First book event of the year

I've been invited to take my books along to an event at All Saints Village Hall Upper Poppleton  on Sat 9th Feb. 6pm -  This will be my first event of the year, and promises to be a good night, with plenty of variety...  I'm planning something a bit different too, to kick start the new year... come along and join in the fun.

Snow in York

The first time I've seen York's outer ring road covered in snow...  last night coming up to midnight. Not many too many cars on the road at that time of night.

Dreaming of a good night's sleep...

So last night there were more bumps in the night, but at least they explained the mysterious bumps in the night the night before, when I was woken by what sounded like something being knocked off somewhere high up, but when I got up to investigate, nothing was out of place, except Bumble who'd been asleep under the bed, and was now wandering about the bedroom...

Last night, there was a similar noise, followed by sounds of rustling on the wardrobe top. That'll teach me to leave a sleeping cat under the bed in the hope that he'll stay asleep till morning. So there he was, almost at ceiling level with his usual look that made it clear he intended to stay there... watching as I fetched a stool to stand on. He purred as I lifted him down, maybe he was pleased to be saved the long jump down... 

Converting book for kindle...

Doodle Mayhem is already out there on kindle, and now I'm reformatting A Face Full of Snow to e-publish too.
My main problem when I converted Doodle Mayhem, was that the illustrations went all over the place. They were inserted into the text, and where they fell between lines, they were fine, but where they had text wrapped around them it was a free for all with words and pictures running around all over the place. So this time I've reformatted before I start, in the hope that it will fall into place better when I come to convert the files to kindle.

Snow day for cats...

So the cats seem to have declared their own snow day, and a bag of wool is not the best thing to leave lying around on such a day... two of the balls of wool are slightly the worse for wear, but the stitches are still on the needles.

So much for the new scratching post/tree I bought to distract them from destroying things - they broke a branch on the third day - I think we need some heavy duty cat play equipment...  or spring - that would do then they can climb proper trees.

The secret to a good night's sleep...

The secret to a good night's sleep:

• Shut the cats out of the bedroom, or at least the main trouble makers...
• Read a good book.
• Ignore noises coming from the rest of the house.
• Lock cat flap, then at least you only have your own cats to worry about.

Things that interfere with a good night's sleep:

• Misjudging who the trouble makers were. 
• Knowing that locked cat flaps can be broken through.
• Thinking the sleeping cat under the bed will stay asleep...
• Being landed on by a cat jumping from a wardrobe top.

Learning to ski...

 ...feeling like a stranded big.

When you cross your skis it's only going to end in disaster... 

If you can relate to any of these then A Face Full of Snow is the book for you...

Curtain drama

I only meant to draw the curtains a bit further to let a bit more sunshine in for my cat... sorry Steve, I know it must have seemed to you like the world was falling in but who was to know that the curtain rail was going to start popping off it's fixings, sending the curtains sliding down to one end, thus popping more fixings, leaving me teetering on the windowsill  trying to catch everything at once. I don't blame you for running for the cover of a sturdy table...

...more cat flap trouble.

So remind me, why did I go to so much trouble to teach Kryten to use the cat flap...? He's brought a frog in two days running - which did at least answer one question - was the frog dead or just faking it? It was definitely dead!

Cat flap trouble...

Well I suppose it had to happen one day, but I didn't expect it to be in winter... you'd think I'd be used to the cats bringing creatures in by now, but the last thing I expected to meet on the stairs on a Monday morning was a frog... Of all the things that have been brought in through the cat flap I think this was the worst...

Frogs are all very well from a distance, and I spent most of last summer defending them from the cats who kept catching them. But I think the frogs are stalking me now - it started with one who I'd just rescued from a cat, which then jumped on my bare foot in the garden. Next were the frogs who always seemed to be waiting to jump on me on wet summer evenings, and now we've had one in the house...

Things that go bump in the night...

With 6 cats there has to be a head count before we can go to bed, but when the missing one turns out to be under a bed, it's easy to think it doesn't matter as he's asleep - what trouble could a sleeping cat cause? Well... once he wakes up and climbs onto the wardrobe top he's going to need an easy way down - I heard him go up there, and had the foresight to roll over onto my side in case he landed on my belly or face - I'm just lucky he only landed on my feet, and the duvet acted as padding...

Mystery solved...

The mystery of the missing Lego Santa was solved when the tree was taken down. He was behind the sideboard in several pieces, not sure how he managed to land there if he was knocked off the tree by a cat, so maybe he just dived for cover at the sight of a large tabby heading up the tree towards him...

Missing Lego Santa

So... we've reached January with the tree and most of it's decorations still intact - well one of the strings of lights has stopped working but I don't think the cats can be blamed for that - after all it's the ones in the other room that I've seen them chewing. They probably haven't done anything to the tree lights...

But we do have a missing Lego Santa - it's a mystery - all that remains is the red thread that he dangled from and a single piece of red Lego from his hat...

Well it wasn't me - look it's still there...

But where's Santa now...?