having seen it being done for the first time, I admire even more the people who do it. As Margaret says, when you see images of it online, they are always close-up photos, and you don’t really get a correct impression of just how tiny the patterns are.

I think I shall stick to mixed media and playing with stuff that makes lots of texture and colour, and above all, mess!!

After she had gone, I spent a couple of hours in the studio, working on the Infusions Mini-Album again, and tonight I finished making the tags for Volume One of the album. Here are the latest photos.

I had originally decided that I wouldn’t put any text on the front of the “Stamping” title page tag, but decided to go ahead and do that after all.

The reverse of this page is as I left it when I completed it back in September. This page shows my wild grasses stamps on an Infusions background.

Moving on to the next page in the album, we come to the water droplets page. This is a stamp from Designs by Ryn, and one of my favourite – it is incredibly realistic.

Turning that page over, we have the painted flowers page.

Finally, the Versamark stamping page.

I added more Infusions to the back of this tag. You can see that the reverse of the page has not been decorated. This will be covered with endpaper of the album.

The final photo shows the set of blotting up sheets that I created. After sprizting each tag, rather than wasting the wet Infusions on the craft sheet, I blotted it up with some small square cards I'd cut for this purpose.

Not sure what I’m going to do with them all yet, but in the meantime I shall add a distressed edge using Black Soot distress ink. I’m getting quite a collection of these now.

WOYWW 436 A Tidy Studio and Some Zentangles

At last I have tidied my studio! As always happens when I haven’t been using it, it had turned into a dumping ground and was an absolute mess.

This is the further side of the room.

On the left, by the lamp, is my little gallery area. In the corner is my sewing zone with my sewing machine, and the storage boxes on the shelves contain mostly textile stuff. On the right is my drawing zone.

This is the side of the room looking back towards the window.

On the left is my iMac. My cutting machine is across the corner. Misc. supplies in the storage boxes on the shelves. I’ve got all my distress inks and Infusions and Dylusions sprays and paints out (in the plastic boxes on top) so it’s not over-tidy at present! To the right is my main work area – my desk, for the purposes of WOYWW! The white unit in the foreground is one of several pull-out units. When stowed away, this one would go under the main desk but it never goes in there because that’s where I mostly sit. When pulled out, it provides an extra surface and still gives me access to the shelves – this one holds card and paper.

Here’s the desk itself.

Apart from being a bit tidier than before, not much change – you can still see the current work in progress – my Infusions mini-album.

I continue to alternate between being busy with various commitments, domestic tasks and looking after the kittens, and crashing out on the recliner suffering from extreme exhaustion! I am taking a bit of a dip with my ME at the moment which is a tremendous bore because it’s preventing me from getting much creative stuff done – this is always what gets pushed to the bottom of the heap when energy is in short supply! I am trying not to overdo things on better days – I run on adrenaline on busy days and then pay for it later. My internal clock has gone all haywire again so I’m not getting to bed till well into the small hours, and then struggle to get up in the mornings – normal ME fare!

Zentangle

I was getting so fed up with not being creative that I charged up my Apple Pencil and started drawing Zentangles on the iPad again. I can do this from the comfort of the recliner or in bed, and I can also flip back and forth to look at the step-outs for the various patterns, either in my own folder on the iPad, or online. I can also listen to audio books while I’m doing it! Multi-tasking…

Here’s my experiment with Diva Dance flowing through Paradox – I’ve always found the latter pattern problematic but think I’ve mastered it at last! Full details here.

Yesterday I completed another one, which had taken me several days to do. Full details here.

Kittens

Lily and Ruby are now 4 1/2 months old – I can’t believe how quickly the time is going, or how big they are getting! As my hubby says, they may be growing, but they are not growing up! Here they are in the kitty bed, suckling on the fluffy toy.

They won’t use the lovely new kitten bed I bought for them, and they are now getting too big for it! I got the old bigger bed out for them and they wouldn’t use that either, until my hubby put the fluffy thing in there, and now they go in to suckle, but sleep either on top of the wooden cat tree my hubby made, or in the kitty castle.

Lily pending…

(In my hubby’s pending tray in his office!)

Together on the scratching post, looking like two little meerkats on a train.

They are getting on quite well with the clicker training but both tend to have off days when they won’t concentrate! Also, when I try and put what they have learnt into practice in a situation where there are distractions that they find far more interesting, they behave as if they’ve never heard of clicker training! We persevere, though.

A couple of weeks ago they discovered what fun you can have for a minute or two with a new roll of loo paper.

The latest video of them, wrestling on the scratching post.

Health update

I got the result of my recent CT scan this week and the hernia has definitely returned. The emergency repair done in February when I was admitted for emergency surgery because of a blockage, has not even lasted a year. I knew it would fail eventually. I am seeing my surgeon again soon, according to his letter, and we will discuss options then. I really hope he agrees to admit me for elective surgery for a proper repair, and doesn’t wait for another blockage…

Zentangle–Gold Fold

The other day I decided to experiment further with the tangle “Paradox” and was trawling through Pinterest for inspiration, when I came across something related, from Margaret Bremner, and was captivated! I just had to try this…

I have called this piece “Gold Fold.”

I just love how the addition of some shading makes a design spring into 3D!

Tangles in this piece include Striping, Elven, D’eneh, Footlites and Barberpole, and I have added some dewdrops (my first attempt) and various random elements of my own devising. Elven and D’eneh are new ones in my repertoire and I really like them. They are really 3D.

This also embraces my ongoing interest in improving my ability to draw shiny reflective surfaces. I have learnt that the secret to this is to make as much contrast as possible, something I haven’t been brave enough to do in the past! After working on this piece for a while, I went back and added more intense shading and this helped with the reflective elements as well as the general 3D-ness of the whole thing.

I drew this on the iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil, using Procreate, and it’s taken me several days to complete. It’s the first one where I have created a textured background – I’ve saved this as a Zentangle tile template so I can use it again. I have only recently attempted drawing on a non-white background, and I love being able to add highlights as well as shading. I am also thinking more about “white space” in my designs – like many people, when I first started, I thought the idea was to fill every space with tangles, but I think this approach sets off the individual patterns better, and allows them to speak for themselves.

I must get back to practising Paradox, though! It’s a pattern which has always been a problem for me!

The Return of Miss Piggy

I had a letter from the hospital today, from Mr. Pullan, my surgeon, with the result of my recent CT scan. As I’d thought, and had not worried about at all, was the absence of any malignancy, but the parastomal hernia is “substantial.” The last CT scan showed that some fat had come through, and Mr. Pullan has been keeping an eye on me. Now it has returned, he says that if I experience further symptoms, it will need to be repaired, and he is going to see me later in the year, and we need to keep in touch.

I do not really want things to get worse before it is repaired. If I have to wait for another blockage to occur, this will mean another emergency operation like I had back in February, when the only surgeon available was a general surgeon who was not qualified to insert the reinforcing mesh around Kermit, my stoma. (What else would I call the hernia but Miss Piggy?) A repeat performance would be disastrous because there’s a limit to how many times you can do this, and I could end up with Kermit being moved to the other side, with even further risk of herniation. What I want is to have elective surgery, performed by Mr. Pullan, who is a specialist colorectal surgeon, who will do a more permanent repair with the mesh. I knew that sutured repairs, like the one I had at the beginning of the year, have an eventual 100% failure rate, but I didn’t expect it quite so soon – this has failed in less than a year.

The last thing I want is emergency surgery for which I am unprepared, and already weakened and very poorly as a result of a blockage. What I went through at the beginning of the year was quite horrendous and I think Mr. Pullan is as anxious as I am to avoid that, but he is not prepared to operate unless it’s absolutely necessary because of the associated risks with major surgery.

Anyway, we shall just have to wait and see. It’s all rather unsatisfactory to say the least! At least I know that another operation is pending, but it’s just a question of when.

At least today I am feeling a lot better with my M.E. and hoping it will last this time. I’ve had far too many days recently with extreme fatigue and brainfog and the resulting inability to do anything. It’s so hard to pace yourself because there’s always a lot of catching up to do after off days, and if you do too much, you end up with more post-exertional malaise and the need to rest again. Boom and bust… I was much better at pacing in the old days before I got cancer. When I was recovering after the end of my chemo I felt so well and wanted to do everything, and seemed to have lost the art of pacing, with predictable results!

To more cheerful things! Here are some photos of the kittens taken this afternoon, sitting on the scratching post which I’d brought into the kitchen for their daily clicker training. They are now 19 weeks old and getting so big! My hubby says they are growing, but not growing up – they are still utter babies!!

On high alert – my hubby was outside the kitchen window messing about in the patio and they were very interested in all the sounds coming from the open window! They look like two little meerkats on a train!

They are always together. When I separate them to do the clicker training, the one shut out cries – especially Ruby!

After our worry over Ruby earlier in the week when she was off her food, she is now fine again and is eating well. She was obviously feeling under the weather but the vet couldn’t find anything wrong, and she was obviously not sickening for anything, which is a relief.

I had a very busy morning and was cooking something that took rather a long time, and I had no end of trouble from two naughty kittens who kept rushing into rooms I’d shut them out of every time I opened the door! Lily was the worst offender and wouldn’t come out – they are like greased lightning when they don’t want to be caught, and even the sight of the clicker and the little box of treats took longer than usual to attract her more than what she was interested in. When they are focused on the training, they are pretty good and will come when called etc. but as soon as there’s another attraction, it’s a different story! This wasted a lot of precious time this morning, and we sat down to a very late lunch indeed!

Zentangle Again

Another day feeling poorly with my ME… just when I thought I was getting better this week! It seems to happen when I don’t actually have to do anything. I’ve obviously been overdoing things a bit “lately and as soon as it gets the chance, by body says “REST!!”

My lack of art has been getting to me recently, so today I got my iPad and Apple Pencil out and got back to tangling! I’ve been adding quite a few Zentangles to my Pinterest album over recent days and it’s got me fired up again to do some.

Rick and Maria, the inventors of the Zentangle method of drawing, recently uploaded a video with two different tangles interwoven, which was a new idea to me.

I was so taken with this that I thought I must give it a go. Rather than being tempted to follow what Rick did too slavishly, I deliberately didn’t watch the video again straight away, but did my own thing to see how I got on.

The two tangles are Paradox and Diva Dance. When I first started, I really struggled with Paradox and it always went wrong – I couldn’t seem to get my head round it! So I abandoned it, but I thought I really should get to grips with it and I think I’ve finally got it! Diva Dance was on my “to do” list, so this was a good opportunity to try my hand at both of them.

Here is my first effort (with only a memory of the video).

I got the basics of Paradox right, but didn’t follow Rick’s instructions to make each one a mirror image of its partner, so it’s a bit random and chaotic. I added quite a bit of shading and a different “front end” to the design and it ended up looking like some weird deep sea creature!

I decided to watch the video again and try and follow Rick’s instructions a bit better. If you go to the end of the video you can see his completed version, and compare it with my take.

This is the black and white version.

Doing the Paradox sections as mirror images does give the “gingko leaf” effect that I was after. Even with the shading, I didn’t think there was quite enough contrast between the two tangles, and the woven effect didn’t show up too well, so I decided to add some colour.

This is the final result. I added some spots to enhance the watery effect of the Diva Dance.

I am quite pleased with this result.

I drew these on my iPad Pro, using the Procreate art app. It’s great because you can work in layers, and save the different stages as separate images – I tend to save the black and white version of my drawings, which I can then colour again and again to get a different effect.

In my first version, I drew the Paradox sections first, and then simply drew the Diva Dance over the top, and went back in with the eraser tool to give the woven effect. This is the lazy way! It could not be used when drawing in the traditional way with pen and paper of course, so for my second attempt, I followed Rick’s directions on the video and built up the two tangles simultaneously to get the woven effect, so that I could learn how to do it properly.

I hope any Zentangle purists out there aren’t throwing their hands up in horror, but there are definitely advantages in using the iPad Pro for Zentangles – working in layers enables you to put the string on the first layer, the actual Zentangle on the next, then the shading, and finally any colour. You can delete the string layer if it shows on the final drawing, and it’s very handy working in layers because if you make a mistake with the shading or colour, you can erase it without damaging the actual Zentangle. You can also zoom in for fine detail, and tidy up any careless pen strokes along the way. Drawing on the iPad takes as much skill as with pen and paper – more, in some ways, because even with a screen protector, the iPad doesn’t have much tooth and the Apple Pencil moves a little more freely on the surface than a pen on paper. It’s also not quite so easy to turn the drawing (or the whole iPad) as it is with a paper tile, as you work. Apart from being able to overlay lines and erase them to produce a woven effect, there aren’t too many shortcuts, and anyway if there were, I wouldn’t use them because the whole point of doing it is to enjoy the repetitive strokes, building up the pattern step by step. I do use the Paintstorm app to start my mandalas, though, because it has a nifty tool for repeating what you have drawn by a selected number of times around the circle, and this gives a nice even result, and takes a lot of the hard slog out of it – you do still have to draw the designs and I always colour each section individually on a separate layer.

I have made a Zentangle tile template on Procreate, and saved this. When I want to do a new drawing, I duplicate this file and work on the copy, so the template is available to use again and again. It is the standard 3.5 x 3.5 inches square and consists of the four layers mentioned above.

Procreate has just undergone a major upgrade and there are all sorts of new features I have yet to discover and try out. As far as I can see, there is now the ability to choose what sort of “paper” background to work on, rather than just a plain background colour – there are various textures etc. I am looking forward to trying some Zentangles on tan paper with a bit of texture.

I particularly like the ability to do Zentangles while I’m out and about (waiting for a doctor’s appointment, etc.) – I always take my iPad with me and I don’t need to take paper and pens.

Various Updates

I missed this week’s WOYWW unfortunately, and I’d have posted this if I’d managed to join in. I had a very busy day on Wednesday with a lunch out with friends, and after that, all I felt up to was editing a backlog of kitten videos. Yesterday I felt wiped out again and brainfogged. It’s a bit demoralising at the moment – I’m really busy on certain days, and then when I get a few days free to do the things I want to do (like art), I’m feeling too exhausted to do them and all I can do is rest. You’d think after nearly 11 years of ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) that I’d be used to this but there are times when it’s deeply frustrating…

First, our lunch out. Here’s a photo of my dessert!

It was called “Chocolate Trio” and consisted of a chocolate brownie, white chocolate mousse and Bailey’s crème brulee. I love how they’ve decorated the plate with swirls of melted chocolate and fresh raspberries. I started with whitebait and for the main, I had their lamb and mint pie – the whole meal was absolutely delicious. We had a great time together – we are the Allerton Three – the three friends who met in hospital (Allerton Ward) back in March 2013 when we were all in for our cancer operations. We’ve remained firm friends ever since, and try to meet up regularly, although it doesn’t always happen because we are all so busy!

I haven’t taken many photos or videos of the kittens lately – also due to busy-ness and fatigue. They are now 18 weeks old and are getting so big! Lily is still larger than Ruby, and over the last week I’ve noticed a change in her – she is growing the most fantastically soft coat! Her fur is fluffier than Ruby’s and feels like silk chiffon – very fine and just fabulous. It’s probably developing as she starts to grow her first winter coat.

Lily is also proving to be more intelligent than Ruby. She is doing really well with her clicker training, but Ruby tends to get confused, and do things I’m not actually telling her to do at that moment! They both vary as far as their attention span is concerned – if there’s anything else going on (like a fly in the room, or if they are too wild, or too sleepy) they get very easily distracted and wander off! Also, they are pretty good during training sessions, but during the rest of the day they are hopeless and seem to forget everything they’ve learnt!! Never mind, I shall keep persevering, because I know from what loads of people online are saying, this really does work, and a bit of hard work reaps great rewards. They will improve as they get older, I think, when they are less babyish and easily distracted by things to play with!

My hubby says Ruby is a happy little kitty who says “Hello sky, hello clouds…” and is very loving and affectionate. Lily is more independent but she enjoys a cuddle too.

The latest photos.

Lily in the hammock, aged 15 weeks.

Lily relaxing on the cat tree at 16 weeks. With her arms hanging down like that, she reminds me of Chloe, who was Phoebe’s sister – she always used to lie like this!

Here’s Chloe doing it.

Also at 16 weeks, here is Ruby sitting on the cat tree. Queen of the Castle.

This is what happens when I try to work on my laptop. They both want to come up for a cuddle and there isn’t a lot of room – I have to push the computer away a bit. They are 17 weeks old here.

Here they are together on the cat tree. Ruby on top, Lily below.

The final two were taken on Wednesday. Here is Lily with her head stuck in my shoe! They say cats have a much more sensitive sense of smell than we do. If I needed it, here’s the proof that I haven’t got smelly feet!

Not sure what she thought was so interesting in there!

Unfortunately, the kittens have now discovered loo paper…

Not sure who was guilty of this little feat, but we discovered it when I got home from my lunch out on Wednesday. I had put a new roll up in the morning. I have now wound it all back on! We are now making sure that there is no “tail” hanging down from the roll to tempt them. Anything that dangles is fair game, it seems.

They can now get up on the kitchen worktops so nothing’s safe up there any longer either!

This morning a friend from our monthly cancer Cakeathon meetings held one of the national coffee mornings in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support, and several of us from the group went along. I wish I’d taken a photo of her table, groaning under the weight of so much CAKE!!! I’m afraid I made a right pig of myself – cake is so irresistible! I justified it by reminding myself that it was all in a good cause! I took along a lemon drizzle cake. Her house was full of her lovely friends and we all had such a great time. She was thrilled that we’d turned up to support her. When we arrived, she’d strung bunting outside her house – supplied in the pack that she got when she signed up to host a coffee morning, and there was more bunting inside, and balloons.

As usual, no time or energy for art, but I did manage to put a few stitches in my embroidery. Here’s the latest piece I’m working on. The French knots around the design are worked in gold – unfortunately this doesn’t show up as shiny on the photo as it is in real life.

I’ve still got quite a lot of these little pieces to do before I can assemble them into the bed drapes I’m making.

I’ve also been very busy preparing sessions for my Bible study group which resumed meeting formally again this month. It takes much longer to prepare each session than it does to teach it!!

Last Sunday we were invited back to our old church to share in their harvest celebrations. I’ve done a separate post about that. It’s such a lovely little church and special because Dad’s funeral was held there.

We are going to the harvest at our new church this coming Sunday.

My poor studio has reverted to a dumping ground and is gathering dust. I really hope I can get back in there during the coming week – this is getting ridiculous!

Harvest Festival at our Old Church

Today was Harvest Festival at the church where we used to live, and we were invited back to share in the service and the harvest lunch afterwards. It is such a pretty little village church and they had decorated it so tastefully and beautifully so out came my camera! The theme was definitely a golden colour with lots of my favourite sunflowers.

This church is particularly special for me because it was here that we held my father’s funeral in 2013. They have an excellent organist who is also such a nice man, and he played many of my dad’s favourite Bach pieces and Dad would have been so thrilled.

Going back again was a very happy event! Everyone was so welcoming and it was lovely to see so many old friends again. During the service I got my fix of my favourite harvest hymns and Tom, the vicar, preached an excellent and heartwarming sermon about seeing God in the little things in our everyday lives and being thankful, and for a short pause being able to concentrate on our being together and enjoying good things, in the midst of a world that is so full of evil and chaos.

After the service, the pews were pushed back (they are all on lockable casters) and tables were set up and laid for lunch in double quick time – they use the nave of the church as their village hall and it’s amazing the instant transformation! We were served delicious home made cottage pie followed by apple crumble and custard – nothing better than that for a village harvest festival!

It was a very happy day all round.

WOYWW 432–More on Infusions Mini-Album

Finally managed to put in some studio time! These kittens of ours do take up a lot of time! Today we’ve had visitors morning and afternoon to see them, and needing cups of tea etc. and lots of chat! I’ve also been busy with other things and very tired in between, and as usual, art ends up at the bottom of the heap, but last night I was determined to get back to it again and I’ve made a bit more progress on the tags for my Infusions samples album.

Here’s my desk as it was last night. Not a lot of change since you last saw it!

Working on the tags, this is the front of the first tag in the “Painting” section.

I drew a rough curly shape and painted it with The Sage and Emerald Isle from Set 1, and Slime and a little In the Navy from Set 2, finally sprinkling on a tiny amount of In the Navy in the circular spaces, and then added text with my white pen.

Turning the tag holder and tag over, I made a tag to go with the “Woodgrain effect” page, but instead of going straight across with broad strokes with the fan brush, I added a bit of a curve for interest. I used Golden Sands from Set 1, and Rusty Car from Set 2 for this tag, and again added some text with my white pen, and outlining the larger text with a black pen. To the right, you can see the small square I painted with what was left of the Infusions mixed with water on my craft sheet.

Below, you can see the Tartan effect tag with its page, which is the second “Painting” page. For this I used Are You Cerise and Violet Storms from Set 1, and created the text in the same way as before. The mop-up square is on the right, and I later added some more to this one.

Turning over both page and tag, I used Lemoncello and Emerald Isle from Set 1 on the tag, to echo some of the colour on the painted fans on the page, and added text as before. The mop-up sheet is above.

Moving on to the “Stamping” section, for the front of the tag to go in this title page, I just used Rusty Car from Set 2, after first spritzing the tag well with water, and adding more water after the Infusions had gone on. There is no text on this side of the tag but I wanted it to tone with the page when it was pulled out.

Finally, the back of that tag, having turned over both page and tag, to show the page with simple stamping onto a background already created with Infusions, in this case The Sage from Set 1, with text as before. Above is the mop-up sheet, which was the purplish one from above.

These mop-up sheets will be used to make cards or be used in other projects. I hate to waste any Infusions that are on the craft sheet!

Kittens

Our kittens are 16 weeks old today. How quickly the time is going. They are growing fast, and very energetic in the mornings and evenings, and tending the crash out asleep during the afternoon, so our afternoon visitors don’t see them at their most fun!

I’ve just realised that I didn’t take any photos or videos of them at all last week! They haven’t really done anything new, except grow! They are progressing well with the clicker training but it still tends to go out the window when they’re not actually in a training session and there are other distractions. They will usually come when they are called, though, and they now understand “Jump up!” and will come on my lap. I am still working on trying to get Ruby to use the scratching post, and we’ve got as far as her putting her paws on it on the command “Scratch!” but she hasn’t actually “scratched” yet! I’ve got some stuff on order which I can put on the scratching post which should encourage her to use it properly, in preference to the carpet.

We’ve had quite a few visitors wanting to see them which is very nice – everybody is enjoying them and saying how pretty they are! Ruby continues to be my baby and always wants to come and sit with me, and if Lily is already on my lap, she makes sure she comes up higher than her, so that she can have prime position as close to me as possible! It’s very flattering, especially after so many years of watching both kitties all over my hubby and not wanting to come to me – last night my hubby looked over at the 3 of us and said, “I want a kitty…” and looked sad, and I said, “Now you know how I felt all those years!” I do spend a lot more time with them than he does, as he’s so busy and is out and about a lot.

Health Update

I had my CT scan last Friday and am waiting for the result. I am pleased that my surgeon is keeping such a close eye on me, and he’s as anxious as I am to avoid a repeat performance of my emergency surgery at the beginning of this year. I’m pretty sure that hernia repair is failing as it doesn’t feel right, but it’s all pretty inconclusive. He will continue to monitor it, and I just hope that he is available when it does fail, so that he can do the operation and put the mesh in to protect the area.

Cooking

We are in the throes of dealing with masses of apples off our tree. I can hardly keep up! My hubby, being a lot braver about creepy crawlies and worms and things than I am, does the initial peeling and chopping, and then I slice them more finely. This year, I have decided to freeze them uncooked rather than stewed as I did last year, because they will be more versatile and I can use them in apple cake and other things. Once they are sliced, they are laid out in a single layer on baking parchment on baking sheets and then frozen. Once they are frozen, they are put into big bags as separate slices, so I can take as much out as I need at any one time. It’s quite a lot of work and pretty cold, dealing with the frozen slices, too! I can’t do too many at once or I can’t get the baking trays into the freezer. I’ve now got 3 big bags full and there are still quite a lot to do! It’s all taking quite a lot of time.

I haven’t done much baking recently but we’ve got our monthly Cakeathon meeting with the cancer group this Friday, and this time I’ve decided to make scones – I’ll make 2 batches, one plain to have with jam, and one cheese. I’ll probably get some cream before Friday so we can have a proper Devon cream tea!! They don’t take long to make so I’ll probably whip them up on Friday morning.

Diet and New Clothes

Getting out my clothes for cooler weather, I find that quite a lot of them are hanging off me, having lost so much weight with my diet. Several pairs of leggings won’t stay up any more (since starting my diet I’ve lost 10 inches around my waist!!) and they are all wrinkly round the legs, making me look like Nora Batty. I needed new trousers too, and new bras, so my hubby took me down to Marks & Spencer’s last week and I got some lovely new stuff! I am also no longer singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and have decent Uplift from my new bras!! I haven’t managed to shed any more pounds over the past 3 weeks which is a bit frustrating but slow and steady is best, and I have every hope that I’ll lose the final 3 pounds before long.

We’ve been out for lunch with friends this week too, and I’ve had the engineer to repair a small fault on the stairlift, and I’ve been very busy getting sessions ready for my Bible study group which resumes in earnest on Friday. This Saturday I’ve got an Ileostomy Association meeting in Somerset, so it’s all go, Chez Shosh. Hopefully I’ll get time to do some more art as I really want to finish the Infusions album now.

Have a great week, everybody.

The Kittens are Fourteen Weeks Old

On Wednesday our kittens were 14 weeks old. My hubby took them back to the vet for their booster inoculations and they got weighed and generally examined again.

My hubby told me that throughout the time, from the moment they were put in the cat carrier to the moment they arrive home, they made no noise and behaved impeccably throughout! They were both very relaxed at the vet’s and did everything they were supposed to do.

When she examined them she said how clean they were. She asked whether we had used the flea spray she’d recommended last time and my hubby reported that I had been puffing them with diatomaceous earth, and she couldn’t find any evidence of fleas on them. This is a much gentler, less toxic approach as it kills the fleas mechanically by interfering with their exoskeletons, rather than chemically, which involves spraying poison onto the kitties. Last time she recommended keeping them apart for an hour or two to prevent them washing each other, but I thought, “What’s to stop them washing themselves?” I wasn’t a bit keen on the idea. The diatomaceous earth is food grade and is actually used as a food supplement, and is totally safe. Ruby isn’t over-keen on being puffed but Lily takes it all in her stride, and anyway the procedure takes only seconds, and then a quick rub up and down to make sure the powder spreads through their fur, and they’re done.

They have both gained weight as they have grown, and they have now, as my hubby put it, “broken the kilo barrier”! Lily is still a bit heavier than Ruby, and they now weigh 1.33 kg (0.98 kg last time), and 1.23 kg (0.84 kg last time) respectively.

The vet was very pleased with them and said how relaxed, happy and well adjusted and healthy they both were. They are clearly very happy little kittens, enjoying a good life with us – and we are certainly enjoying having them! They are eating, sleeping and playing well, and have lots of stimulation, and they are enjoying their clicker training. My hubby told the vet about the clicker training and she said, “That’s good.” It is a very positive experience for all animals.

They must have been tired after their outing to the vet, because they both settled down to sleep while we ate our supper – Lily back in the flat, on top of the home-made cat tree, and Ruby… well:

Every day, my hubby puts the teddies out in the front window so that people walking along the street can see them and wave at them.

At the end of each day, they get brought in, and packed into a box (with an overflow now we’ve got so many!). Ruby was very intrigued with the box of teddies and spent some time tramping about all over them, and then settled down and went to sleep!

Here’s the video I made of her doing it this evening.

Since last week we’ve been letting them into our sitting room, having taken one or two kitty-proofing precautions. They were much more relaxed as they first explored the room, than they had been when they first arrived, or when we first let them into the main part of the house, when they appeared very timid. To start with, they both wandered around the room, obviously very interested and alert, but not a bit nervous. We have now moved the big cat tree that I got on Ebay into the sitting room, and this should keep them stimulated and hopefully off the rest of our stuff, and also give them somewhere new to sleep.

For the foreseeable future, we aren’t letting them in there unsupervised, until they are old enough to act responsibly! So far they are both pretty well behaved in there, though. We are letting them through into the house most days now, when we are around to supervise them, and they are enjoying climbing on the big cat tree.

Clicker Training Progress

Lily’s training session didn’t go too well the other day – there were too many outside distractions, and she was easily diverted and became bored. I didn’t pursue it for many minutes – after her outstanding performance the previous day, she was entitled to a bit of a day off! We all get off days, after all. Ruby, on the other hand, did well, and consolidated the previous day’s progress, and they’ve both done pretty well since. Ruby is getting the idea of associating the word “Scratch!” with the act of putting her paws on the scratching post, now with just the word, but originally only when the command was associated with the use of the target. The next step will be to get her to actually “scratch”! I am also going to get some stuff to put on the scratching post to encourage her to do it. Lily has been using the scratching post with no encouragement from us from the very beginning but Ruby prefers the carpet. I have asked my hubby to make a sloping platform with some rough matting on it which she might prefer to a vertical scratching post.

Both will now “Sit!” on command, and I am trying to get them to learn to jump up on my lap with the command “Jump up!” but so far, using the target, they reach up and dig their claws into my leg, which is definitely NOT what I want to train them to do! More work is required, I think! I think the best way is to teach them to jump onto an object (e.g. the scratching post) first, and then progress to my lap.

The trouble is, they will only do what I want during the actual clicker training sessions. Once they are back in the flat, busy playing and being distracted by each other, everything goes out of their heads and they don’t remember anything! I am sure things will improve with practice though – it’s a long process and requires patience, but eventually, during the training sessions, things will get so ingrained that they become automatic regardless of outside distractions – or at least, that’s the hope!

With every day that passes, we get to know these adorable kittens better as their personalities and individual preferences and habits develop, and we love them more and more. I simply can’t imagine life without them now!