Coffee is my catnip

It is only very seldom that one catches one's postie sniffing your parcel before he hands it over and makes you sign for it but this is what he did this morning - and that can mean only one thing: post for the Coffee Fairy Fox!!!

Our kitchen here is a wonderful place - messy but never food-poisoning inducing, and equipped to the nines with all things sharp, all things stainless steel; every permutation of pot, pan, strainer and drainer; herbs in abundance, exotic spices by the dozen, and mugs decorated with Moomintrolls.

There is, however, one corner, by the fridge, that above all holds captive the attention of our visitors (see entry 19): the coffee corner, home, not only of Jeri the giraffe, but also the Coffee Fairy Fox. We've not seen her (feel free to email me with a picture though) but we know she's there, benevolent, doting thing that she is.

Here, in coffee corner, the merest touch of an unmarked button makes machinery lurch into life, makes it gurgle, wheeze, grind, growl, clack, bubble a cofee into existence. No-one knows quite how this is done: clearly, though, it is some kind of alchemy, some kind of wizardry, the nature of which we may never discern but darkly.

This morning's rare sighting of CFF's post brings us a small step closer to that unknowable truth, and I am humbled by even an imagined glimpse of that grander vision.

Mother of Fran

Weezer, Fran's mother, popped in to see us today, meowing mournfully as she trotted down the driveway which, today, was covered in melting snow. I don't expect she'd recognise Fran now, if they met in the garden one afternoon. To me, and it may be my imagination playing tricks, they'll always be a striking similarity between them and, because of that, there'll always be a can of pilchards at the ready.

The Truth About Catnip

Following the incisive comments made over at Henri's Corner, what can a dog of science do but carry out his own experiments, on his own subjects? Step forward Susie, Sootie and Fran. By the time she ingested her second helping of catnip, Susie was all but completely sedated; Sootie loitered behind her being giddy; and Fran, who's too small to know what all the fuss was about, rolled around saying, 'Man, I think I'm stoned', just a little bit too loudly to be entirely convincing.

For more information on catnip, or if you suspect your own cat of catnip addiction, please refer to the following page at Cat World.

In the spirit of a baby panda

I know that on the BBC's excellent Planet Earth series, there's going to be a baby panda. It's there on the trailer - that means it has to be in at least one episode. Unless, of course, the BBC is pulling a Jurassic Park, when the footage from the trailer wasn't in the movie... (and I was so looking forward to the amber mine scene)

Anyway, in anticipation of the anticipated event itself, I decided that I needed to discover what it was like to be a tiny panda. This is not a huge leap of imagination: I think baby pandas are about my size and I know enough black and white bambo-eating creatures (mentioning no names, Susie-cat) to take a stab at what most likely behaviour would be.

So here's a picture of me, pretending to be a baby panda.

Fran takes up gardening...

...and decided to begin with this pot...

Adventures of Fran Kitten

Second outing and, already, she's getting really brave...

One step, two step, and sniff of the rosemary pot

This morning, Fran got to go outside for the first time (since she was adopted - obviously, having been born at the bottom of the garden, she's been there already). She hovered on the threshold, muttering under her breath about this being a small step for cat but a giant leap for cat-kind, and then had a good sniff of the brickwor and the rosemary pot, which, evidently, was the most interesting thing around and demanded the most attention. Fran's nudging me and saying that, obviously, it was thyme, and high-thyme, too, that she got to go outside because she's very, very grown-up.

Beware the Eyes of March

Emma Rugg and her friends (Dimok, Phantasmion, Scalliwag) all had dinner at my house last night and brought their eyes. Can you guess whose eye is whose? Obviously, this is contingent on you having seen all their eyes before, otherwise how could you possibly be expected to identify them, but who said this was a fair game? :-)