turps

It was Murphy and Kevin's annual booster and check-up appointment this morning. Both were fine, but Murphy is now over 7kg which isn't ideal. The problem is he needs the prescription dry food to help with his bladder stone issues, and eating that isn't helping with the weight gain. Thankfully, the vet said you can buy the prescription kind he needs in a lower calorie format, so we'll be buying that when his latest bag is finished.

Poor Murphy was so frightened, though. Understandable as the last two times he was at the vets he ended up whisked away to the emergency vets and admitted.

Kevin was just his usual self, in perfect health apart from his chronic congestion, and he was jumping around and exploring the room, being his usual, purr'ey, friendly self. Then covered his face is lick e lix when I fed him one as a distraction as he got his nails trimmed.

( two recent photos )

Rosie texted last night to say class was cancelled today. I'm assuming for personal reasons due to the late communication. That did make going to the vets easier as before I would have had to go there, come home, drop off the cats and then quickly head for the gym, hoping the vets appointment didn't overrun. Which it actually did due to us being seen late, so time would have been tight.

I really didn't want to go to class on Monday. It was cold, it was wet, my friend/usual partner had messaged saying she couldn't come that day, and everything was just, meh. But I gave my head a shake and made myself go, and was glad I did. It was another big class with only five of us oldies there, I got partnered with someone new who was very nice, and we had a laugh. I'm especially glad I went as class was cancelled for today, so it would have been another week without having a supervised session.

We went to see 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, and man, the violence was so much worse, and graphic, than the last one. It was well acted, how some fabulous visuals and acting, especially by Ralph Fiennes and Jack O'Connell, but I really wouldn't recommend it due to the excessive amount of gore.

Yesterday was my six monthly lymphedema appointment ( cut for details )

TV wise, I watched the first ep of Starfleet Academy and really enjoyed it. As I'm also watching Strange New Worlds still, I'm just rolling in Trek stuff atm, which is a lovely place to be.

Rosie sent out a message on Tuesday night that due to the weather, she was only going to do the exercise part of class on Wednesday, as it was too cold to sit for the talk for an hour. The part of the gym we use does have heating, but class starts at 9am, and it's a big hall with huge windows that we use, so no way would it have been heated enough for sitting around.

So, that's exactly what happened, I slip-slided down with James and for ages we were the only people who turned up. Then three other hardy souls turned up, and it was a nice, quiet class. Though, after the main exercise part, Rosie said we were going to do a finisher before cool down. The finisher turned out to be a version of this. I did not know about the Bring Sally Up squat challenge, I feel my life was better when I didn't know.

After class, we drove my friend home as the pavements were horribly icy, then onto my SiL's because we were taking my MiL's clothes to a charity shop, then from there, went to a florist to order some flowers. While there's going to be no actual service, the funeral director said flowers could still go into the garden of remembrance after, so it felt right to order some.

Thursday, James went with my SiL to close down bank accounts, while I stayed home as my brother was coming over to do a couple of jobs for us. He moved the front step rail so it was actually attached to the steps, and not the ground, so James could actually reach it easily, and also attached some cat things to the living room wall. So, next to the cat tower they now have a high up hammock, a set of stairs and some steps. I thought they'd be straight up there exploring, especially Kevin, but so far all they'd done is stand on the steps.

It was good to spend some time with my brother, and we ended up having long conversations about many things.

Yesterday it was still very cold, but the snow had mostly melted, so I headed to Durham with James for a quick walk. Sadly, while there I saw one of my favourite charity shops, the one where every item of clothing was £1, was closing for good that day. Because of that they didn't have much stock in terms of clothes, but they did have books which they were selling for 5 for £1. I swear, I'll never get through my to-read pile at this rate.

Then today a delivery is due. It had a time frame of 7am to 7pm, but the company said they'd text with a four-hour window. Which they did, sending the message just after 7, saying our delivery window was 2-6, which is typical after getting up so early. But, the delivery guy phoned about 30 mins away saying he'd be about an hour, so the waiting will soon be over.

Thank you to jacieleigh, stellamira and spikedluv for the Christmas cards. While my decorations are down now I've left up the cards, so I can enjoy the cheerful greetings for a bit longer.

As I said, all decorations are down and apart from one crate, put away. Though I did find a springy legged gonk propped up in the corner of the living room this morning. This year, we also bought two succulents in plant pots in the shape of dinosaurs wearing jaunty Santa hats, and those were deliberately left on the kitchen windowsill as I doubt the plants would like being stored for a year. I'm going to see if the hats will come off easily, if not, I don't mind seeing santa!dinos all year.

While the boxes were out of the huge hall cupboard I took advantage of space and had a good declutter in there. That resulted in six binbags of stuff to donate and stuff that needed throwing away, including a load of extra packaging from Christmas. We do have a tip slot booked for midday for today, and were all ready to go, but it's snowing really heavily just now. And while I don't mind walking in it to the car and at the tip, it's the driving that's making me wonder if we should postpone. Oh well, there's a couple of hours to our spot, it may stop before then.

Yuletide authors were revealed and I can now rec in you I have absolute faith a Magnificent Seven film fic by sperrywink. I really enjoyed reading this, and helped bounce some ideas at the start, so yeah, if you like h/c go read, it's good stuff.

Doing that bouncing of ideas also reminded me how much I enjoy thinking about writing, and that along with some really nice comments I've been getting on my bandom stuff makes me a little sad that I haven't written for so long. I have to wonder if I've been recced somewhere for my bandom stories as I have had so many, and on longer stories, too. Lately I've reread due to answering comments, Tints verse, Mr Bob, Sing the Revolution and Painted Ponies, and you know, I still like my own writing.

When I went to bed last night I looked outside and saw a package sitting on the corner of the bin. The package hadn't been there earlier and as the bin is against the fence, the delivery driver had obviously just dropped it over, without knocking or any email to say it had been delivered. Which meant I had to go back out and retrieve it, and I'm glad I did as it was a customised water bottle I'd bought for one of James' Christmas presents. I'd got his pyrography name and logo printed onto the bottle, and I would have hated if someone had reached over and taken it, especially as the delivery was already weeks late.

Heated Rivalry starts here very soon and seeing how many people are talking about it, I'm very eager to watch. It sounds like it could be something I really enjoy. Between that and The Pitt season two, bring on the new shows!

The knife saga is over, sadly, not with help by Amazon. In the end, yesterday, we just drove to the outlet mall again and bought the equivalent quality knives from the kitchen shop there. It did cost a little more than the Amazon prices, but both knives also come guaranteed for 25 years and at least they're bought as it was getting a little close to Christmas for comfort.

We did our usual thing of going an hour early, planning to go for a Costa while waiting for the shops to open at 10. Only to find out the Sunday hours are different, and you couldn't even get to any of the shops, including the food ones, as the gates to the actual mall were all shut. But, you could go into the McDonalds at the end, so I had a McMuffin and coffee and watched the craft and food stalls set up.

There were so many tempting stalls, including one selling bath stuff. I'm a sucker for soap, whipped soaps etc, so after checking out the smells I gave James a big hint such stuff would be nice to receive, and he sent me on my way as he made a surprise purchase. Which he then left next to the Christmas tree at home in an open paper bag.

We may also have come home with some cakes, which were enjoyed last night, with more left for tea later.

Saturday it was the delivery day for the pieces James has been working on. Thankfully, the man who'd commissioned the pieces loved them. James had also created a freebie for him, a raccoon on a live piece of wood. I think that's the technical term anyway, it's wood which still has bark attached at the sides. The man sat stroking that piece -- the other two are a bit big to hold onto -- and it was obvious he was genuinely happy with everything, which was such a relief.

After delivering those, we drove up to Seahouses, taking the coastal route and stopping off in some small villages to have a mooch and hot coffees. It was so nice to do that, normally those places are packed in the summer, but in winter it was easy to look around and actually see stuff, including a red phone box that had been turned into a Christmas decorated tiny library.

In Seahouses itself, we got to pose with a giant plastic polar bear, and a lovely lady offered to take a photo of both of us together You can also see photos of the pieces James delivered if you're interested, just click the arrows to see all the photos. No photo of the raccoon piece, though, I had to take a screengrab from a video from that, so that's behind the cut. With bonus standing in front of our Christmas tree too, as I know turlough likes to laugh at it every year *g* ( behind here )

The knife saga continues. I tried to buy Corey's knives using my debit card, but again, couldn't check out due to age restrictions. So James tried, same for him. He called Amazon and talked to someone who said it was apparently an ongoing glitch in Amazon's system, that he could try again in a few days time, or otherwise, buy the products elsewhere and whatever decision he made, Amazon would issue £30 credit for the inconvenience.

Now, credit like that would be good, that is if it happens, the guy said give up to 3 days for it to be applied to the account, which gives until tomorrow. James does have the email stating the offer, but no credit as yet. But man, all I wanted to do was buy some posh kitchen knives. Next step will be going to a kitchenware shop and buying them there.

Today we've been to our family friend's funeral. The guy's wife is a devout Catholic so it was the full service at church, followed by the crematorium, then onto the complex where the couple live. It's a semi-assisted facility for people over 50, and such a nice place, plus they put on a cracking buffet. Too delicious a buffet tbh as it's our Christmas meal with Pauline this evening and I could have done without two nice meals being on the same day.

I had to buy cat food earlier, and the shop I was in is right next door to a pretty big charity shop. So, James went in to look for wood stuff, and I was pulled towards the books. Now, I've banned myself from buying books as I have so many to read, but they had a section set up with all Christmas books, and I ask you, how is that fair? Many of you will know I love a cheesy Christmas themed book, so how could I walk out without buying four one?

Now, I'm going to have a quick catch up on here, then I need to change from my black outfit to my Christmas gear.

I actually started some Christmas shopping yesterday . Plan was to drive to a local outlet mall and get parked by 9am. The shops don't open until 10, so we'd have time to go have breakfast and a coffee, then be there for opening time, before it got mega busy. And amazingly, that's exactly what happened.

We hit Greggs for a breakfast sandwich, looked into some very overpriced homeware shops, got Corey's Christmas chocolate and James' birthday freebie from the Lindt shop, and I got my candle advent calendar from Yankee Candle. I do like an advent calendar but tend to get them when they're on sale. So this one was half price due to it being the 4th. As always they ripped the back cover, no doubt to stop reselling, but hey who cares? Half price!

Then on the afternoon the plan was to get the tree up, but yeah, that didn't happen. Instead I ended up visiting Kayleigh and Bodhi for a couple of hours while they put their decorations up. Kayleigh and Lucy are doing Elf on the Shelf, so Bodhi was telling me all about what the naughty elf had been getting up to, and then showed me another stuffed elf, saying the elf had brought it. I asked if that elf did naughty things, too. Only to be told very firmly that no, because that was a toy elf, and didn't I know toys couldn't move? So consider me told.

Monday was a day with a few minor frustrations. In class they did a move that I just couldn't master. It was the dead bug and while I could physically do the movement, my co ordination had apparently left the building, even after Rosie got on the floor twice to show me, and actually guided me a few other times.

Then later, after cashed in all my survey voucher earnings I was buying Corey's presents from Amazon. He's still upgrading his kitchen stuff and has two expensive knives on his wish list, which fine, that's what he wants, so I ordered them both along with other stuff. But then couldn't actually get through check out.

Cutting the story short, it seems you can't buy age restricted items with Amazon vouchers as they have no date of birth attached to them. Which I guess makes sense, but does mean I need to shuffle payment methods around so I can actually buy what he wants.

Today I've put up the tree and decorations at last. I've still got a load of baubles to put on the tree but have had to stop for now as I'm Bodhisitting soon. Just for a couple of hours, though. So I'll be back in my sparkly, light and sparkle deer filled house before six.

We went to see Wicked For Good on Saturday and I really enjoyed it. Both the film itself, and the buzz in the cinema, the charity cos players were there and Odeon had various displays up for photo ops while the staff were all wearing witches hats, add in the general air of excitement of people going in, and it was just a lovely atmosphere.

I'm sure James would have enjoyed it too if he'd been awake for more than 1% of it *g*

I will cut him some slack though as he came down with a nasty chest cold on Sunday, so much so he had to call in sick from work yesterday as he was really not well. He's a bit better today, and thankfully, had annual leave in for Thurs and Fri so with his regular day off will only have to claim two sick days. It also gives him time to rest up, as we've got a craft fair on Saturday, and then my MiL wants to take us out for Sunday dinner on Sunday.

I got a new to me type of comment at AO3 the other day. It was someone saying they thought the fic would make a good comic and said their insta name if I wanted to make that happen. Curious, I Googled the insta and it was from a fan who does comic strips, for a price I'm sure, so while their work was good, I won't be taking up the offer. The fic they picked was my Intoabar 911 Lonestar Voyager cross featuring TK and Nelix, which I guess could support a comic strip, but I'll never find out. And mainly, have come away from the comment with a grudging respect for someone putting their work out like that. Thanks for Cesy in comments for telling me what these comments are about. No respect at all now.


I enjoyed Strictly at the weekend, the Steps mashup was great, but really what I was really looking forward to was Nikita dancing with Layton again, and I was not disappointed. Well, I would have loved their part of the routine to be longer, but the behind the scenes stuff that various people shared helped make up for it.

I was sad for La Voix having to pull out though, she wasn't the best dancer, but made the show so much fun.

Class wasn't on yesterday, as someone had booked the hall for a wake. Now, the hall we use isn't a typical gym studio, it's actually part of the old Miner's Welfare building that's joined to the modern gym by a series of maze like hallways, and does actually have a bar at one end. But, I was still surprised that anyone would want to use it for something like that, as it's not the most picturesque place, and also kind of smells of sweat. But, people like what they like, I guess.

I bought a tunnel thing that's designed to circle the bottom of the Christmas tree, the idea being, the cats will go through the tunnel and leave the actual tree alone. They've both enjoyed going through it, but I suspect what it'll be is a handy step to help Kevin climb the branches. Anyway, here's Murphy enjoying the middle.

turlough is the best and my latest sparkle deer arrived from her the other day, isn't it adorable!?



I do love this tradition, she's sent me multiple sparkle deer now, and I can't wait for this new one to meet the herd.

We did a craft fair in aid of Consett Cats on Saturday. It was held at a golf club which meant no passing footfall, add on the fact it was raining and well, we didn't do that well. At least we made enough to give a donation to the rescue and got to meet up with some of the fellow adopters we know, so all wasn't lost. And hey, we ended up with a £5 profit after the donation, so silver lining and all that.

Good news, someone has taken on running the monthly makers market in our town, and we've got our pre-Christmas spot back. So as of now, we've two more fairs to go before the end of the year, plus maybe one possibility at my nephew's school. Also, James is continuing on TikTok and getting a few orders that way, which is great but also, still surprising.

During the week we saw Now You See It, Now You Don't at the cinema and I enjoyed it so much. It was flashy, fun and had a twist I didn't see coming, which is always a plus.

Yesterday we went to the Odeon to see Christmas Karma at the early 11am showing. It was my first cinema Christmas film of the year, and I bought a Christmas Costa drink and intended to wallow in festive feelings. Sadly, that didn't fully happen, I was really enjoying the film until about halfway through when my MiL started to alternatively call James' then my phone. Obviously, they were on silent, but they were impossible to ignore and eventually James went out to see what was up, and it turns out a family friend of his family had died.

He was a really good friend of my MiL and FiL for a very long time, and James grew up with the guy's son, so the families have known each other forever. I always enjoyed talking to T when we met, so he'll be a miss.

Some Murphy news. Last week I finally managed to get a pee sample from him, got it to the vets, and on testing it had some glucose in it, so they were worried he could be diabetic and wanted a blood test doing. He had that done on Thursday, and the results were expected today. The head vet has just phoned, and his blood results were fine, so she was confused about what had happened, asking if I'd cleaned the tray with something new or anything like that. But as that was a no, said to bring in another sample between a fortnight and a month, and otherwise, just to keep an eye on things. Of course, now I'm worrying that Kevin had contaminated the sample, and he's diabetic despite him looking perfectly healthy. Cats, there's always something to worry about.

I got offline early yesterday as I didn't want to see the Celeb Traitors spoilers. The finale was mistakenly shown a day early in Canada, so it would have been all too easy to unwillingly see the outcome. As it was, I was glad I did go in unspoiled. ( cut for spoilers )

I've really enjoyed watching the show, and while it was frustrating waiting a week between some episodes, doing so kept people talking, and I liked that.

Today I've been for a walk to one pharmacist to pick up Kayleigh's script, and then to another to get James'. While there's no bright sunshine, it's still mild so it was nice to walk through the falling leaves and get some fresh air.

I also talked to Pauline, who phoned asking if we wanted to meet up next Wednesday for a lunch out to celebrate James' birthday. Now, that's not until the 1st, so yet again she's arranging stuff really early. But hey, he's off that day and I guess there's no reason not to celebrate that early.

Tomorrow, for the first time in a few weekends, we don't have any craft fairs so we're off to the cinema. I don't even know what to see yet, but something. I may even buy myself my first Christmas Costa of the season. I quite fancy a gingerbread latte with a tiny gingerbread man balanced on top.