The Great Cat Rescue: Part Four.
Reunited
Nerves are frayed, bites and bruises are increasing daily, and still Small Black Cat is in the drain.
Friends on Twitter and Facebook are cheering us - and Ozzie on – from afar. Zeena is inspecting us on each return as if we might be sneaky enough to hide him in a pocket and not tell her. All of us have Had Enough. But none of us can bring ourselves to simply give up. So at 10pm we were back at the drain and it looks like we might just have won. (more…)
The Great Cat Rescue – Part Three: Let the madness begin
My home away from home for several days
For those of you only just joining us, Mr Small Black Cat’s nosiness has got him trapped - and shooed away – twice in one evening. Terrified he has run two blocks over and taken refuge in a drain that runs beneath the road. Meanwhile, back home…. (more…)
The Great Cat Rescue – Part Two: Puss in Drain
The story thus far: Mr Small Black Cat, Ozzie, has finally ventured outdoors after a fortnight of cowering inside after being bitten by a small dog. When dinner time rolled around and we called The Cats, Fat ‘n’ Fluffy waddled over and Zeena bounded in to take her rightful spot at the head of the food dish. But no sign of Ozzie. It’s not unusual for him to arrive a bit later – being nosy often takes him a little further afield than his sisters. That and his tendency to quiver in fear under a house until nobody can actually see him coming home…. (more…)
The Great Cat Rescue – Part One
Mr Small Black Cat: Ozzie
If you’ve followed my blog or read my book, The Great Urban Ark, you may be familiar with The Cats: Rosie and The Terrible Twins. Rosie (8) is Fat ‘n’ Fluffy and her any time she actually moves is cause much surprise and celebration, even though ‘move’ in her case is something of an exaggeration. I am sure she spends most of her day trying to figure out how to get us to bring the food bowl to her rather than the other way around.
The Terrible Twins – a pair of identical ‘mostly Mandalay’ black kittens, abandoned on the side of the road when only a couple of days old – joined us three years ago. Ozzie and Zeena have been running the joint ever since and I swear they could give Don Corlione lessons…. (more…)
Innovative Online Book Tours
{EAV:1b7b8ffe500d4ad3}I am thrilled to announce that I have just been accepted, over on Just Heard, Just Read, Just Seen as a Online Book Tour Host (yes those are Winnie The Pooh capitals, no I’m not correcting them – move on) for Innovative Online Book Tours.
I’m really excited about this as I’ve been working really hard to grow my blogs over the past few weeks. I’ve overhauled how they look, I’ve updated them, I’ve tweeted them, I’ve Facebooked (oh look I know it’s not a word but it’s late so for tonight – just move along, nothing to see here) them and I have joined what feels like a million blog communities. In fact, girls and boys, I’m starting to feel like I’m something of a social media tart. But I swear I’m not a love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of community member, I’ve been logging in faithfully every night to each of them. In fact by the time I’ve visited each of them there’s no time left to write or blog. Ooooops.
So, I am very excited to see it starting to pay off in small ways. My traffic is increasing, my book review requests are increasing ( hmm those who can, write – those who can’t, review? Let’s not go there…), and of course becoming Online Book Tour Host (oh look Winnie strikes again).
For those of you who don’t know, basically publishers organise for blog owners to ‘host’ an author and/or book during its release. This can mean an interview, a review, an excerpt, a give away, or a guest blog from the author. It’s an all around win situation – the author gets exposure, the blogger gets exposure and readers get great material.
Of course, all of this means I need to order – let me think – oh another 24 hours in a day should just about do it. Reading, reviewing, editing, blogging, posting, tweeting *pant, pant* – and that’s all before I head downstairs to make breakfast for The Offspring, put on my suit and head to the day job, or kiss The Man of The House good morning.
Am I super woman? Hell, no. I’m nuts is what I am.
Seriously though – there is method in my madness. I love to write, I love to connect with people, and I love the cyber world. It seemed to make sense to start building my writing career in a way that worked with those components. While I admit it would be nice to be making more money at it - used to have a guitar teacher in France, who used to roll his eyes and mutter “Angelique, your problem is you want the moon and you want it yesterday, which should tell you something about my patience level – I have to say that I’m feeling creatively quite satisfied with myself.
In other news, we’ve had a sad couple of months here at The New Beach House. Both our darling old slobradogs have left us for the doggy playground on high – Fitzy in January and Barney just a couple of months ago. While it was very sad, having to say goodbye to them it was a comfort knowing they had good lives, were very much loved and brought much love to everyone.
The Terrible Twins and Rosie now have full run of the place. The Twins spend a lot of time curled up at my feet at my desk while I write. My writing desk is upstairs in our bedroom, looking out over the water – and as the chimney runs up through our room, it’s lovely and cosy on blustery day (sigh, NZ winter is looming, dammit).
The Offspring are all settled in school for the year and doing really well. Master 19 – and I’m sorry but no he is NOT turning 20 in September, I don’t care what he says – is doing brilliantly in his third year at music school and has a lovely girlfriend named Sammi, who we all adore. Master 13 is enjoying being a high school student (I think) and has taken up parkour – aka free running, aka driving your mother’s blood pressure through the ceiling. Miss 11 is loving being in the senior grades at primary school and to the horror of all the men in her life, turned into a teenager while they weren’t looking. The cute little girl is gone and a rather formidable (not to mention beautiful) young woman is emerging – look out world is all I can say.
Next week is my one year anniversary of my sleeve surgery – I’m trying to think of something special to do to celebrate it both in the real world and something to share here with readers. Especially as over the past year I’ve lost a little over 50kg….I am literally half the person I used to be. Stay tuned.
See you a little further on up the road guys.