a tip for the desperate

[Kay]

I thought as it's a quiet week I would pass on something I've learned after 10 years of feeding Gourmet Gold pate to my two, and wasting a lot of money trying to get them on to something more wholesome - I have discovered that if I take the time to mash all the lumps out of the better stuff, adding water if necessary, they will eat a lot more varieties than I thought they would

this is particularly true of Bozita, which mashes down really well because it has a lot of jelly or gravy

[bobbys girl]

That applies to all sorts of foods - mash it up! Fussy little beggars!

[Lilith]

You know I've thought of that but I'm too lazy to mess around with my Ninja chopper thingy.

Slob, I know ...

[booktigger]

You know I've thought of that but I'm too lazy to mess around with my Ninja chopper thingy.

Slob, I know ...

I just use a fork to mash cat food up

[Lilith]

I just use a fork to mash cat food up

A ... FORK???

Hard labour!

[Kay]

I use a fork too - a really cheap thin metal one is the easiest sort to use - but I have used a potato masher and that works too

and you need a fairly wide flat cat dish or use a plate

another little tip while I'm on a roll - I bought some small individual icecreams in plastic pots in Lidl's the other day, and find they are great at popping over uneaten food in the cats' dishes to keep it moist and the flies away

[Lilith]

Oh I know, but I'm in the throes of editing The Novel and competing for the Nobel Peace prize and splitting the atom, oops sorry, someone else splattened the atom when I were nobbut a lass ...

Well anyway, Suffering for my Art ...

And if anyone knows an agent willing to market worst writing and weak wit even though this is no longer wit weak, I'd be grateful ...

Excuses, excuses, a miniature potato masher would be a cool idea, now why don't I design one of those and make my fortune instead of having a novel, or kittens (too old for that) or splattening the atom ...

Errm sorry Kay

[Kay]

if you could design a long handled scrubbing brush and a gadget to clean the top and bottom of a skirting board without bending then you have your first customer - most of my wish list involves long handles and no bending these days

which is why mashing up cat food is doable because it's done on a work top, and food eaten up means not having to bend down to wipe up all the unwanted lumps pushed out of the dish and on to the floor

priorities alas change with the advancing years

[Lilith]

Errm well ...

B*gger the skirting boards. And confound all housework. At least I do ...

What I need is two laps. Emily says she's my laptop. There's a story about the poet Coleridge who, when writing 'Kubla Khan' was pestered by a 'person from Porlock.'

Emily is my purrson from Pawlock!

[Kay]

speaking as an ex-English literature student, I think we all owe a debt of gratitude to the person from Porlock

and being interuppted by a cat was an excuse never used by such as Hemingway or Mark Twain, among others

https://www.buzzfeed.com/harpercollins/ ... .fiY84l7jq

whereas dirty skirting boards can be very distracting

[Lilith]

speaking as an ex-English literature student, I think we all owe a debt of gratitude to the person from Porlock

and being interuppted by a cat was an excuse never used by such as Hemingway or Mark Twain, among others

https://www.buzzfeed.com/harpercollins/ ... .fiY84l7jq

whereas dirty skirting boards can be very distracting

Oh no no no, poetry comes before skirting boards!!!

[bobbys girl]

another little tip while I'm on a roll - I bought some small individual icecreams in plastic pots in Lidl's the other day, and find they are great at popping over uneaten food in the cats' dishes to keep it moist and the flies away

I was looking for one of those plastic covers for tins. Couldn't get one anywhere. Then a lovely fella at Pets at Home took one off a promotional tin of dog food. Cats don't mind.

Oooh BTW Porlock is a lovely little place and Porlock Vale and surrounding hills rate highly in my top 10 favourite places on earth.

My all time favourite poem is 'To Nature' by yer man Coleridge, 'and if the wide world rings in mock of this belief, to me it brings nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity'.

[Lilith]

Ohh yes, and -

'Riches I hold in light esteem
And love I laugh to scorn.
And lust of fame was but a dream
That vanished with the dawn.

And if I pray, then this the prayer
That moves my lips for me -
Leave me the heart that now I bear
And give me liberty.

Yes, as my swift days reach their goal,
'Tis all that I implore -
In life and death, a chainless soul,
With courage to endure!'

I may have got the punctuation wrong, apologies to Emily Bronte, but since I found this on a site called 'American Poets' ...

Oh and I think Emily meant by 'endure' not the sense of putting up with anything but rather being herself, lasting forever. And so she has.

Wow, this takes us a long way from mashing up cat food, but I'm told that in the Bronte museum there is a chair ... scratted to b*ggery by a Bronte cat ...

[fjm]

Love it - mashed cat food to Coleridge to Emily Bronte and back in two easy cat leaps!

Years ago the friend who cared for my cats when I was away used to carefully mash up the food in the dishes before putting them on the floor. Then one day she watched one cat tackle a large mouse, looked at the tiny soft morsels in the bowl, and put the fork away!

[Ruth B]

At the moment I seem to be keeping Gourmet in business, all of mine have decided they like it. Stroppy, my Mum's old cat always had a preference for it and mine ate it occasionally, preferring the Felix AGAIL For the last few weeks however I noticed that all the pate that was put down at night had disappeared where as the Felix had mostly had its jelly licked off and only a small amount of the meat eaten. So I started to put down pate in a morning as well and an hour after it was put down the bowls are clean. I might have to try mashing up the Felix, but basically I'm loo lazy or too busy trying to get tea on the plate to worry about it.

Any one else remember the old tins of Supermeat, they looked rather like a pate, but I have a feeling mine would really turn their noses up if i bought any, assuming they still make it and shops still sell it.

As far as skirting boards and cleaning the corners of rooms goes, one of the advantages of being partially sighted is that I don't notice them, if it isn't within about 18" of my nose I can't see it, and if it is something small then it has to be within about 6" and I have to be wearing strong reading glasses. Mucky skirting boards and cobwebs in corners are things that happen to other people.

I have to admit to having a soft spot for Kubla Khan and at one point could recite the whole thing from memory, I've always had a liking for the weird stuff and that poem certainly counts. It was also one of the ones in my English Literature O level poetry selection and hearing an English teacher trying to explain it to a bunch of school girls is something that stays in the mind. Jaberwocky was another in the selection so the teacher didn't have an easy time of it that year.

[Kay]

this is what I call a poem - Thomas Hardy's 'Last Words to a Dumb Friend' - get your hankies out

“Pet was never mourned as you,
Purrer of the spotless hue,
Plumy tail, and wistful gaze
While you humoured our queer ways,
Or outshrilled your morning call
Up the stairs and through the hall –
Foot suspended in its fall –
While, expectant, you would stand
Arched, to meet the stroking hand;
Till your way you chose to wend
Yonder, to your tragic end.

“Never another pet for me!
Let your place all vacant be;
Better blankness day by day
Than companion torn away.
Better bid his memory fade,
Better blot each mark he made,
Selfishly escape distress
By contrived forgetfulness,
Than preserve his prints to make
Every morn and eve an ache.

“From the chair whereon he sat
Sweep his fur, nor wince thereat;
Rake his little pathways out
Mid the bushes roundabout;
Smooth away his talons’ mark
From the claw-worn pine-tree bark,
Where he climbed as dusk embrowned,
Waiting us who loitered round.

“Strange it is this speechless thing,
Subject to our mastering,
Subject for his life and food
To our gift, and time, and mood;
Timid pensioner of us Powers,
His existence ruled by ours,
Should–by crossing at a breath
Into safe and shielded death,
By the merely taking hence
Of his insignificance –
Loom as largened to the sense,
Shape as part, above man’s will,
Of the Imperturbable.

“As a prisoner, flight debarred,
Exercising in a yard,
Still retain I, troubled, shaken,
Mean estate, by him forsaken;
And this home, which scarcely took
Impress from his little look,
By his faring to the Dim
Grows all eloquent of him.

“Housemate, I can think you still
Bounding to the window-sill,
Over which I vaguely see
Your small mound beneath the tree,
Showing in the autumn shade
That you moulder where you played.”

October 2, 1904.

[Lilith]

Ohhh ...

We have to remember that death is rarely sad for the deceased, but it is for the ones who miss them.

Memorising poetry ... at school in the 1950s a whole class of us were set to learn De La Mare's 'Nicholas Nye' by heart - and WRITE IT OUT. I remember my form teacher and the headmaster standing watching as industrious little Lil scribbled away ... I mean, what was the POINT of that?

Mind you I remember surviving grim sessions at the dentist's later on, reciting chunks of Browning and Swinburne in my head, so perhaps the skill came in handy after all, filling in time, ain't that the tooth ... errm sorry

[MarySkater]

A friend told me once that she had trouble at school because, although she was clever, there was some sort of block in her brain and she couldn't learn by heart, however much she tried. Teachers scolded and punished her because they thought she just wasn't trying. Eventually she found that if, in her head, she set the poem to some pop tune, then she could remember it. Apparently remembering music uses a different bit of the brain from remembering just words.

But I agree, recalling poetry in your head is a good way of distracting yourself. I often learn a few lines of something late at night, and think through it in bed, to lull myself to sleep.

[booktigger]

Love it - mashed cat food to Coleridge to Emily Bronte and back in two easy cat leaps!

Years ago the friend who cared for my cats when I was away used to carefully mash up the food in the dishes before putting them on the floor. Then one day she watched one cat tackle a large mouse, looked at the tiny soft morsels in the bowl, and put the fork away!

My second cat had to have all her teeth out, so i used to put her biscuits in the blender and put the powder over her wet food (without it she was really loose). This lasted a few months until I walked in once and found her eating my other cats whole biscuits

[Lilith]

This reminds me of someone I used to know who bred Siamese and Balinese (Eileen of Outlanes are you reading this by any chance? )

She had a Foreign Red who had to lose most of his teeth. (Is it a peculiarity of gingers - I've known a few with wonky teeth.) 'But watch his gums,' said the vet. 'Why?' asked Eileen. 'What are they going to do? Dance a fandango?'

Her ginger man scarfed down the biscuits with the best of them!

[Ruth B]

Blue always loved his dried food and he had to have all his teeth out, the vet carefully explained how his mouth would be sore and how he should be kept on wet food with added water to help make it even softer for a few days and then to add water to the dried food to soften that up as well when he was ready to try it. We got home opened the carrier and he straight off realised that we hadn't taken the dried food up, it had been left down for Tiggy our other cat at the time, before we could stop him he was head first in the bowl and he never looked back.

Tiggy is now currently at the vets for an over night stay before having her dental done tomorrow, she has been border line for years, but has been drooling recently so we decided it was time to get it done, we wait and see how many teeth she has left when she gets home tomorrow.

I was lucky I used to enjoy memorising poetry and was quite good at it, the same for song lyrics, however tunes were a different matter, I could sing out of tune and out of key at the same time, or as I heard it put I 'couldn't carry a tune in a bucket'. I think I must be one of the few people who had a music teacher tell them to mime when the class was meant to be singing in front of an audience.

[bobbys girl]

Ruth - Twas bryllig and the slythy toves did gyre and gymble in the wabe. My borogoves have never been so mimsy!

Isn't it amazing what rhubarb you accumulate along the way?

[Lilith]

Ohhh don't, don't, I'll be haunted by slithy toves for the rest of the night now, and as for song lyrics ... ohhhh.

I particularly like the ones you can mishear. Like this one -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4co5j5raTc

As a friend said - whaat? He's b*ggered two dalmatians???

Don't blame me, blame Shane MacGowan and his wonky teeth

Talking of wonky teeth - Good luck our Tiggy for the dental, your gnashers will be looking better than SG's in 24 hours, hugs and kisses little lass! x

[alanc]

Can't help suspecting that in many cases, mashing up the meat into pate is reversing what the manufacturer has done to make the lumps out of mechanically reclaimed meat! Anyway, I won't have anything said against Gourmet Gold Pate at the moment - Tilly eats it and that makes me glad!
On the poetic line, "The boy stood on the burning deck, whence all but he had fled" is about all I can remember from my childhood and that is only because it comes in the Swallows and Amazons cannon somewhere.
Best wishes to Tiggy.

[Lilith]

Oh Alan - that brings back a very silly school joke -

The girl stood on the burning deck.
Her limbs were all a-quiver.
Suddenly her leg fell off,
And floated down the river ...

Sorry!

Sorry to be so silly, how's Tilly? Love to her too

[MarySkater]

I think I must be one of the few people who had a music teacher tell them to mime when the class was meant to be singing in front of an audience.

It happened to me, although it was just in class, not in front of an audience, so she didn't ask me to mime, just to keep quiet.

Re tooth loss - I had a cat who lost all her teeth naturally, but she happily carried on gum-crunching her biscuits all her life. The two cats I have now (with full sets of teeth) prefer their wet food lumpy; they are very reluctant to eat paté.

[Ruth B]

Oh dear, memories of school and bad rhymes:

Mary had a little lamb,
It was a greedy glutton,
She fed it on ice cream all day,
And now it's frozen mutton.

I'm now spending the day waiting for the phone to ring and hoping it doesn't too early. Tiggy is having blood tests before the dental and if they are fine they will just go ahead and call me when she is ready to collect, if the blood tests show anything that is concerning and might affect the operation they will call me when they get the results to discuss things. I'm sure we have all been here, my furbaby is in surgery and i'm the worried mother pacing the house.

My young sabre tooth lad (and he a a sabre tooth, singular not plural) is off out having had his jabs yesterday and the vet deciding it still isn't worth removing that tooth, he will no doubt 'come galumphing back' with what ever prize he manages to get later.

[Lilith]

Mary had a little lamb ... the doctor had a fit!

Aww Ruth I know the feeling! All paws crossed but I'm sure she'll sail through it - will be good to know she's got it over with though, be sure to post and let us know x

[alanc]

Ruth I know all to well that worrying feeling after Tilly's recent experiences. Hope nothing goes wrong with Tiggy's op.
Lilith - Tilly is having her ups and downs, but mainly up. Yesterday was a bit of a down as she only ate the tin of Gourmet Gold Pate and some dry Lily's Kitchen, not all the other tasty food I set out for her!

[fjm]

I know that feeling well - when Sophy was in for a dental I cleaned most of the house by way of distraction. As I usually avoid housework as much as possible it at least had the advantage of a novel activity! Hope all is well for Tiggy, and she comes home with shining gnashers.