My cats, Socks and Tink? Where do I start?

In cat years they're 37, mentally they're about 4.

They're brother and sister. Socks, the boy, is the hunter, the aloof one, sits on no one's lap but mine (when, and only when, he deems it necessary). Tink, is the girl, she's petite, a bit daft, scared of her own shadow, a total flirt (especially with the male hoomins) and sleeps on my pillow every night.

They wake me up at stupid o'clock, claw at me for food, cover everything in fur or mud, often both. They ignore the scratching post in favour of the coffee table legs and they fight. Noisily. In the middle of the night.

Socks drags animals through the cat flap, he eats half of his prey and leaves the rest for me to find.

Tink brings in the teeniest tiniest mice, drops them on the carpet, looks at me for approval and then trots off for a nap (hunting is tiring work), leaving me to play the game of 'catch and release'.

They have ruined countless clothes with their claws and worry me silly by disappearing for hours in the summer evenings.

But I love them, they make me laugh, calm me down, comfort me when I cry. They make my house a home. Nothing beats a cat curled up on your lap asleep and purring.

Socks once brought a weasel into the dining room, this little thing was fierce, it screamed and made a really, REALLY bad smell. This thing looked me straight in the eye as if to say 'touch me and I'll take your arm off'. I didn't fancy my chances. Out came the colander and the spare oven gloves (kept especially for occasions such as these) - trapped it, slid a magazine underneath (oven gloves on throughout) and set it down outside. Before running away he turned, sat up on it's back legs, let out a high pitched scream and looked at me - with his eyes he said 'sleep with one eye open' and was gone.

The smell lingered for ages.

Yep, I love my cats.

Now that I'm self employed, bank holidays don't feel the same as they used too but I love them none-the-less. I've done a smattering of work so that I'm on top of things but mostly, I've just done as I please. And for me that's what bank holidays have always been about, I hate the thought of a mad rush to go and do something or get away, I much prefer to keep it simple, just enjoy the time at home and avoid the crowds.

On Saturday I pottered in my greenhouse, I'm totally obsessed with my salad leaves and radishes that have sprouted and are growing at an amazing rate. The herbs have yet to really do anything much at all. I really think they need to try harder. I then pottered for a while and tried once again to eliminate some items from my wardrobe, it's a long running battle and one that I don't think I'm winning, but I refuse to give up just yet.

In the evening Mr WoJ and I went to a 40th party, it had a non compulsory 80's theme. I didn't dress up, I'm still in the process of trying to destroy all the evidence of my 80's fashion crimes so I wasn't about to add more fuel to that fire. The music was all 80's and the food too - monster munch (totally not as big as they used to be), party ring biscuits, pick and mix, iced gems - I was in heaven! It was a late night, we dropped into bed at 1:45am, which is utterly out of character. I love bed, I love sleep, I'm normally tucked up by 9pm with a book and a cat or two.

So, Sunday morning I didn't surface until 10am and my first duty of the day was to chat to a lady carrying out a wildlife survey on our pond - not easy in your PJs, a little hungover, with your wellies making fart noises with each step you take.

I then didn't do much until after a medicinal dirty Burger King, the sun inspired me to wash the greenhouse, I've been saying for ages that I wanted to do it, so when the inclination hit I just grabbed a sponge and bucket and off I went. It gleams now.


I spent today with my Mum, she came over and we sat making fairy wands. I mentioned the Guinness World Record attempt recently and we're making wands to sell to raise funds and as a way to advertise the event. It's amazing what you can do with a plant stick, some ribbon and sequins. In all we made 21 wands and consumed 6 cups of tea and an entire packet of Foxes Crunch Creams.

Now that's how to rock a bank holiday weekend.

This post is part of Elizabeth's Blog Everyday in May challenge.

It didn't take long for me to mess up and miss a day of this challenge - yesterday just came and went and I forgot all about it.

Today's topic is about how I stay fit and healthy?

*whistles and looks about the room, shuffles about a bit*

I'll say this - my running trainers are the cleanest footwear I own, I bought a skipping rope a few years ago and it's still in it's packet and my Cardio app has never been used.

Simply put I'm a fitness failure.

When it comes to eating, I try to limit the bad stuff and eat lots of fruit and veg. My promise to eat breakfast every day is often broken but I'm trying.

It's become apparent to me that this challenge is going to expose all my faults anf folibles!

It's been a lovely sunny day today, I've been taking it steady, just a little light gardening and nursing a small hangover - nothing too horrendous.

Hope you've had a lovely day.

Wake up with a cat in my face.
Get up.
Feed cats.
Make essential first cup of tea of the day.
Shower etc...
Make toast.
Remove cats from worktop.
Start working day by writing a to-do list.
Remove cats from keyboard.
Mid morning break - drink more tea and water seedlings in greenhouse, watched closely by boy cat, Socks, who falls asleep in a sun spot.
Remove other cat from keyboard.
Resume work. 
Finish every thing on to-do list.
Lunch - eat tuna and cucumber sandwich, watched at all times by both cats.
Resume work.
Remove cat from desk.
Get scratched lip while removing cat from desk.
Get distracted by Pinterest.
Give girl cat, Tink, the biggest of cuddles hoping that she'll slope off and sleep.
She doesn't.
Remove cat from desk.
Remove cat from desk.
Give up removing cat from desk.
Allow cat to sit on my arms.
Achieve nothing, but have warm arms.
Try to write this post by peering aeound girl cat.
Decide to learb to touc h type.
Try to distract cat with a pouch of Whiskers Bit and Chew.
Get exactly one minute of peace.
Give up trying to work.

Go to bed, get up and start all over again.

Yep, I LOVE working from home.

At 7:30am today I decided to sign up to Elizabeth's #BEDM challenge. Some of these posts will be (very) short, see yesterday's post, but it'll be nice to give my blog some much needed love and attention.


Today the topic is 'spring' and hasn't it been a long time coming! It's so nice to finally see some sun although it could be warmer, I love this season. It's a time that feels full of promise and hope, my energy and enthusiasm levels rise and I shrug off my winter fugg.

It's so nice to see things growing and turning green, I've planted some salad and herb seeds and they're already sprouting. It's such a treat to eat something I've grown myself, I have bigger plans for the greenhouse in the future but I'm keeping it small scale for now... too many balls in the air!

Are you taking part?

At the beginning of the year I anticipated change and a third of the way through the year, my life already feels entirely different, which is largely due to all the work nonsense. What followed was me setting up as a freelance designer. It started out being hectic, but it's pace has slowed a little now.

Before I would play out a scene which you are probably all familiar with - rushing around to get to work, rushing to meet deadlines throughout the day and then rushing home to find supper hasn't cooked itself (or managed to drag it's sorry arse out of the freezer). Evenings where spent crashed out, thinking about all the housework and exercise that wasn't getting done.

Looking back I was exhausted all the time. Running on auto pilot. And now that I have more time, what do I do? I berate myself for not living in a spotless house, with meals planned a week in advance, laundry done, blah, blah. Blah. How can these things not be done when I have All. This. Time? Why do we do this to ourselves? Put ourselves under so much pressure?

I have freelance work to do, I'm covering maternity leave for Bethanie and looking after her blog, I have this blog, I'm on the committee of a local charity, do any design work they need, run their social media and help out at fundraising events (including organising a clothes swap every six weeks), I have recently started working with a local company, setting up and running a social media campaign for a Guinness World Record attempt, for the largest gathering of fairies (in aid of the afore mentioned charity). I am slowly building my own website and am learning to crochet and trying to get through a mountain of unread books. In addition to all the house stuff.

So when I say I have 'all this time', I realise that that was just an expectation I had of not being 'in work'.

I love the freedom of being able to work at anytime of the day (or night) or go food shopping mid morning, when it's not so busy and have the flexibility to come and go as I please but the problem with having no set routine is that I can become unfocused and jump from one thing to another, on the flip side I easily become engrossed in something and before I know it hours have gone by, leaving no time for anything else.

A few months in and niggles surfaced. I was jittery and couldn't shake the feeling that I wasn't achieving anything. But this morning I realised that I'm in control, it's all entirely down to me. First of all I needed to give myself a break, let it go, shrug it off (an actual massive, who gives a damn, tension releasing shoulder shrug) and simply set out a bit more of a routine. I realise that so far the worst consequence of my 'failings' has been running out of bread on occasion - Mr Joy had to buy his lunch. And we've run out of milk a few times which means drinking herbal tea. And the house is a mess sometimes. Not exactly disastrous is it?

So, despite the randomness of my first few months as self employed, I've decided I'm doing okay.