Kittens. No, really, a whole post about kittens. With PICTURES! Also, how I accidentally came to have five cats.

I am neither a cat person, nor a dog person.  I've done all those on-line tests that pretend to tell you which side you come down on, and they've had to invent a whole new category for me, I think it was called 'Curmudgeonly Bugger', now I come to think of it. 

A Dog, picture courtesy of DD1 Vienna.  He's actually very intelligent, not that you'd know from this.

Despite this, I am the loving owner of two dogs, three hens and, accidentally, five cats.  We never meant to have five cats, five is a number dangerously close to 'insanity' when it comes to cats.  One cat is a cute lap-ornament.  Two cats are company for one another even if they spend all their down-time either glowering or fighting.  Three cats and your neighbours start looking at you in a funny way and any more than that and you spend all your time trying to keep them out of the butter dish and you can never put your laptop down without coming back to find all your documents deleted and 'fahtwohjdnjadsngio#' typed across your screen.

We had three cats, you see.  Well, we did have four, but we lost our little black and white Maggie-cat two years ago, of old age.  Now we were left with three boys, big, burly things, two of them that look like fists wrapped in fur and one huge, orange cat who's afraid of the other two and who eats broccoli and cucumbers if they are left unattended.  My daughter wanted a kitten.  Something cute and loveable and cuddly.

So we went to a farm and brought home this little bundle.

Who instantly hid behind a cupboard, coming out only to cry piteously between the hours of 7pm and 4 am.  My daughter, after experimenting with names that would fit and disregarding my suggestions of 'Invisible Entity' and 'Untouchable Noise Machine', called him Corvo.  Honestly, it was like having a teenager in the house; we never saw him. he emerged only to eat enormous quantities of food and he made an indescribable amount of noise during the hours of darkness.

So, what did we do?  Yes, people, we got another kitten.  Ostensibly to keep Corvo company.  In reality, so that we actually knew we had a kitten on the premises and weren't just being haunted by something that filled the litter tray.  So now we also have

cat number five.  Also known as Zac.  And, despite being a litter-mate of the unseeable Corvo, he is the complete opposite.  Zac, you see, is a People Cat.  He is also a Dog Cat, a Cat Cat and will, once he is allowed outside, no doubt prove to be a Chicken Cat.

I am sure you can see the drawbacks here. 

Corvo continues to be elusive, but has now emerged from the cupboard and is known, occasionally, to wind around my daughter's legs, purring.  He still won't come out of the room, but he and Zac are great friends and sleep together on the bed.  He must wonder where it is that Zac goes to when he leaves the room for long stretches of time, only to return smelling of cooked chicken and tuna and burping slightly, dragging a mouse on an elastic string, but he shows no sign of wanting to join these epic journeys.  So, I suppose you could say that we're less of a five cat household and more of a four and a half cat household.

Just never show us a Cats' Protection League leaflet. There's only so much the dogs can take...

I discover that Peter Capaldi is thicker than he appeared before. I mean three-dimensionally thicker, not stupid. He's not stupid at all, I don't think.

I want to know if this is A Thing, right...

Yesterday morning, up I jolly well woke from a pleasant dream of one of my workmates burying bodies in my garden (and me saying 'you'll have to bury them deeper, I've got dogs, they dig', which was realistic if not very helpful.  I could have got a shovel and helped dig) to thoughts of furniture.

My living room and dining room are, let's face it and not beat around the bush, just one big space.  My house is, basically, a corridor.  It's virtually impossible to put furniture anywhere without it being in the way of the fireplace, a door, the dog, other furniture, etc.  So we've been living with two sofas facing one another and the TV on one wall, the fireplace opposite. Imagine, if you will, something like a doctor's waiting room, only with a proper TV and a fire that's sometimes lit.  Which has meant that only two people at any one time could actually watch the TV (those two at the furthest end of the sofas from the TV).  Anyone else was sitting sideways on and had to sort of watch over their shoulders.  Add the fact that there was nearly always a dog sitting on one or more sofa cushions, and you have a recipe for disaster, or, at the very least, sore necks.

This is more or less all you can see.

So yesterday we had a grand rearrangement.  Honestly, we moved everything, including the dogs.  In consequence, last night I could watch Doctor Who face-on (I always thought Peter Capaldi was very very thin, turns out it was the way the screen bent.  He's normal sized if you watch him from the front), with a satisfactory fire burning, also in front.  Dusting was also perpetrated but don't worry, this won't happen again, it was only because we had to move a cabinet full of DVDs, most of which we can't remember a) buying or b) ever watching.

Much better than the thin black line I'd been watching.

So, is it an age thing?  Rearranging the furniture?  Like when you're pregnant and start nesting?  Or was I just properly sick and tired of only seeing half of Peter Capaldi?  Anyway.  We now have one three seater sofa, one four seater and one two seater, all in the same room and, by some fluke, they are all green!

If anyone knows how I can stop the five cats we now possess from occupying every single cushion, I'd be grateful.  By the time the cats and dogs are all sitting down, there's only two seats left...

And I have to sit on the floor.

A fabulous night at The Whitby Bookshop, where lack of planning means I am Recently Deceased, and a lovely picture of my melons.

Planning is not really my thing.  I mean, I'm lucky to get to work with my pants on, my trousers done up and not wearing my slippers, so anything more advanced than that is hard on me.  Which accounts for why Halloween arrived, the shops were all sold out of pumpkins, and I had two daughters desperate to do pumpkin lanterns.  Not that the daughters were part of the 'not planning' thing, they were born years ago, it's not like they just popped up or anything.  So, we did our best with a couple of melons and some scented candles - honestly, they made great lanterns and our neighbourhood smelled of Sandalwood for ages!

And then, last night, I was off with Kirsty Ferry, who's novel Some Veil Did Fall is just out and is set in Whitby, to do a little bookie-thing at the lovely Whitby Bookshop. It was Goth Weekend, so we were all set to dress up spectacularly but, owing to my aforementioned lack of planning ability, I found myself with full costume but a lack of make up which meant that, instead of the full Vamp Glamour I had intended, I was equipped only with one tube of foundation and a four pack of eye make up and had to go more for the Recently Deceased look.  Don't worry, you don't have to imagine it, there are pictures...

Yes, it's a corset.  Yes, I couldn't breathe properly, and, yes, I do look like someone stole my cab.  But there I am, with Falling Apart (not very aptly named on this night, since, with that corset on I could have been falling apart all over the place but everything was kept Most Firmly In Place).

Kirsty and I.  She looked all lovely and Gothic and everything, and had fabulous boots on, while I looked like a Victorian chimney sweep.

We were signing copies of our books and generally chatting to the passing populace, fuelled not inconsiderably by the wine and chocolate supplied by the bookshop.  That glass didn't empty itself, you know. Neither did the other one.  And you can see the whole 'Corset Effect' in action...

And now you can see the folly of trying to do something with one tube of foundation and a four pack of eyeshadow. No, not the curtains... those are real.  Oh dear...

Now, to cheer you up, here's a picture of my melons.