A Super Sonic Day

The snow thawed out (yet again) and on Wednesday we got a freakish sunny day, it was really really warm, my car was 80f (26c). I got home from work and sat in the sun with the cats saying “oh my god kitties, do you remember a time when there was no snow?”. If they did they were keeping very tight lipped about it.

And as the weather was so nice and it was pay day for me, Kim and I decided to drive to Manchester (the CT Manchester, not the north of England) and try out somewhere I’d wanted to go for ages: Sonic.

Sonic is a drive-through fast food place where you can either just go through the normal drive-through like McDonalds style OR you can park up in little bays and study the menu, which we did. Then you press a button to order through an intercom. We got hot dogs and those old fashioned thick milkshakes with the cherries on top.

And then your carhop brings your food out to your car on roller skates! I felt like the Flintstones only my car didn’t tip over from the weight of dinosaur ribs. Kim wasn’t that excited but I was thrilled. When they give you your food they say ‘Have a super sonic day!” Heheee. What a novelty. After dinner we went to Old Navy and ended up spending quite a bit, oops. Thank goodness we get paid fortnightly in America.

Mrs Bridges And Mr Bar

We started last weekend with a trip to Mrs Bridges Tea Rooms for a bit of afternoon tea.

Sadly Mrs Bridges had run out of all the English stock in their shop, someone had come and cleared them out and they were awaiting a delivery – it was probably for the best as I discovered the English aisle in the Stop & Shop and there is only so much Marmite one can buy.

And the next week started off nicely, I’m settling in well at my new job and Kim went back to work after her vacation time, until Mr Barclay cat came into the house after having what we presume was a fight with another cat.

So I cleaned him off but there was a swelling underneath his ear – we assumed a hematoma so we kept an eye on it only Barclay had other ideas and kept scratching his ear and grooming all the antiseptic ointment off of it, poor old boy. So we kept an eye on him. I made a nice apple crumble this week and also a pumpkin pie using some baking kits we got. I’m glad we had the kits because apparently making pumpkin pie from fresh pumpkin is pretty time consuming (not pictured is the bit of pie I ruined by putting my oven glove in it accidentally!).

Bar’s wound wasn’t really healing very well as he kept scratching it and it was very weepy so we took him to the vets for what was meant to be a drop off appointment only Barcle didn’t behave very well so I had to drive back in early to attend his appointment so he’d let them shave around the area and give him a good clean and some antibiotics. As soon as I got there he switched from demon cat to little angel cat and the vet couldn’t believe it. The vet thinks he has a little abscess from his scrap.

So now he has a little baldy spot but hopefully he won’t have to go back to have the abscess drained.

Pumpkin anyone? pum…kin? Huh.

Getting Ready For The Big Move

I have been busy busy busy preparing to emigrate. Although the visa is now all in order there’s a lot of tying up loose ends. I sent 5 boxes off to Connecticut and all the rest of my things have to be given away or sold (which is endlessly time consuming!). I ordered and received my international driving permit which is all a bit bizarre. I just had to pay £8.50, no learning, no test or instructions of how to drive abroad of any kind and I got this old fashioned pre-war looking thing in khaki cardboard.

We finally got our house sorted so Kimberly and her parents have been setting everything up, assembling new furniture and unpacking the old from her old apartment. She’s had the joy of setting up the internet and Sears customer service and meanwhile I’ve been trying to catch up with all of my friends and family. Including a dinner where my friend Emily and I were sat next to this odd wall hanging in an Italian restaurant.

I sent my little fur babies off on a plane and they’re getting collected by Kimmy today from Boston, they were extremely disgruntled at being stuffed into crates and I can’t imagine they’re enjoying the flight very much but we just couldn’t possibly leave them behind. Bunny (the cat) was wise to me and immediately scrambled to escape as I packed her up but poor Barclay was so shocked he allowed himself to be put in with just an upset meow.

In the mean time I live my life in countdowns – only 6 days until my family vacation to Centerparcs and 25 days until I move.

 

May Days

Happy Sunday readers, I am currently living in mad visa hell and haven’t been up to a whole bunch. It was little Barclay heart head’s 8th birthday. As he gets older I have been investigating cloning options for him and thinking of starting a go fund me page to raise the thousands. I’m holding out he’ll live well into his 20s.

Some work mates and I had a bingo outing a couple weeks ago, and as is my usual bingo style I cursed us all and no one won anything. Obviously.

But I did enjoy some very reasonably priced carrot cake… so that’s a bonus.

My boss had a big party last week for her 50th which was good fun although I think lots of my colleagues felt like this afterwards…

Tasha and I needed a big breakfast the next day.

And then a couple days ago a few uni friends and I went to the spa at Dunston Hall (A stately looking manor place turned hotel) because I found a Groupon voucher (I love a bargain) so that was very nice and we had some lunch together after our fingers had turned pruney.

Kim has sent off the USA visa (we gave up on the expensive UK one as we would have to move to the USA eventually because of Kim’s mammoth student loan) so that will take a long old time. I’m thinking of switching from my lovely permanent job (sob) to a temping agency style job so I can visit a lot whilst we wait. We shall see…

Christmas Day 2015

Joy to the world, it’s Christmas time, let’s open up the wine!

Well what a nice day we have had today, we started off with pan au chocolat (it’s on a salad plate so it’s ok).

Then we opened up some gifts, Barclay went crazy over cat nip drugs, this isn’t even the toy it’s the pack the toy came in! The real toy had to be confiscated. Bunny, Kim’s cat, was batting round her toy balls.

Netflix has a fireplace show with Christmas songs I thought was funny so we had a miniature fireplace whilst we opened gifts.

After we opened some of our gifts we had some bucks fizz and constructed a gingerbread house and called a couple people. Now just look at the photo on the box of how it should look.

Here’s my attempt on my half of the house…

And this was Kimberly’s attempt… looks like a drunk child iced it doesn’t it?

My half…

Oh dear… it was even worse when she was laughing.

  

And then we skyped with Kim’s family in America and opened the rest of our gifts. I got a lot of really nice gifts. The strangest of which was an umbrella hat from my friend Crissy. Crissy and I buy each other gag gifts, I bought her an inflatable crocodile for her pool (she moved to Australia) so she could be Steve Irwin and wrestle, she assumed she had bought this online whilst drunk and had no idea it was from me so for the last few days had been merrily playing on it in the pool.

Kim got some nice gifts too, including millions of socks from everyone including me, I don’t think she will need to buy socks again for some years. Santa bought Kim underwear… Kim was creeped out by the idea of a bearded old man that knew her size browsing the aisles for her delicates but Kim’s Mom assured her that Santa just knows what everyone needs.

And then it was time for a chicken dinner from Marks & Spencers for both us and the kitties.

 Also we watched the Queen’s speech which I had never seen before, I was disappointed with how religious it was. Like… we get it, you go to church Queen, stop going on about it. Oh god I’m still so full. No more food for now in case I pop.

Taking Barclay To The Cattery :(

I’m going away over Christmas and can’t take my beloved cat with me, which meant packing him up in the little cat carrier, which he was not amused with…

And taking him to the cat brig… aww poor little Barclay, but in fairness the cattery was absolutely lovely, ran by a really friendly family of animal lovers and in his little pen he has a litter tray, a little ladder leading up to a comfy sleeping box where I put his fleecey blanket he likes to sleep on and inside is a little heater that he’ll have on over night. When they’re cleaning it he can go in and outdoor pen to explore and they bought in all his favourite food brands and treats. So I know he’ll be well looked after.

But I do feel bad to be without him, poor old boy. The lovely Sarah (my friend from uni) dropped him off with me and after that we went to Blickling Hall which was near by where her sister got married (um, nice!!).

And we had a nice little coffee/cake combo.

And then we went on a muddy but pleasant walk/gossip where about 5 minutes after taking this photo I got electrocuted by the effing fence!! Not cool.

He’s So Fancy, You Already Know

So I’m a crazy cat lady, and recently Mr Barclay and I have moved house… near a main road… so unfortunately Mr pussycat can’t go out for now.

Aww look he has a heart in his fur! Anyway… so I’ve bought him a few things lately to keep him amused. First off cat grass, this is really good, I got it at pets at home and you just add water (although you can buy the seeds alone if you’re less lazy than I am – let’s face it, you probably are). Only cost about £2! Bargain. And it’s been a couple of days and the shoots are coming through.

Secondly I bought him cat-nip bubbles which he really likes, at first they confused him but then he realised he could lick the bubble wand and have a short drug induced roll around on the carpet.

Next up, feathers on a stick, the classic. He like’s this if he’s having a mad five minutes before bed time.

I got him a cat harness too for him to explore the garden which went great until he figured out how to escape it! I’ll be putting it on extra tight next time for little Houdini.

But his favourite activity is watching outside the back garden window…

For his enemies… squirrels, other cats, birds, bats. You name it, he hates it.

Look at his new bow tie argyle collar, how sweet. And that’s the kitty update for the new house.

Tired Out

So I’m unpacked and in my new place and gave back the keys for my old; Barclay’s just pleased I’ve unpacked his toys.

But cocktails with the lovely Anastasia cheered me up this week. She ordered a white Russian (she’s white and Russian so this made me laugh).

It’s so weird, I’ve heard a ton about it but I’d never been to Franks Bar in Norwich, I had a really tasty cocktail called apple crumble and it really tasted like that!

But other things like changing my address (including an 18 minute long conversation with Scottish Widows!) have been much less fun and because of all this moving I am so behind on my dissertation. Wah 😦

I was thinking today, I don’t get body warmers. I never have a situation where my arms are hot but my body is cold. Surely no one does… why do they exist??

Christmas Preparations

My Christmas preparations have been rather shoddy this year due to me being on placement until this week and also working and so I have failed dreadfully on such things as Christmas cards.

Pussycat and I have been keeping the tree watered though and our decorations arrived by post, hurrah.

And the advent calendar has being going strong. When I have a 12 hour shift this is what gives my very early morning a slight lift.

So this week I finally did some Christmas shopping, I got in super early and asked the boyfriend to drop me off one his way to work. This of course meant that the shops were not quite open and I was forced to eat a delicious breakfast.

And then, I struck, I was the first one in and out of all the shops, look at the emptiness – glorious!

I trundled along happily and when it started to get busy around 11ish, out of the city I popped off home. Brilliant.

This is the future of Christmas shopping. In other news one of the previous occupants of our house has been sending us christmas presents by accident, so far we have been sent a game for people called Richard, The Hobbit on DVD and also a book about the game show Pointless…. all I can say is that I think we have saved someone from some mediocre gifts this Christmas. Also due to the digital age of information stealing the invoices included with each order have no information for which to contact the actual owner of these gifts! I wonder what we’ll be sent by mistake next. A week ago I was at home and a delivery driver dropped me off one of these – http://shop.lego.com/en-GB/Millennium-Falcon-7965

Very sadly he realised his mistake, brought us the correct package and building work was unable to commence haha.

Uhm… I went grocery shopping and this happened…

I just saw him there (the Christmas tree is a he) and he needed a home, I know it’s November but… look how bushy!

So much to the annoyance of the boyfriend I got him, and took him home for Mr Pussycat to inspect thoroughly.

Lovely and bushy… we’re away over Xmas so I need to make the most of our tree. And he has a nice little pot so we I can keep him nice and healthy.

I found this in the Christmas decorations bag too, mwahaha.

Also the boyfriend and I got his and her mugs because they were on sale. They didn’t have a Mario so the boyfriend got Yoshi.