Daisy Daisy

New kitten alert! Not here of course - B&P would eat her alive. This is Daisy, she belongs to our neighbours. She's the teensy tiniest and cutest thing I've ever seen! These are from her first day in her new home when we were lucky enough to visit.

If I fits, I sits

Fulfilling this cat adage with aplomb, here's Parsley squeezing himself into a too-small shoebox.

We are little teapots...

He started it.

New Faces

Now that Spring has almost sprung, we're getting lots of visitors to our lovely garden. Most of whom Basil and Parsley consider it their duty to fight with and see off accordingly. Key cuplrits are...

Tiger:

He lives next door-but-one, part Bengal from the looks of it, and is constantly trying to get into our house for no apparent reason. He's on a mission. Look, he's even trying the door handles:

And this sly fox:

I'm loving seeing this guy around looking so healthy, but it does also worry me with regards the boys, especially as we saw him chasing Parsley the other day.

We've also had the privilege of taking care of our neighbours 3 cats whilst they're on holiday this past week or so. The two girls, Poppy and Bella are pretty much terrified of us and have barely ventured out from under the bed all week. The big British Blue, Topaz, on the other hand is our new best friend. Here he is, the handsome devil:

He likes tuna. And sitting in his amazon box.

Right, enough of these interlopers, back to my favourites. Hardly any pics of them together this time around, as they've kind of fallen out and have spent most of the last month or so hissing and howling at each other. Not much fun for anyone. I'm hoping it's a sort of teenage phase. They buddy-ed up at my Mum's house though, whilst we were away in Mallorca. D'awww... dunno why they look so terrified. I'll blame my Dad.

Basil has been practising his grumpiest faces:

Parsley has been helping with the gardening:

Other than that it's been business as usual -  sleeping, snuggling and looking dumb:

That's all for now folks.

A couple of guys who were up to no good, started making trouble in my neighbourhood...

It's true, I've finally caved in and Basil and Parsley are no longer indoor cats. They've managed to lose 7 collars between them in about a month, which is pretty impressive, though 2 of them have since been returned to us by kindly neighbours. Parsley seems to be on a one-man mission to lose his good looks as quickly as possible, coming home covered in scratches every day. We've already had one trip to the vet for a bite-induced infection, which was zero fun for everyone involved. In short, he's been scrapping like there's no tomorrow. We'll have to start calling him Scar soon, and get him a skull to talk to. Hopefully things will settle down once territories are established and so on.

Here's the momentous, umm, moment... the installation of the cat-flap, courtesy of our dear friend Andy. Just look at that handy tool... and the drill (boom boom)...

It took the boys a little while to figure it out...

... but they've got it locked down now - there's no turning back! All we need now is for this interminable winter to finally draw to a close so that we can join them out there.

Other than terrorising the feline neighbourhood, B&P have spent the usual amount of time sitting around and looking idiotic and/or cute, mostly the former...

I was also lucky enough to go to Marwell Wildlife Park for my birthday over Easter, where we came across some distant cousins, in oddly familiar poses...

Sand cats:

Ocelots: 

Servals (I think):

Cheetahs (or as the posh idiot next to us kept telling his kids: leopards. I nearly threw him in there. After me kids: a cheetah ate my father, no, not leopard, cheetah)...

And most amazing of all... Snow Leopards:

I'll have one of all of these for my next birthday please. 

Basil and Parsley are not amused

Lazy Buggers

Basil and Parsley (like most cats) spend an extraordinary amount of time asleep, or at least half asleep...

Napping in the afternoon is abominably lazy, I certainly would not condone it.

Ah.

Professor Parsley

I feel slight guilt at the Parsley-centric posts, but he is much more amenable to having his picture taken. Basil probably would have mudered us if we tried to do this to him. Or at least broken the glasses.

Places please!

Parsley: I want you to give your best disdainful and disgruntled expression...
Basil: Show me your best hyena leg whilst sleeping...

Good work everyone!

My mate Parsley...

So here's me and my mate Parsley hanging out in the kitchen (this room is still on the 'to do' list, clearly). 

Obviously Basil's my great mate too, but he doesn't like having his picture taken as much as Poser Parsley.

We're back! I have no excuse for the hiatus.

I can only apologise for the exorbitant amount of time that has passed since my last post. We have moved house (yes, again), and the whole family is well settled. It's very much a 'project' house, so it'll be years before we've got it exactly how we want it, but we're up for the challenge, especially with B&P on hand to help.

They've not been allowed outside here yet, as weather has been inclement to say the least. We've made the fairly momentous decision to let them 'out out' once the weather warms up. Of course, I will worry myself sick on a daily basis, but we can't imprison them indoors indefinitely, just because I'm a pathological worrier.

They love the new house (more stairs!) and once we get them out there, I'm sure they're going to love the garden too - all 100ft of it! Next door have a few cats (including the cutest-kitten-ever called Baby, pic to follow I hope), and a gorgeous Husky, so we'll just have  to see what happens when we let the boys outside. I do not expect that Basil and Parsley will play well with others. Here's hoping they can prove me wrong.

Whilst we humans have been busy packing, unpacking, decorating and working too damn hard, Basil and Parsley have also been keeping themselves very busy indeed. Here's a taster of the plethora of activities they've been involved in over the last few months.

Modelling the latest in feline outdoor wear:

  Assisting us with the move by climbing into all available drawers and cupboards, to confirm they are empty:

Competing for the Least Flattering Pose Award:

(It's a tough call).

...And the Stupidest Expression Award:

This would have gone to Basil, save for Parsley's late entry with 'Lion Face':

What else have they been up to? Well, a spot of office work:

A bit of DJ-ing:

... they're available for birthdays and weddings in the Bishop's Stortford area.

They also moonlight as hoover engineers:

The prognosis is not good:

B&P have dabbled in performance art...

... more modelling...

And lastly, but by no means leastly (if you will)... snuggling and snoozing:

Sometimes they even let me join in...

... but mostly it's a private party:

FIN