Snow day

Furry cat and snow cat

Today we woke up to the biggest snowfall in the UK for the last 18 years.

Last night Dan and I were watching the snow coming closer and closer by local people’s Twitter updates. No snow was settling when we went to bed, but this morning it was at least 2 inches thick and lovely and powdery.

Work advised us to work at home today, so Dan and I and the cats have all been huddled in the warm. It’s interesting to see what the cats think of snow. Artemis has seen it all before so he has just curled up in a tight ball on the futon. This is Callie’s first experience of snow and he didn’t appear in too much of a hurry to go out in the cold and experience it. But he followed me outside when I went out to make my snowcat and spent a little time chasing snowballs and slip-sliding around the decking.

The snowcat was made for a competition with work chums. My hands were freezing by the end. Mostly because I dabbed the nose and eyes and ears on by hand in food colouring.

The obligatory snowball fight occurred between Dan and me on the way to Tesco’s I won because he’s too nice.

It’s snowing again now but only settling slightly.

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Projects: Pottery painting cat bowls

The Crockery, a store which used to be located in Southampton, is now 5 minutes walk away in Eastleigh. They provide pre-made, white clay bowls, plates, etc. and the glazes for you to use to decorate them. You sit in the store and paint the pottery and then leave it with them to be fired. In five days you have your own personalised pottery.

I went to the store on Thursday to pass some time painting. Almost everyone else who came into the store when I was there was a new mum wanting to put her baby’s hand/foot on a plate/mug. I don’t have a baby, so I had to make do with creating something for my surrogate babies – the cats. I painted two bowls to be used for cat food bowls. They’re supposed to look like the cats’ markings: a ginger bowl for Artemis and a black and white bowl for Calliope.

New addition – Calliope

Today we got a new kitten. Technically she’s my birthday present, but it’s been quite a few months between my birthday and kitten season. But she’s here now and her name is Calliope.

Maybe a bit of a poncy name for a cat, it certainly got a WTF-silence from the lady at the vet’s. There is a reason though. Our existing cat, a four year old ginger male, is called Artemis, originally after Artemis Fowl the notorious child genius. (Incidentally I just noticed that there’s a new Artemis Fowl book due soon – yay!) So for naming a new cat if we wanted to stay on theme we either had to go with evil child geniuses or Greek gods/goddesses.

Evil child geniuses being thin on the ground we went for the Greek theme: Calliope is chief of the muses. Hopefully this little cat will be a kind of muse to me in my writing. Or at least not a hindrance like Artemis is, with his habit of laying all over the keyboard whenever I’m working.