So far I've been reasonably productive. The ukulele arrived safely this morning (see icon!) and it's a dear little thing. So cute! It was even still in tune and I discovered that guitar playing skills are very much transferable to ukuleles. I can already strum a few chords, though when it comes to picking out tunes, my brain keeps thinking that the open string is D when in fact it's E. But this will come with practice. I have two books and CDs to work through, then I can explore the stuff on the Web.

After experimenting with the new toy, I was good and I swept and wiped the kitchen floor, vacuumed and dusted the hall and stairs, changed the rugs, washed the dirty rugs and put them out to dry. While I was doing this, I let Aimee out for her second serious exploration of the garden.

Here, a little belatedly, are some photos of her first expedition, which happened a few days ago.



Aimee ventures out into the garden for the first time since coming to live with us.

( More pictures behind here... )

Tags: aimee, cats, garden, music, ukulele
Current Mood: productive

Aimee thinks the mouse mat is really a cat mat!

It's just as well I know all the keyboard shortcuts. My mouse was underneath her. :)

Today, for the first time, I let her out to explore the garden. She's been out twice before, once on purpose and once when she just jumped out past me, but both times I enticed her back in right away.

This time I walked down the garden to encourage her to do the same and she also slid through the fence to briefly investigate the gardens on either side.

Tags: 365 photo project, aimee, cats, photography
Current Mood: amused

Aimee settles down to study an OU course on Discourse Analysis. :)

(Not a 365 project photo, just a bonus photo of the cat.)

Tags: aimee, books, cats, photography, reading

Aimee doing her Oliver Twist impression.

Actually, that was the bowl I'd put out for my soup, but Aimee thought she might like to eat the soup for me. :)

Tags: 365 photo project, aimee, cats, photography

Aimee loves climbing and miraculously manages to settle in the most unlikely places.

(Not part of the 365 photo project. This is a bonus photo!)

Tags: aimee, cats, photography

Today I'm wearing a new pair of cord jeans. They are a very dark brown and I noticed this morning, as Aimee snuggled on my lap while I was checking email and investigating the possibility of using some form of IM or chat with Google documents, that most of Aimee is the exact same shade as the trousers. (She isn't actually black, though she usually looks it in photos, but a very very dark seal brown.)

Unfortunately... the white bits of Aimee are, well, white and so though the dark hairs that are now sticking to the aforementioned cord jeans don't show at all, the white ones show up really well.

Tags: aimee, cats
Current Mood: cheerful

Aimee has just had a silly ten minutes or so running around in that demented way that cats do. She really did make me LOL. Now she's purring on my lap and I'm having to type one-handed because she's insisting on being stroked under the chin!

Still ploughing through all the stuff I have to do. I managed to finish my two poems for the creative writing assignment and wrote the reflection yesterday. Happily submitted the assignment, only to have an aaarrrgh! moment just now when I realised that I hadn't double-spaced the reflection bit. (Obviously the poems are single spaced, which is why I forgot.) After dithering for a moment, my inner perfectionist overcame my inner sluggard and I re-formatted the offending section and re-submitted.

The creative writing evening class that I teach started again tonight. We were doing creating characters tonight. It's good to have students to talk to. Over half term, I was missing the contact with people. In fact all my classes are on again this week. Tomorrow morning is Welsh and then Thursday evening is the BA Education class, for which I have to give the seminar. Oooh, er!

Must make dinner now before G gets in. I have been taking photos, but no time to process them. Hopefully there wil be photos tomorrow. Having said that, there is the little matter of the 30 or so tiny stories to crit for the OU fiction writing course I tutor. And there is the little matter of the assignment I have to write for G's module on the BA course.

Tags: a215, aimee, cats
Current Mood: busy

When not in use, please ensure that your lolcat is stored in a warm dry place. :)

And as there is no such thing as too many cat photos, here's another one.

Tags: 365 photo project, aimee, cats, photography

I think we're starting to settle into a routine, but Aimee still has to be shut in the conservatory while we eat. I keep giving her the chance to behave, but temptation always proves too much and she can't resist the flying leap onto the table, even though it must surely be beginning to dawn on her that that only leads to her temporary eviction.

The other thing she can't resist is the remains of the cold chicken in the fridge. As soon as the fridge door opens, she's there going, "Oh! Wo! Wo!" (which I take it is feline for: "Chicken! Mine! Mine!"). I then have to fend her off with one hand while collecting whatever it was I wanted with the other.

This lunchtime, she was grabbing for the chicken and I was fending her off when she unexpectedly seemed to grow an extra pair of front legs from somewhere. With these extra legs, she grabbed the chicken and dragged it out onto the floor. It landed on the plate, which broke, but I snatched the chicken out of harm's way, so all was well. It was an old plate, an oddment left over from a set we had years ago, so no great loss.

Note to self: Next time, put chicken in fridge on tin plate. ☺

Tags: aimee, cats
Current Mood: busy

I have to give a seminar next Thursday as part of the assessment for the BA Education course. This is a new thing for me and I've been thrashing around trying to get something coherent out of the vague idea that I started with.

However, I now have the bulk of the briefing sheet done, most of a PowerPoint presentation and the seminar now has a shape. I knew from the beginning that it would be about lifelong learning, but of course that is a huge topic. Anyway, I've managed to prune away the distracting sidetracks and I now have what I hope will be a strong thread running through the talk and discussion.

Oh, and I'm sure you'll all be pleased to know that My Typing Round Cat skills have returned. ☺

You know, I hadn't realised how truly sedentary I had become until Aimee arrived. I now have to jump up from the computer every so often to let her into the kitchen or out of the kitchen or to persuade her to stop wowling in a forlorn manner at the bottom of the stairs and come and sit on my lap instead.

I'm sure it's much better for me.

Tags: aimee, ba education, cats
Current Mood: cheerful and productive