The all-feline chess set was looking as if it would be a sure-fire success until, in the opening move, the White Queen’s Bishop’s Pawn insisted on using QB4 as a litter tray.
Happy birthday to Alex.
Cat Chess
Tag: Cat
Cat and Mouse
I’ve drawn the sleeping dog and the cat and mouse as cut outs today but it looks as if we won’t have room for the dog.
Cat Napping
‘Not a creature is stirring . . .’ in my Night Before Christmas scene but how do I imply that the mouse isn’t going to end up as a midnight snack for the cat?
I’m going for more of a cartoon look for the mouse.
Although I’d follow Beatrix Potter’s method of not adding much in the way of costume when she needed to emphasise the animal nature of her character.
Trail Cam Selfies
The secret life of garden wildlife revealed:
This is my latest homemade birthday card, for a seven-year old who is fascinated by the what wildlife gets up to after dark.
Cat on a Trampoline
The cat that is usually to be found lurking in the border by our bird feeders leaves its lair and sets off down our garden then makes its way through a gap in the hawthorn hedge. After all that waiting and watching, it’s ready for a work-out. It jumps onto next door’s trampoline and starts clawing around the entrance flap in the safety mesh. It evidently enjoys that, as it slinks in through the slit and indulges in another burst of claw-sharpening on the mesh from the inside.
Next it walks around the perimeter, then decides to attempt to climb up the netting on the far side. It almost gets to the top.
But that’s it for this session, it leaves by the entrance flap, jumps down and walks off down the garden path.
Lurking
The birds on our feeders are having a hard time with the sparrowhawk swooping in regularly and this character, a neighbour’s cat with a bushy tail, lurking in the flower bed. Even the pheasants keep their distance when the cat is around, although they don’t seem too concerned about the sparrowhawk.
An Audience with PC
When we call on our friend Diana, I usually struggle to draw her cat, PC, because, if he’s in, he hankers to go out but, once he’s out, it’s not long until he jumps on the outside windowsill to demand to be let in again. A busy cat.
Not today though, as it’s cold, dull and rainy out there. Snoozing in his basket or reclining on the windowsill, as he is today, you might imagine that PC would be far too laid back to catch a bird. Unfortunately not: Diana has had to stop feeding the birds in her front garden, which is a shame because she used to enjoy seeing goldfinches crowding onto the nyger seed feeder.
After the Snow
ALTHOUGH WE’VE had a covering of snow for a little more than a week it’s a revelation to suddenly have colour back in the landscape. The snowdrops have gone to seed during the time that they were covered in a little drift by the pond.
In the wood leaves of bluebells are greening the banks between the trees, while other slopes are still swathed with snow. In the fields on south-facing slopes the weeds and the oilseed rape seedlings are already established. This is a reminder to me that I must now start thinking about sowing seeds in our vegetable beds.
When the thaw gradually got underway a couple of days ago, Biscuit, who had been tramping around discontentedly in the solitary comfort of his snowy field (the two ponies that he was bossing around were his temporary guests and he’s back on his own now) found the first corner of grass to appear by the old shed and lay there in a heap as if he was soaking up the sun on a beach.
His method of getting back up again was remarkably inelegant, pausing halfway for a few minutes in a sitting position more typical of a dog than a pony.
The snow brought not one but two nuthatches to the bird feeders. As far as I remember it’s the first time that we’ve seen two in the garden at once.
The lithe young grey cat who I think of as being a Jerry was shadowing the cock pheasant. The pheasant strutted around with his usual imperious haughtiness but wasn’t unduly concerned. The pair appeared to be more companions than predator and prey but when the pheasant started pecking the bare earth below the feeders the tip of his tail started flick, flick, flicking and the cat adopted a kittenish fascination as if he just couldn’t resist the pheasant teasing him to join in a game.
PC and Friend
AS WE ARRIVE at Diana’s, a large fluffy Siamese walks ahead of us. We shut it out as we go in through the back garden gate but PC, Diana’s black cat, has noticed that his fluffy friend has arrived and they indulge in a bit of playful sparring, pawing at each other through the gap beneath the gate.
The Siamese can’t climb over the larch lap fence; it had already been declawed when Diana’s neighbour adopted it.
But PC is soon up and over the fence, returning five minutes later to sit out at the front on the windowsill. When he comes in, he jumps up on the windowsill (he recently dislodged a vase which broke into four pieces). He’s chosen the warmest corner of the room above the radiator. From here he can keep an eye and an ear on everything that’s going on but he’s soon stretching and snoozing.
Cats are so good at relaxing but however much they appear to be dozing those ears will swivel around to pick up any stray sound.
Freehand Folk
I’M DRAWING a motley crew of folk; ‘an assemblage of odds and ends of people, a rabble’. This rabble has yet to be roused but they’re a sufficiently motley assortment.
I used ArtPen on layout paper, filling in with a Cotman watercolour brush and Calli ink, making up the characters as I went. With no sketched pencil line to follow and no rough to trace I felt as if I had more freedom. The result looks perfectly idiotic, so I quite like it.
The actual size that I’d be printing this would be only an inch or two across, so you’re seeing the widescreen version here.
The Lawn Ranger
11 a.m.: A neighbour’s ginger cat is paying close attention to one particular spot on the lawn, sniffing it with intense interest.
What is it up to?
It turns around and sticks its paw into a hole –
a vole hole – reaching right down, like someone trying to retrieve keys from the back of a sofa.
It reminds me of a friend of my mum & dad’s, Denny from Dovercourt, who once saw a man lying by the side of the road with a look of agony on his face;
“Are you all right? Shall I send for an ambulance?”
“No . . . ugh . . . I’m fine . . . ugh . . . I’m just . . . trying . . . to turn off this stopcock.”
Like the ginger cat, he had his arm down a hole.