Home is where the heart is........

A special blog for someone who will remain nameless, lets call her Betsy and anyone else who might just be wondering the same thing.

Where do I hang out when I am home?

 Above is one corner of my studio, the corner I sit at the torch.  My studio is in the garden under an enormous great tree that goes the most beautiful rustic reds in the Autumn.  I get lots of Jays, Sparrows, Magpies, Robins, Pigeons the odd duck and bird of prey in that tree too.

I took all these photos this morning, Sunday February 14th 2016, its not tidy in my kitchen, or anywhere in the house really I have been poorly for a few weeks and my husband has worked nights all week so cleaning has been a bit lapse.

When on my laptop writing, loitering on FB, wrapping beads for sending as well as eating, cooking - ok watching the husband cook - lighting fires  and a myriad of other tasks I am in the kitchen.  My kitchen is a big room, the dinning table at one end and the pantry at the other.  Three doors lead from the kitchen one to the utility room - no photos if the rest of the house is bad this room is strictly off limits! one to the pantry and the other by the fridge to the hall. The utility leads to a small shower room and a door takes you outside, this is the back door but is the front door as its most used and has the letter box.  Like my life the house is a bit back to front and upside down, perfect living really.

So, photo above facing the dining table, as you can see Iz and Defi have had breakfast and their raised bowl stand will be put away in a minute...  or two.  Can you see the prone shape on the fire hearth?  

The corner to the right of the dining table is where my book that I am currently writing is housed in a rather bespoke box that looks like an old encyclopedia, I love that box!

Facing the other end of the room, my rocking chair I stole from one brother who had stole it from our other brother.. they are twins and I am the eldest, I liked it, I pinched it, its been with me for about 20 years!  

The door on the left is the pantry the other door leads to the room of doom, otherwise known as the utility room...shudders at visions of mud splattered walls and dirty laundry....

The third door from the kitchen takes you into the hall and the monolith that is Gordy Towers is across the front door that we don't use.  A bookcase stands to the right and that is where the cats eat and the stairs take you to the bedrooms.  I like the glass doors, we have this one and the one from the hall into the living room which is on the left of Gordy Towers: the glass is always covered in nose prints and dribble and although they are smeared and in need of constant cleaning I can spy on Gordy when he is playing by himself in the hall, in turn he can sit and sulk at the door to come in when he is banished at cooking times!

My living room, bit of a mess!  this is the corner you could see from the door way and my 'end of the sofa'  I have drawing pads, pencils, crochet hooks, yarn and fish tanks.  I love my nursery fish tank on my old hexagonal table, one day I really will decorate this table in the style of the narrowboats.  I have said that for the 15 years I have had it!!

Close up of the 'stuff' on my table and its all mine.... 

Stuffed between the fish tank and the sofa, filling for crochet toys, my bag of hooks and my sewing box my son brought me for Christmas that has my fine threads in that I will probably hoard for a few years before using and my toys eyes.  NO ONE else in the house is allowed piles but I follow my own rules!

The fish tank and me still in my dressing gown and pj's!!

From the right of Gordy Towers in the hall, at the bottom of the stairs is a window that shows you the back of the garden.  The house sits not quite in the middle of the gardens so we don't have a front and back but this is to the back of the house, just a corner mind the garden is a lovely big size, surrounded by fields and country lane.  This is my studio shed under the big tree (right photo below) that is still quite bare.  My garden is not at its finest and this part faces North so it does get the wind and rain.

The left hand photo was taken from the window in the living room at the front and shows my very impressive bamboo and my sons van that is actually in pieces!!  Bloody kids!!  I can't show you the other end of the drive that wraps around the house and takes you back to the kitchen and utility because to be quite honest its a mess of mud, cars, wood for the fire...   Tucked in the bamboo is my bird table so I have some lovely movement and chirrping from this area.

Taken from the same window in the living room but pointing to the left of the garden, the sun was just rising this morning.  This is the gate that leads out onto the lane, that telephone line that stretches the length of the lane quite often has big rooks, ravens, crows, magpies, pigeons, owls, red kite and many other beautiful birds sitting on it annoying Defi and making him bark!

Remember the prone figure from above?  You guessed it just another morning protest at the lack of fire for his lordship!

...and on the table is the most recent copy of Gordy and Me in Cat World Magazine, I leave it there to remind the family what a fabulous writer I am and that I really need time to finish the book and do next months article.

How is that Betsy?  Now you know where I live and how, creativity chaotic!!

This blog post is part of the Creative Sunday Blog Hop hosted by Jill of Kiln Fired Art

Throw back Thursday, the last cats and Gordy.

I am not going too far back, just enough to remember Megan who left us in December 2012 aged 23, the lost and mentally abused cat that came to live with us back in April 1994, she was never a cat to have a cuddle, always wary, but at least she knew she was safe with us and she had, I hope, a happy life.

Then remembering our Claude who left us back in September 2013 aged 22, he very nearly got longest living cat in this house but missed it by a whisker.  Arriving on our doorstep back in 1995/6 he was around 1 years old, a happy chap, an amazing killer of wildlife and he had a swagger that kept foxy loxy away.

To Gordy, who arrived here a few weeks after Claude had passed, our little man with brain damage who has become an internet star loved around the world for his funny ways and sticking out tongue - which is not apparent in this photo, one of the first I took when he came here so he was still a bit bewildered but found his paws with Iz and Defi.

 



Defi just saying hello on the first day, the tongue is now out and dribbling.

A year on, Gordy is the baby of the family, always into mischief when he is not snoring on his many beds or in his castle in the hallway, loved by millions but mostly by us and he each month he writes for Cat World Magazine...with a little help from me.

 

 

There is danger on the horizon.

I, have always considered myself a dog person. The bigger, the hairier, the better.  I don't much like muddy paws, the stink of drying fur in the Winter, or waking up in the morning in my space on the bed showing my backside hanging over the side and exposed to the morning, or that twinge in my back that suggests I have been contorted in my sleep, whilst my lovely Goldens, Iz and Defi are stretched out full length, one across the bottom of the bed and the other down the middle with Gordy somewhere in the middle, all three snoring gently but not quite loud enough to cover the noise from the husband who doesn't seem to be sharing an inch of his side.

 

The argument would be to make the dogs sleep downstairs, or..shock...on the floor of the bedroom, which is the same banter husband and I have when I moan about my lack of space, to which he raises his eyebrows when I refuse to make my babies sleep on the cold hard floor; they do have lovely beds and castles but they all like to snuggle with me at night and who am I to stop them?

 

Throughout my childhood I lamented after a dog, all the homes I lived in - I had a 'collective' life when it comes to parents and surrogates; we never had pets, not a dog, cat, hamster, rabbit...nothing.  Once, when I was very young we had a goldfish, and before I can remember so was only told we apparently had a kitten called Mischief who sat on my head in the pram and I stopped breathing so my mother evicted her from the home.  Had I been more aware of this at that young age I most probably would have argued that she was comfortable and I should have moved.

 

So, as soon as was possible I got a dog.  Actually it was my boyfriend, now husband, who said we could have Ricky, my much loved German Shepherd, a handsome 9 month black and gold dog with issues.  Between us we had racked up a collection of small pets, a rabbit called Thumper, my collection of pet rats, a hamster named Hannibal the Cannibal on account he was aggressive, a lizard called Philpot that sadly had died and his fish tanks of piranhas and other underwater creatures, he being brought up with cats and dogs so it was second nature for him to fill a home with everything that had whiskers and fins.

 

My love of dogs blossomed, although not without problems and issues, Ricky was ex-show dog and he was big and strong and had never been in a house having come from kennels so I got a shock with house training and the enormous piles of poop one dog can hold before depositing over the floor. 

 

Once I was house proud and fussy now I live amongst dust, dog hairs and dribble.  And love it.

 

After Ricky came Suki the rescue Lurcher X and inbetween came a myriad of cats, all abandoned and beaten up, until we come many years down the line to Gordy.  My little cat with brain damage.

 

I still love dogs, especially my mud attracting, bed stealing stinkers, but Gordy is swaying me in ways the other cats couldn't.  We, that's the Royal we, Gordy and I, write a monthly column for Cat World Magazine about his adventures, and he has a few.

 

 

The first article we were asked to write back in December/January of this year.

 

Last months about being the chosen one, seen here with my daughter and the diva himself, Gordy.

 

Stealing the limelight by being in the light tent.

 

Its a hard life being Gordy!

 

So, coming home this afternoon from a trip to the library and yet another collection of stories about cats and dogs tucked under my arm, I opened to the door to the newest edition of Cat World magazine and the article about how Gordy over heated this summer, so if you will excuse me this afternoon I will be reading a glossy magazine all about cats!

 

Bi-polar and sex addiction

I don't get a newspaper and I avoid the television news, I don't want to know what's going on around the World, its too depressing.  I do listen to the radio news in the glass studio shed; Radio 4 nice and quick, just a few minutes outlining the mis-deeds of human kind and its back to The Archers - my kind of news, even their weather seems much more positive, the outlook for the coming week being not as wet as last year.   

 

There has, however, been no getting away from the referendum in Scotland these last couple of weeks and I for one am glad its all over; families falling out over who to vote for, should they stay within the UK or go it alone?  I fall out with the kids on where they dump their washing so I think arguing with them over the state of the country is taking things a little too far, needless to say if there was a referendum in this house over whose job it is to put soiled clothes in the washing basket, I would vote 'theirs' and they would vote 'mothers', leaving a 3 to 1 divide (including the husband in this election and him siding with the kids...its inevitable *sigh*), one I would lose and unlike the politicians that are now saying they are quitting, no doubt on huge retirement funds, I would still be loading the washing machine or risk losing the cat under the mountain of stinking socks - all that without a retirement plan: the one of 'the kids are leaving at 18' now a distant memory as both are still at home and showing no signs of vacating the building. 

 

So I 'don't do' news, but I do like a little read of Yahoo home page when I turn on my laptop in the morning to check my emails.  I skip the celeb stuff, is anyone truly interested in who has milk in their coffee or was seen out and about...dare I say it...doing their own shopping?  What is the world coming too?  So imagine my surprise when I did click on the link that was discussing the latest scandal surrounding Gail Porter.  She is bi-polar, so am I.  She is a sex addict and blaming it on being bi-polar.  Good grief don't let the husband read this, if he thought that being bi-polar made me a sex addict he would be having a referendum of his own!

 

Maybe I shouldn't read Yahoo news either!

 

My daughter had her back drop for her photography delivered last week, and after leaving the massive box in the hall for a week, she finally set it up and had Izabel, Defi and Gordy pose, whether they wanted to or not, she took some lovely photos, this one is one of my favourites of all three.

 

You can find her on Facebook, Charley Mead Photography  and although the next picture shows her as being 12 she is really almost 19!

 

 

That's the daughter and yes purple hair is hereditary, and that little chap is our Gordy holding his most recent instalment of his adventures that are published monthly in Cat World magazine - I write them but as he says I couldn't do it without him, and yes, he does leave me piles of cat hair to clean up, he voted with the kids!

 

Maybe I should just go and eat magic mushrooms, won't make the front page, but who cares?

 

 

 

When the days start to shorten and the lights go on earlier and earlier,  the dew is on the hedges in the morning

 

 

and the bumble bees are not as active or busy; I captured this one on my phone just sitting in the morning mist on todays walk down at the river.

 

 

I start to get a bit down.  I am a SAD sufferer, Season Affected Disorder and when Autumn starts turning all the leaves golden and the hedges give up their sloes for gin making, berries for jams and pies and the tall whispering weeds become fluffy clouds of seeds waiting to be blown into their over winter resting places I start to get miserable.

 

Yesterday, I was walking with my lovely dog walking friends when we came across this little chap..

He gives this gorgeous grin on command, such a happy puppy and he is suffering with a skin condition at the moment which has made him itch and scratch until he is sore, his owner said that the vet has told them he is allergic to something so they are now undergoing various tests and fuss to find out what, but he can still give a grin.

 

My lovely dog walking friend said that she too is a sufferer of SAD and what she does is think lovely things that she can look forward to in the Winter.  Snuggling up with a warm drink and roasting toes near the fire after a long walk with the dogs, through the snow and late Winter sunshine, wrapped up in thick jumpers and socks with welly boots that mean you can crunch the ground whether it be snow or heavy frost.  Seeing the trees shed their leaves making huge piles on the ground that the dogs can charge through and play in.  Watching Defi roll in the muddy fields and knowing I have to go home and bath him seems to cheer her up too, although I am not sure its something I look forward too!

 

But I can look forward to toasty days with the kiln and create my beads, or sit with warm drinks and write my stories in the kitchen or even...

 



finish my crocheting with my favourite little friend, Gordy my little cat, he whose stories we write for Cat World Magazine each month.  He has taken to my unfinished poncho and sits with me whilst I try and finish it, I have plenty of yarn so will be busy this Winter in the evenings.

 

I have plenty to look forward too when the nights draw in and the wind calls at the windows.

 



A few beads from this week, just to remind myself that I have lots to keep busy with.