Having finally gotten around to taking some of my holiday time off work I've noticed just how annoying the cats can really be. I found the best solution to the problem when they run around in the morning knocking things over is just to put them outside every time they come inside. The cats do get a bit annoyed but the benefit is that around noon you let them back inside and thy fall fast asleep on their bean bags.

This is Oli often referred to by our friends as the most adorable looking cat they have ever seen. Don't be fooled by those cute eyes, Oli's hobbies include rubbing up against you and shedding white fur on you when you are about to leave for work.

He is also the first one of our cats to bite me when I was trying to give him a pill. I know now that all I had to do was wrap it in ham, if I had known that back then I could have saved myself a tetanus injection!

Each morning for me is filled with the tactful task of avoiding all the white cats in the house...why? Because when you're wearing a black suit to go to work in, cat fur is the last thing you want on it. The most annoying thing is this is when the cats are at their most friendliest, I'm pretty sure its a little game they have devised and secretly laugh about it in their own little kitty way.

"There he is!"

"Get him!"

The thing is, I do eventually get some cat fur on me, so I have a cat fur remover in my bag. Which I started using while waiting for the bus and then looked up as an old lady looked at me rather oddly. Man there is some things you can't do in public and one of them is de-fur yourself in public.  

  If you are a regular reader of my blog you most probably think I have a real death wish when it comes to cats as I usually end up getting bitten by them.

Well never fear I haven't been bitten again...yet! I've just been helping my wife try to brush one of our difficult "ferrel" cats Oli pictured left. Oli last gave me a painful bite when I tried to feed him a pill and since then the two of us have always had a strange thing about trust. I don't trust Oli and he doesn't trust me.

Oli's has an interesting party trick when you do something he doesn't like and the thing he doesn't like this time is the grooming brush, so when ever you corner him to brush him with it he poo's all over the floor. What a cat hey? Unlike Lucy who will bite you straight away Oli gives warnings in the form of a lick followed by a gentle nip and then a powerful bite.

Anyway I am going to give him one last time to get his matted coat brushed otherwise it down to the vet to be shaved! Mind you last time we took him to the vet he nearly removed two fingers from a male vet. He really seems to prefer female vets to male vets for some reason.

If you are a regular reader of my blog you would probably have read a past post in my blog about a cat tracking device. First of all the device I used was not sold as a cat tracking device it was sold as a device you could use to find your keys or any other personal items. It could also be used to keep a tab on where young kids are and with some devices it could be used as a panic button for kids. I of course realized that I could probably reuse it to keep track of my two of my troublesome moggies Willow and Lucy. The reason I chose this device was that all the other cat tracking devices out there were quite expensive my friend Marzie however said she had seen some going for 1,000 Yen  which is roughly 5 pounds!, its a pity they don't have them over here I'm sure there would be a great market for them.

Anyway the devices were working fine and every time we had a cat go missing for a long period we would go out and find it. I must say you get some really odd looks from the neighbors when you have this little device beeping away the closer you get to the cat. Its almost like an episode of Aliens where they go around with the life detector devices and you expect a smiling alien to come out and eat you! But instead you have a curious moggie looking at you wondering how earth you found her and why a little blipping noise is coming from her collar. All was going fine until both cats we had the devices on started to let off little electronic fuzzy sounds quite randomly and I decided to remove the tags to investigate what was causing the problem. It appears that when the cats get the devices wet  they let off this electronic sound which I found seemed to be the only downfall of the device. I suppose they weren't really intended for being dragged through wet grass in the morning or being submerged in water when the cat misjudges jumping for a dragon fly and ends up in the pond.

Anyway allowing the device to dry off seems to solve the problem. Now I just have to try and get it back on the cat!

At last I have finally got around to doing the garden and its started looking a lot better now. Yes I took a picture with a token cat in there, little Lucy (in the picture) has a new past time, we call it spotting newts.

She spends hours just watching them in the pond and occasionally sticking her paws in to try and catch them (she never actually catches any). 

Recently we have found the insect population in our garden has started to decline with the constant snacking of our mogey's on the local wasps, bees, butterflies and any creepy crawlies....

I just wanted to make some things clear. While I do blog about cats occasionally I am by no means a cat person to be truthful I couldn't actually stand the little critters. However my wife was crazy about cats and even before we got married she convinced me that she had to get 2 cats. After some constant nagging and looking very depressed on her part I finally gave in and said we could get two kittens from one of my friends Owen who's cat Cuddles had just had a litter. The funny thing about cats is if you don't like them or show any interest in them they seem to want to be around you more.

One of the cats we called Willow (the grey one in the picture above) decided she was going to adopt me as her main human. This included sitting on top of me or near me at any opportunity, constantly mewing when I wasn't home before 7pm and occasionally using the carpet as a cat litter when I was even later. I had never had any animal attach itself like this to me and I hadn't even shown any interest in her. I suppose Willow started to grow on me and while I am watching TV she will quite often jump on my lap if I am not on my laptop and commence pummeling at which point I give in and start stroking her.

At the moment we now have 4 cats and every morning is filled with cats playing, they have this morning ritual which involves chasing one of the cats through the patio door around the garden, through the cat flap and around again. This appears to happen until the cat being chased is tackled to the ground then the one that attacked it becomes "it" and the whole games starts again filled with constant "meowing" excited grunts and jumping into the air every now and again. At about 11am they calm down and commence sleeping until about 2pm when a new games of "I hide in the box wait for you to come by and jump on you". Occasionally when they are in their frenzied play time they'll run over you in this game of "You're it!" sometimes claws dig in and you jump up chasing them all outside and locking them outside to play their game. In most cases they all hide away from you when one of them has done something bad and venture out later when they think you've forgotten.   

Okay I'll admit the little guys have grown on me, that doesn't mean I like them....does it?

If any of you read my wife's blog you would have seen the post about how our cat Lucy bit me (pictures included), followed now by how I have started suffering an infection for which I need to take antibiotics for as a result of the bite.

Now I have been bitten by a cat once before. This was by one of our other cats Oliver

and this was caused by me trying to give him a worming pill. Oliver doesn't like worming pills and decided to bite me for my efforts, for which I had to have an anti tetanus injection. Of course back then I didn't realise that Oliver would do anything for ham and I could have wrapped the pill in the ham doh!. Lucy on the other hand must have been spooked, I picked her up like I always do but this time she struck out at me and I had to quickly throw her away from me, as she set her teeth into my hand. Funnily enough now Lucy is acting incredibly cute, as though nothing has happened trying to get me to pick her up again and brushing past me making cute meowing sounds. Urrrgh cats can be so unpredictable!

Introducing one of my favourite USB powered devices the USB powered Rocket Launcher!

I have had countless amounts of fun with this little device especially when using my webcams at home to take targets shot at the wife over terminal services!

However the USB powered rocket launcher has a number one enemy introducing "felis moggy" or better know as the comon household moggy!

Willow! The destroyer of all electical devices including USB powered rocket launchers

This is one of four of our cats and the second most evil cat in the pride. Destroyer of all furniture and thief of any unattended ham!

I know what you must be thinking, why not shoot Willow with the USB powered rocket launcher? The truth is I have never been able to target willow with the launcher she knows how it sounds and at many times when I have shot a rocket from this launcher she has intercepted it mid air! She seems to relish it being on and treats it like some sort of sport catching the rockets as they are launched....urrrghhhh!