My cat hates the lockdown

[oggbashan]

My cat likes to go out for a prowl every evening and likes a field mouse as a late-night snack.

But, since the lockdown he has competition.

The local urban fox who used to live on discarded takeaway meals can't get them anymore so he comes into our garden for a field mouse. The large seagulls also try.

All of them avoid the large and aggressive hedgehog who lives on slugs and snails. He is not averse the charging the cat, the fox or the seagulls with his prickles erect.

He has competition from the local toads. Slugs and snails are becoming scarce.

A local feral cat is now sneaking into to our house by the cat flap to hoover up any cat food abandoned by our cat.

Until McDonalds and KFC reopen there are cat yowls every evening as there is a stand off between the various aninals.

 

[SpeareChucker]

Ogg...




Are you okay?

That many typos is not at all like you. We worry.

 

[oggbashan]

Ogg...




Are you okay?

That many typos is not at all like you. We worry.

Thanks for asking.

I've corrected them. I am making an average of two typos per sentence and have done for months because I see double and am wearing an eye patch over one eye. It is one of the last symptoms of Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome. The other symptoms - incoherent speech, unsteadiness on my feet, and loss of taste have all improved but eyesight is the last one to improve - slowly.

It is improving but it is a nuisance and slowing down my story writing.

 

[hobbit.]

It is improving but it is a nuisance and slowing down my story writing.

every cloud as they say.


try putting dog food out for the wildlife? deliveroo are still delivering also.

or just stake an eastern european out in the garden , or bury one upto its neck. we seem to be importing them again to pick soft fruit. Brexit fail!

 

[SpeareChucker]

Hope that you continue to mend.
I was unaware of all of this.



Thanks

 

[oggbashan]

try putting dog food out for the wildlife? deliveroo are still delivering also.

...

Our cost for pet and bird food is already close to what we spend on food for ourselves. We are feeding hundreds of starlings, sparrows, and pigeons at a cost of about ten pounds per day and then there's the cat food for two cats (one ours, one a visitor).

The cats also used to get discarded fish from beach anglers but they aren't around anymore so it's the poor mice that are their prey.

 

[hobbit.]

Our cost for pet and bird food is already close to what we spend on food for ourselves. We are feeding hundreds of starlings, sparrows, and pigeons at a cost of about ten pounds per day and then there's the cat food for two cats (one ours, one a visitor).
.

Maybe you need to consider cutting down on your own food for the sake of the cats?

train the cat to eat pidgeons, ive got 3 cats (down sized the herd earlier this year) my neighbour used to breed racing pidgeons - but on the ground cats are faster over 2 to 3 metres than pidgeons. we saved a fortune on cat food. used just take the leg rings back next door and say this one wasnt a good racer.

 

[Jada59]

My cat doesn't go out but she hasn't seen my daughter in weeks. She misses her.

 

[raindancer]

My terrible outdoor cat, that showed up last year and decided to stay, brought me three baby rabbits this morning.

 

[hobbit.]

My cat doesn't go out but she hasn't seen my daughter in weeks. She misses her.

get the cat to write to her? send a paw print or a dead mouse with a ''thinking of you'' note ?

we need to be creative.

 

[SpeareChucker]

My terrible outdoor cat, that showed up last year and decided to stay, brought me three baby rabbits this morning.

That's one of my dachshunds' favorite activities.
The garden seems to be a go-to for the rabbits,
so I let them into the closure on a regular basis.

 

[raindancer]

I can't really be angry for his proclivities but it hurts my feelings. This cat is huge and is not hungry. He eats the heads off! Luckily, the hawks and vultures show up for the leftovers. Blech.

 

[oggbashan]

My London daughter's cat brought home a live squirrel this morning and was annoyed when my daughter let it go.

 

[raindancer]

My dad's cat brings him life prizes, as well. He finds squirrels and birds in the house often.

 

[oggbashan]

My cat doesn't go out but she hasn't seen my daughter in weeks. She misses her.

Our cat is really our grandaughter's cat. They can't have pets in their rented house. But granddaughter comes into the garden while I'm upstairs out of the away and the cat goes out to see her.

 

[SpeareChucker]

Back in the day, I was feeding my inner hippie
and hitchhiking around the country.
A family from Oklahoma took me in for the weekend
and they had a pet squirrel in the house.
Little sucker bit me.

 

[Lancecastor19]

I’d like to hear Ogg anecdotes from when he was in his 20’s.

 

[SpeareChucker]

I’d like to hear Ogg anecdotes from when he was in his 20’s.

Ah, yes, stories of the Bronze Age...






I just cannot help myself...

 

[oggbashan]

Ah, yes, stories of the Bronze Age...






I just cannot help myself...

Yes, I was bronzed. I had a summer in the UK, a month traveling by ship to Australia, then an Australian summer learning to be a surf lifeguard, another Australian summer, back to the UK by ship for another month and then a UK summer. I spent much of my summers on the beach.

I started work in Portsmouth with a strong tan and a bleached blond crewcut. I still had the tan when I moved to Plymouth and spent all my spare time outdoors, riding on Dartmoor, and being an assistant outward bound instructor trained by the Royal Marine Commandos.

I pissed the Commandos off by completing their assault course faster than anyone except an instructor, and setting a record for circumnavigation of a cliffy island around the cliffs without touching the top or bottom of the cliffs and with no aids, not even a safety rope. The previous record, held by a Commando, was 28 minutes. I did it in thirteen and even now, decades later, no one has come close. My record will probably stand for ever as Health and Safety would prohibit any attempt now. But I was a member of the local cliff rescue team so I had more experience of cliffs than any commando.

 

[SpeareChucker]

That's a bit much for an epithet...

 

[oggbashan]

PS:

One thing that really annoyed the Commandos's NCOs was that I was a civilian in a defence establishment with a courtesy rank that equated to a Royal Marine Major. I was entertained in officer country.

Yet I was fitter and faster than almost every Commando. That hurt.

 

[SpeareChucker]

When in the military,
I generally intimidated with my mind...

My instructors referred to me as "the Sponge."
That, of course, did not preclude me from a life of martial arts.


Bunbu Itchi!

 

[HisArpy]

Bunbu Itchi!

There's a cream for that.

http://images-its.chemistdirect.co.uk/E45-Itch-Relief-Cream-4309.jpg?o=9q5w2f0Vw@hyqmmzuwuYaG63zzAj&V=LcwF&w=297&h=297

 

[oggbashan]

Problems with anchors.

In one of my posts I was responsible, among other things, for the stock of anchors for the Royal Navy.

1. A week after I had taken up the position my boss gave me a fat file to sort out. In 1943 the annual stocktake had recorded four thirty-ton anchors originally from pre-1900 battleships.

In September 1944 they weren't there anymore. The file recorded my predecessors' attempts to account for the missing anchors.

No. They hadn't been lost by Nazi bombing. There had been no bombs dropped anywhere near the anchors, and even if they had, you can't destroy four x thirty tons without leaving something behind.

No. They hadn't been transferred to another establishment. Previous enquiries had found no extra thirty-ton anchors in Portsmouth, Chatham or Rosyth, Scotland.

I suggested that they had been acquired to anchor the Mulberry Harbours used immediately after the D-Day invasion, either when the harbours were set up or shortly afterwards when they had been damaged in a storm.

My boss accepted that scenario and the anchors were written off as expended.

2. But, since I was such a clever-clogs, he gave me another fat file, also relating to D-Day.

In early 1944 we knew we would need to anchor the then-secret Mulberry Harbours. Somone had the bright idea of making some pyramid-shaped reinforced concrete blocks with strong attachment points for chains. Each block was fifteen feet square, ten feet high and heavy...

They built thirty of them at the water's edge so they could be transported by barge.

All would have been well but:

The depth of water beside the concrete blocks was only one foot deep at the highest tide. No barge could get anywhere near. The blocks had sat unused from 1944 until now.

The local council wanted to use their seafront promenade obstructed by the concrete blocks. Please would we remove them, please?

They were too wide and too heavy for the nearby roads. So what did I suggest?

I told my boss that I would remove them if he didn't ask any questions. He was doubtful, but agreed, giving me a week.

I spoke to my friends in the Royal Marine Commandos. They held a night exercise, coming by inflatable boats bringing explosives. In the early hours of one Sunday morning thirty concrete blocks were reduced to a pile of rubble. A scrap metal dealer removed all the metal reinforcing and a Navy bulldozer pushed the rubble into the muddy water's edge, giving the council another foot of promenade. In the morning the commandos, the metal dealer, the bulldozer and the large blocks had all gone.

The local residents complained about losing sleep but no one knew who had done the dirty deed.

My boss was unhappy that I had caused a whole town to lose sleep but as long as he didn't get the blame he accepted the fait accompli.

 

[SpeareChucker]

*chuckle*