Yay holiday...renting a room is hard...
So, as I might have mentioned, K is leaving for America shortly. I am both happy for her and sad she is going, and currently embroiled in attempting to rent out her room to someone else on behalf of the property owner, which happens to be my mum - the deal is we get rent relatively cheaply but kind of manage the running of the property ourselves, because she doesn't want to do the whole landlady business again as far as she can avoid it. I do know people my age whose parents let them stay in houses they own for free, but she can't afford that and in any case I wouldn't want to be in that position at my age - at 24, I think her responsibilty to feed and house me gratis expired some time ago. So, I've been using the usual websites etc to advertise - last time I did this I had tons of offers, but distinctly fewer now. So far two people have come to look at the room. The first was a young Scottish guy training to be an actuary, which I believe has something to do with banking. He seemed pretty quiet and shy, but weirdly, Sammy was absolutely *petrified* of him. Bear in mind, Sammy is the public relations cat. Zara is the skittish one. I have never seen such a reaction - Sam took one look/scent of him, made saucer-eyes, dashed up the stairs, hid under a bed and cried for me to come save him. He took a *lot* of post-viewing reassurance from all of us. I can only assume it was cos this guy wore cologne. One of my friends' cats' had an apparent hatred/terror of her boyfriend's mother, to the point she would growl and hiss at her, until one day the mother turned up without her usual perfume. Then the cat decided she was her friend! (It is perfectly in character that, upon perceiving a threat, Sammy chose to run away and cry rather than display anger. My sweet dumb boy...). The next person who came was a nurse, and seems nice. She works very long hours so we probably wouldn't see a lot of her.
So now I'm on a little break from work. Yay! Last night was M's birthday, and we had a BBQ in her garden. It was rather cool when the stars came out. Almost like an intrepid camping trip. Except without bears. Or, the wilderness. Or monsters. Anyway, it was lovely to see all my best girlies together, and hopefully we'll have some more fun times in the next couple of weeks before we split up for foreign shores, university courses, teaching, etc. From September I get Freshers in their first term. Sweet! They tend to be very impressed with grad students and hence very mouldable. Up to Christmas, at least.
Zara, by the way, is de-coned and recovered from the spay without a hitch. I console myself that for all her protests and discontent, she was at no point too upset to miss a meal. She may be dinky-sized, but she sure loves to eat, and puts away quite a startling amount when one considers how small her actual stomach must be. She burns it all off by zooming around every minute she isn't sleeping or cuddling, and thus exudes warmth like a hot water bottle. She has now reclaimed her proper place at the top of the cat hierarchy, and so at the top of the cat tree. Sammy is not allowed on the top level. Every day she looks less like a kitten and more like an elegant young ladycat:
Which reminds me. I found the cats sleeping the weirdest position. All I can say is that Zara was upside down under Sammy's chin. I liked it because from above it sort of formed a heart shape:
Front view:
Well, that's all for now. Going to go visit Mommy for a couple of days tomorrow. She lives in the semi-country, on a beach, with 5 dogs. Hope everyone is having a good summer (and looking forward to Autumn and Season 7)!
So now I'm on a little break from work. Yay! Last night was M's birthday, and we had a BBQ in her garden. It was rather cool when the stars came out. Almost like an intrepid camping trip. Except without bears. Or, the wilderness. Or monsters. Anyway, it was lovely to see all my best girlies together, and hopefully we'll have some more fun times in the next couple of weeks before we split up for foreign shores, university courses, teaching, etc. From September I get Freshers in their first term. Sweet! They tend to be very impressed with grad students and hence very mouldable. Up to Christmas, at least.
Zara, by the way, is de-coned and recovered from the spay without a hitch. I console myself that for all her protests and discontent, she was at no point too upset to miss a meal. She may be dinky-sized, but she sure loves to eat, and puts away quite a startling amount when one considers how small her actual stomach must be. She burns it all off by zooming around every minute she isn't sleeping or cuddling, and thus exudes warmth like a hot water bottle. She has now reclaimed her proper place at the top of the cat hierarchy, and so at the top of the cat tree. Sammy is not allowed on the top level. Every day she looks less like a kitten and more like an elegant young ladycat:
Which reminds me. I found the cats sleeping the weirdest position. All I can say is that Zara was upside down under Sammy's chin. I liked it because from above it sort of formed a heart shape:
Front view:
Well, that's all for now. Going to go visit Mommy for a couple of days tomorrow. She lives in the semi-country, on a beach, with 5 dogs. Hope everyone is having a good summer (and looking forward to Autumn and Season 7)!