Tote Amaze Balls

Apart from the fact that the last few days have looked stunning with blue skies.

It's absolutely amazing the rest of our furniture order finally came this afternoon.
We are now the proud owners of "Stuff" to fill the kitchen again.

It was part of a large order for new furniture back in November.
Flooding has a lot to answer for.
We were really thankful at the time although all of our downstairs furniture had to go because of flood water we were left with a couple of chairs and an kitchen table. Although they were water damaged they were better than nothing. We scrubbed and disinfected them, but Pine furniture tends to act like a candle wick, the chairs legs had drawn up so much brown water that they were beginning to crumble...Our new table and chairs have come in the nick of time. Now we really are back to normal after last October's floods.

Our parcel to Cambodia made it in three days, at the second attempt and with another courier, somewhere along the line we wonder if it met our new furniture coming the other way from Vietnam

This isn't an exotic beach in a far away place, it's Perranporth beach last week.

We seem to be having an unusually high amount of spam on our comment pages.
I have deleted all that has been found so far, but as usual my fingers in haste to make it go away as quickly as possible also mistakenly deleted genuine comments. 
The kind blogger who left an award for Freya you were one of the casualties... Freya as usual will take all the attention she can get and more on top, thank you for her award and if you would like to get back in touch, Freya will only be too happy to accept and say a proper thank you.

You can find Freya is over at the catflap cavalier.

There are a few dissruptions  going on outside of the cottage next week... as usual, camera to hand and loads and loads of photo's to come...  Thanks guys for all your wonderfully uplifting comments that you make, I'll try hard to only delete the real spam next time............. :-) X X X

Pass the parcel

Or you could get your very own retired man to go back and forth posting parcels via the post office.

Just like this one.
Except, this one was last seen being loaded into a Federal Express van outside of the cottage on the first of February. Loaded into the van with all the custom notes and the address of where it was supposed to go...it didn't go as far as it should have done...  This is it, the same parcel a few minutes of coming back to us... I'm impressed good parcel packing.

This little knitted doll and mad monkey (and other stuff), are very well travelled. They all made it as far as Singapore and then all the way back home to the cottage in one week. That's not bad going, aren't trackers on parcels great ?

We had visions of never seeing the box or contents ever again. The courier even refunded the postage costs because the parcel only went as far as Singapore and not all the way to it's destination. BRILLIANT. They would have refunded even more if we wanted to re send the parcel with them again... Er, no, we think we will try another courier, well you never know, second time lucky. So Cambodia off you go on Monday box, and monkey and knitted doll and stuff.

No baby soap and okay I even took out the dog chew for Steven and Erica's little dog Mr Bean !

Freya is over at the catflap cavalier, she managed to take time out from her busy T.V. viewing schedule to visit Plymouth during the week.

Cat dreams

There are dog dreams and cat dreams... each one is a very special moment.. just as cats and dogs are very special to us..  ( I SEE YOU FRANKIE DE TABBY !)

MEW CAT - Caroline Bletsis painting

We are normally quite laid back here at Soggibottom cottage.

There are however some things that catch our attention.

A water colour painting of Mew Cat was delivered to the SOGGIBOTTOM cottage a few days before Christmas last year.  Unwrapping the parcel left Tony and I completely speechless.

I know Caroline had taken my photo of Mew and had painted her. Caroline had told me, she was welcome to the photo. I don't mind anyone borrowing photo's from our blog, as long as they tell us.

Mew was a creature of habits. A cottage cat who was for so many years part of our lives.

Mew was a three week old kitten when she was found in an empty field by a dog walker on a very wet day. The dog walker took Mew to a friend of mine who had a cat sanctuary. One very wet Sunday my friend called to asked if we could foster a kitten until a home was found. A three week old kitten needed to be fed every few hours.. probably more when she needed. I replied that we have a pup you know....

You know what cats and dogs are like..
 Okay, fine, we will take her.
When can you bring her round.. ?

The day before we had been to a wedding. It had rained and I know Ray and Jane are reading this, because Ray always checks in here... it was a beautiful wedding no matter that it rained all day. At the same time, as I think back, that was the day when Mew was found..

My friend came in the front door of the house.. not Soggibottom I feel I must add here.
There was Mew.
A small bedraggled little nose.. it was her pink nose that I could see as my friend had her wrapped up in a scarf. I should add I had had two previous tabby cats. Black cats were the norm in the house that we used to live in.

When Mew arrived, we had one very large black Grace labrador, one small puppy cavalier called Amie Soto Blossom, one Frankie de tabby kitten and a very old cat called Tiddles, before anyone thinks it, no, Tiddles,  never did.

So there was this little scrap that slept beside me every night with the pup. A kitten so young away from her mother never learns the graces of being a cat.... Mew wasn't dog like like Frankie de tabby, she was always a cat, yet one that couldn't balance as normal cats do. She wasn't a cossetted kitten as normal kitten's are, mother cats do cosset their off spring, we looked after Mew, Amie looked after Mew. When  Mew was old enough to be rehomed..  The call came.... One bleak day......
I think at the precise moment Mew had taken a liking to draping herself around Tony's neck..

She is fine, she is happy, we are quite happy to keep her came my reply to the phone call from my friend..
MEW STAYED..
Mew and Amie Soto Blossom became such friends how on earth could we separate them.

. 
Here she is, I had to dig deep into our photo library to find this particular photo. It's not the actual one that Caroline took her painting from. Mew had one of eye's open in the photo and painting.

It's not this one either.

Mew had a paw trick, she was addicted to cheese.

Such strange things come through the post.. Good things.
I wonder if Caroline knows how much she made us both shed a tear. What a beautiful thought to send us the original painting of Mew (CAT).  Especially last Christmas. We have such good friends.
You can find the painting of Mew and the link to Caroline on the side bar of the blog.
Amie Soto Blossom and Mew, Soggibottom Cottage are all linked. Along with Frankie de tabby.
Freya Rose Blossom is showing off her nifty knits at the  catflap cavalier.

 To Mew and Cheese...
 Thanks Caroline x x x You will never know just how much that painting meant to us.

Dances with the cat flap cavalier

Marley Wynn's New Bear. Tips for photograping teddy bears.

Tips for photographing teddy bears.
I haven't got any except aim the camera and click.

Something like this maybe. I've heard that you should have light behind your subject .A white background is preferable too. Maybe a white sheet and not as I have used, a white towel.

You wouldn't show a photo of your bear like this.

This doesn't work. Frank shouldn't be there.
Frank was quite happy in the window until he saw Freya near the new teddy bear.

Talking about putting the bear in the shade and how photographs can be deceiving.

This is a photo Frankie de tabby can't muscle in on.
Marley Wynn our new granddaughter.
Your teddy bear is all ready Marley, you just need to come and pick her up. 

 We have at last joined the rest of the country and had a flurry of snow this morning.

Much too cold for ratty ol fluffy cats, dogs and teddy bears to be out and about Frank.
Freya Rose Blossom can be found over at the catflap cavalier helping out Devon German Shepherd Rescue.

Never put off for tomorrow the things you can do today

Never put off for tomorrow the things you can do today. The saying goes something like that, or, in our case, put off the things you should be doing until tomorrow and go out.
The splodge in the middle of the photo, isn't anything on your screen. Don't go trying to wipe it off, it's a rain drop on the camera lens.

Snow, what snow ?

Living in the South West of England does have it's advantages even in January. This might not be the height of Summer, but we had the beach almost to ourselves.

Going across the Dartmouth ferry yesterday things were a bit grey.

We drove along the coast road, pass Blackpool sands yesterday. Why they call this beach Blackpool sands we haven't a clue. No sand here, the beach is made of small pebbles. It looks even better from this view in the Summer. Except the place is always very full in June, July and August. NO DOGS ALLOWED.

We normally stop further along at Slapton Sands. No sand here either, the beach is made up of the same small pebbles.

This was the beach we were headed for yesterday, Bigbury Bay and Burgh Island.

The Pilchard Inn looked very quiet yesterday. The tractor that normally takes holiday makers across the causeway when the tide is in had been safety put away for the Winter.

As I said, SNOW ?
What SNOW ?

A whole post not mentioning anything to do with dirty coloured water.

Two weeks into January 2013, the cottage garden has bulbs starting to sprout. We even had a daffodil in flower, unfortunately some bug got there before I did and promptly devoured some of it.

 For all those that ask after Frankie de tabby. At the moment he is fine, just as fluffy and cantankerous/catankerous as ever. He hasn't brought in any of his furry friends to play with lately, so that's a blessing in it's self. The novelty of dashing around after one of Franks live catches soon wears off,  especially when the mouse always seems to get the better of you.and gives you the slip. The hours we must have spent, because no one goes anywhere until Frank's furry friend has been caught and taken outside again.. alive if we can get to them before Frank. 

He has elevated himself from sitting on a concrete floor before Christmas to a place that is slightly higher and more comfortable as you can see.
Most things in the cottage have returned to normal after last October and November floods. The laptop sits in a place where Frank finds it easier to walk across the keys as I type. That's not so good as he still has large heavy paws.

Some Freya Rose Blossom mohair arrived a few days ago, a new Soggibottom bear coming soon.

Freya is well, full of beans, we still need eye's in the back of our head for some of the things she gets up to.  I wasn't going to mention she managed to devour half of a ten pound note a few weeks ago. No side effects or lose change in return.
At least she left the serial numbers so that was something to be thankful for.
She is up and about and over at CATFLAP CAVALIER. 
Freya has a television fetish at the moment, some dogs do, some don't. There is never a day that goes by without her making us laugh, ten pound note or not. She has grown into a beautiful bold, outgoing, brave, faithful, fluffy headed, sandy pawed Cavalier, just as she should be, we wouldn't have her any other way.