Christmas Comes Early For Walter and Jozef
By Ruth aka Kattaddorra
Poster: Ruth aka Kattaddorra
Walter and Jozef love Christmas and even at twelve years old they get excited and run around playing more than usual, they must feel in the air that it’s a special time of year.
Or, maybe it’s because they get extra presents lol. Like their new scratching couch each, no they couldn’t allow them to be wrapped up for Santa Claws to deliver, as soon as the box with them in arrived, it had to be investigated. Catnip mice have been rolled around with and while Jozef’s is as good as new, Walters is chewed up already.
They have their own little tree and a present each still wrapped up, a tin of tuna and chicken we hope they will enjoy for their Christmas breakfast. They say they are unfortunate to live with vegetarians because cats don’t like Quorn lol but they will have cooked chicken for their dinner and they know it.
They have sorted their food cupboard out though to donate some sachets and trays they had more than enough of, to local cats in care, they are very kind boyz.
Last week they allowed me to accompany Barbara to her Funeralcare firm’s memorial carol service (us there in the pic) for the first time, other years they’ve been awol until it was too late to go and Babz has had to go alone.
We rarely go out on an evening so Jozef was happy when we returned. He always runs to greet us when we come home, Walter takes his time to stroll downstairs and say ‘huh so you are back are you?’ lol
I had to laugh as Barbara’s lovely boss said ‘Wow have Walter and Jozef let you come out tonight Ruth?’ She always asks about our cats when she calls in at Barbara’s office.
Well our cats are our family and we are a happy family and we wish everyone and their families, cats and people too, a purrfectly happy Christmas.
Happy belated birthday Michael 🙂
Loved hearing all about Walter and Jozef. Their own little space with the tree and presents, scratching couches and blankets is just wonderful! Hope you all have a lovely Christmas together with plenty of Cattitude!!
Thank you Leah. Happy Christmas to you.
That’s only their favourite play area
For relaxing Walter claims the armchair and Jozef claims the two seater couch, guess where we sit? lol
Most of you lot are quite mad……….tee hee 🙂
I think you have to be a little bit mad to live in a mad world!
Barbara I just had to give Michael this Birthday/Christmas gift for which your comment inspired me to do this. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Michael!
Thanks Jo…cluck..cluck…cluck..cock-a-doodle do…
Happy birthday to Michael who is still only a spring chicken, and Happy Christmas to everyone, I hope all your cats purr and Santa comes down your chimneys.
LOL. Loved that. Made me laugh genuinely.
Have the BEST holidays ahead. Love the photos!
Our boyz have several gifts waiting and ready to be torn open on Christmas day- but what worries me is if they will prefur the wrapping paper and boxes in which the gifts are wrapped to the items I so carefully selected for them as special treats. It generally works that way in our house.. LOL.
Thank you and Happy Christmas too Jo, I hope Puppy is well now and both your boyz enjoy their Christmas treats
I decided not to buy Monty a gift for Christmas this year, but just to throw balled up wrapping paper for him to chase. He will think that is his gift. He has all the toys he needs. Other than the stuffed doggie from his first Christmas, he has little interest in any of them.
The best cat toys are homemade and the rolled up paper ball is one of the best homemade toys.
Happy Christmas Ruth and Barbara, and of course those lovely boyz. Keep those paparazzi photos coming! Happy New Year to everyone. This page has provoked many a good comment! Happy Birthday Michael.
Thank you Dorothy, happy Christmas to you and your furry ones and a peaceful 2014.
I think we will have hundreds more photos of our boyz with our new camera lol they are so very photogenic
and Happy Birthday Micheal xx
Thanks Rose. I am officially a pensioner 😉 Damn..I feel old. Although I retired from conventional “work” years ago. I go my Freedom Pass at 60 and it is nice to have it!
60? I think here it is at least 64 or 66 you have to be to be free.
Also Georgie Osbourne is going to make sure that people in my generation work until they are almost 70. Fun Fun Fun
I sneaked in just before it all went wrong. The Freedom Pass was the first thing in decades that someone gave to me with no strings attached. I love it.
……for anybody reading this a Freedom Pass is the free travel pass for older and disabled Londoners, paid for by your local council.
Michael – you are either older or disabled I take it? 🙂
Wow, the freedom pass sounds wonderful. A must for living in a city. How nice to be old, eh Michael? No complaining. I turned sixty as well this year. I don’t feel a day over 58! Lol.
You are a gorgeous sixty year old, DW!
I agree with Dee. You look 40 and real nice 😉
Free travel?
Are you kidding?
Ask DW, the best we get here is a free cup of coffee at McDonalds and, maybe, a 10% discount on meals in a mediocre restaurant!
She is right! Completely. And the 10% is only for the early bird special.
I am 65 so I have had a Freedom pass for 5 years. It covers all the buses in the country more or less and the underground in London and some mainline trains. Sometimes people let me get on the bus first 😉 Love it.
It seems like only yesterday you turned sixty. Have I really been hanging out here at POC that long? I guess so. Well, from the birthday video you sent us Michael, you are not so bad yourself. Looking fit and still so smart. Keep it up! At 80, we will throw you a big party.
Time travels faster when you get older. I have the same feeling.
I was lucky too and retired at 60, poor Babz has to work to 65 and 1/2, her age group was targeted twice and worked out very unfairly to women born 1954. She was the face of the Unions petition and got 12,000 signatures and the government gave a measly 6 months concession for that. It’s cruel because she should have been retiring next year 🙁
Merry Christmas Ruth and Barbara and Walter and Josef and everyone else at POC.
I love all the photos just got to get myself a camera soon I’m so jealous.
I’ll be working over Christmas but in and out on home care so my kids and cats won’t miss out 🙂
Rose, regarding the camera, I want to help but am not rich. If you can find the time to do two articles for PoC I’ll buy this camera for you (or something similar) – click here.
If that puts pressure on you then don’t do it. Write about what you want as long as cats are in it ;). If you take this up you’ll have to upload some cat pics!
Micheal you are such a kind chap but I couldn’t write an article for toffee I don’t think though one day when I’ve time I might have a go.
No need to buy me a camera Santa might bring me one you never know or I’ll save up till I have enough and yes I will still take some pictures for POC.
I have a new camera
WOWWWWWWW
My kids have saved up and given me it we are home together for the night now I’m so happy and I don’t mind one bit working tomorrow.
🙂
I am really looking forward to seeing some of your photographs. Give me a nice photo and you’ll get a page to yourself.
So pleased for you Rose and looking forward to seeing your photos 🙂
PS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY uncle Michael
xx
Thanks Walter and Jozef. Yes, I have just remembered 😉 It’s my birthday…not sure I want to remember it though..
Really – it’s your birthday? Happy Birthday 🙂
Thanks Marc. Someone let the cat out of the bag! Time goes faster when you get older. I feel I am racing towards the edge…Who cares.
Don’t be daft Michael, I’m a year older than you and certainly not racing towards the edge (maybe I’m over the edge lol) It’s true though that time goes faster so you just have to make the most of it and enjoy your birthday AND Christmas.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, go on live a bit and CELEBRATE 😉
Yeh…..I feel younger. I don’t feel too bad in truth. I am actually quite fit. He says….
It’s a strange feeling as I don’t feel my age in my mind, only in my body and I realise I’m very lucky when I see other women my age on walking sticks or looking ancient, but maybe I look ancient to them too lol
I hope you had a good birthday x
Not a bad birthday, thanks Ruth! I laughed to myself when I wrote that sentence because, like Christmas, I don’t really do birthdays. It is just the way I am. I don’t really believe in them. Still I get the pension which makes it more meaningful.
Happy Birthday, Michael!
I think you look great, your mind is sharp, and you, probably, toilet yourself. What more can you ask for?
However, being a saggitarian/capricorn cusp, you’re a bit screwed up; but, who isn’t?
I don’t celebrate birthdays either.
LOL thanks Dee. I feel a bit screwed up but I get by. Thanks for the compliments.
Yes I’m bored with all the photographing too so buzz off paparazzi
Can you tell the mammies have bought each other half a camera each for Christmas?
A cat can’t even have a lazy warm by the fire without the paparazzi there
I really like your statue of my Gigi by the fireplace. It’s so nice and big. I’ll have to tell Gigi her likeness exists in other countries 🙂
That cat is called Tommy after a lonely old chap Tommy who Barbara visits, he was going to leave her it in his will but then decided to give her it a few years ago, he’s still around BTW and she still visits him.
Merry Christmas Ruth and family!
Thank you Dan, I hope you and yours have a good one!
Merry Christmas to all of you, humans and cats alike! It looks like Walter and Jozeph had a great Christmas!
Monty has been enjoying helping me wrap presents. I think he really enjoys Christmas. It is a nice diversion for him at this time of year when everything is so cold and dark outside, and he’s cooped up in the house so much.
Yes our boyz don’t go out as much either, especially Walter, he hates the very cold weather. Jozef is much tougher. It’s snowing where the Ark on the Edge is, about 15 miles from us, so it will probably be on the way here too.
Well, you got me again, R!
I was guessing that quorn was, maybe, corn. Then, I googled and found that it was a kind of meat substitute.
We have a lot of substitutes here, mostly made out of soy. I’ve tried some and didn’t like at all no matter what I did to it, ie, adding vegggies, mushrooms, etc. So, I’m not surprised that Walter and Jozef don’t like it.
Your boys sound like my guys/gals. I can run to the grocer for an hour or two, and you would think that I had abandoned them when I returned (Come on, guys. SOMEBODY has to buy food. We can’t live on rats and lizards!).
Quorn is delicious, we love it. We’d never expect our boyz to eat it though, I was joking lol It was our choice to go veggie and we’d never expect them to go without their meat.
They are used to Babz going out as she has to work but Jozef especially hates me going, he sits on my shoes, lies across the doorway, anything to get the message over lol but when I put my coat on he accepts it. I love coming home to him running to meet me and both boyz know when Babz is due home, if it’s fine they sit in the doorway and run down the steps and along the Grove to meet her. They are our sun, moon and stars 🙂
Same here. I only eat fish on rare occasions, but I bake chicken or turkey here for my babies sometimes.
Wow I love your MAMMOTH scratching post in the background.
I gotta get me one of those!
By the way – I have found those cardboard scratch-lounge things to be very good – cats just love them!
Those are the only scratchers Bigfoot will use. Marvin has the big one like above. Love how they stretch themselves when scratching.
Yeah a scratcher has to be solid enough to be useable. I notice mine use the cat trees to stretch one more than the scratching post just because the trees are solid and heavy – and don’t move when they push on them to stretch. I should get one of those big posts though – they can always use another one in the livingroom.
I keep a 10 lb. dumbbell weight in the bottom of Bigfoots cardboard scratcher. It is the only way he will use it. If it moves, he’s done with it forever! He has me well trained.
lol – well with a name like Bigfoot it sounds like he needs a pretty solid scratchpost to keep him satisfied.
Not that Starvin Marvin is particularly small or anything (or Yellow) but ‘Bigfoot’ sounds so ominous, like the giant Icelandic Yule Cat! 🙂
You are funny. Bigfoot is a tiny eight pound cat, with giant multi toed feet!
It’s called a ‘fat boy scratcher’ Marc, Jozef loves it, Walt prefers a flat pad.
I gave up on the cardboard scratchers. Destroyed within days.
It takes a little longer for the roped scratchers. But, they are, usually, trash within 2 months.
So, now I only go with carpeted trees that my son-in-law makes for me. More durable, and I’ll have an endless supply.
Wow…Dee, how many cats?
Not the quantity but the personality of some.
As we all know, I live with Damon…
He can destroy a whole roll of bath tissue in 3 minutes or less, scale a curtain like a mountain climber, knead my head at night until it bleeds, and steal everything I have.
Scratchers are very little challenge for him.
He’s brilliant and a mpmmy’s boy.
He’s a handful, but he’s mine!
Happy Christmas, Ruth, Barbara, Walter and Jozef. It seems that the boys have their own Christmas room and tree. It looks great. It is a super little cat-friendly room.
I don’t really do Christmas. That is why there were no Christmas decorations in my little Christmas video! I like to see other people celebrate it though.
I don’t celebrate holidays either, because I don’t have traditional christian beliefs.
But, I enjoy the enthusiasm of others and enjoyed giving my 58 (didn’t stretch to 60) boxes to Sheltering Hands. I love seeing joy in others.
I, also, like the colors, lights, and music associated with Christmas.
Most of all, I love “spiked” eggnog and hot buttered rum that is a treat for me that I only have this time of year. I’m not a good drunk – some are jolly, some are sad and weepy, but I am sleepy!
I am the same basically. I like the fact that people are nicer to each other for a while and I like mulled wine and Pimms with mince pies 😉 LOL.
I had those at a very fancy club in Fulham, London. Hurlingham Club. You can Google it.
We play Scrabble and them go to the bar. The TV at Christmas in England is crap. The shops are shut and you have to stockpile as if it was WW3.
“Pimms” and the club you write of. Yes, I’ll have to google both.
Most everything closes down here Christmas day too. No liquor sales in my county but, eight miles down in the next county, you can buy anything you want, TV is full of Christmas movies. Not many parades televised like days of old.
Do you have “jello shots” over there?
Whatever are jello shots?
Give me a good old G & T, I’m having one now in fact so please excuse typos lol
CHEERS
gin and tonic?
Do you know what jello is, ie. gelatin usually as a dessert? Well, instead od mixing with water, it’s mixed with a liquor, chilled and allowed to set in small cups.
Ha – that’s what I drink – when I drink 🙂 – can’t drink anything else really.
I like that you have a tree and the boys have their own tree 🙂
Are these what we call Jelly Babies? Small jelly sweets.
Jello shots aren’t the same as Jelly Babies. There are many different recipes for them. My husband made them for the family Easter get together last year and they were very popular. It’s basically booze mixed with jello in a little cup. They are very strong. I had one and got quite a buzz off of it. Jeff and my uncle were standing there having one after another though. I don’t know how they were still standing up. I didn’t enjoy it that much. I probably won’t ever have another. It’s not that I never drink, it’s just that if I’m going to it would be something I enjoy more than a jello shot. I didn’t like the taste that much. It seemed like I could really taste the booze.
No Jello shots in the UK? Good. The college kids and hipsters take jello gelatin and add liquor for the water. It is usually eating off the body of someone. Sometimes just out of a little cup. Very risque here.
Off the topic of cats but I laughed when you mentioned jelly babies because when we were kids we weren’t allowed to have any black jelly babies in our sweetie bags, you could say our dad was colour prejudiced lol
Are those what we call jelly beans?
Gelatin is out of bounds for us being made from animal parts, we even have to be careful about any oil supplements veggies need to take because most contain gelatin. We can take Evening Primrose and Flax seed capsules so we don’t miss out and get ill.
I’d love to go vegan but it’s a step too far at my age, veggie is all I can cope with now.
Yes G & T, Gin and Tonic, gin is veggie lol
No jelly beans are round, jelly babies are shaped like babies
I’ve never had a jello shot myself. But, I’ve seen lots of people indulge. That’s some powerful stuff!
I loved jello with fruit a l-o-n-g time ago but don’t eat it anymore even though Kraft Foods swears their jello is synthetic and not made from animal products.
You sound like an old man, Michael, complaining about TV and the shops being closed and having to stockpile. That made me laugh.
Yes…LOL. Shuffling around my home in a dressing gown and slippers moaning at the four walls…. 😉
Happy Birthday, Michael!
You tell him, Ruth!
I want him off that old man pity pot!
“Old man pity pot” LOL
Michael – the Hurlingham club? Really? 🙂
Last I heard of that was when I was at boarding school…
Here’s my Christmas card to everyone from me and my cats 🙂
Yes, I can be posh sometimes (or pretend to be)! Although I much prefer working class people. Lovely card. I’ll put it on an individual page! I warned you….
Michael – the card was made for me by Wendy Gilmore – she is the caretaker of 3 cats, one of whom is Lacocoon Dante – or just Dante – the big beautiful orange tabby Maine Coon you ended up doing an article on. The photo is of my cats underneath all that 🙂
So if you do I will link her to the page. Also she writes a blog and I will give you the links to her blogs – she’s a great photographer of her cats. Maybe you can include links to her blogs in the article underneath…
I’ll email them to you in a sec.
Dee our best part of Christmas is that Babz has two days off work and we can relax and enjoy ‘chilling out’ lol isn’t that what they say nowadays?
All the people we know who we were worried about being lonely and wondered if we should invite to lunch are taken care of, so we needn’t feel guilty about there just being us and our boyz and no need to dress up and be sociable 🙂
Two whole days off for Babz. Great!
I remember those days and would give anything to be able to work again. When I was told that I had to stop, I cried for 3 months.
Oddly, the rest of what I do now with cats was the same, and I wonder how I ever did it all while working full time. I guess that’s the difference that some years make.
Stop me before I sound like Grandpa Michael!
It’s not that Babz isn’t willing, she is, but her joints give her trouble and her job has physical stuff as well as office stuff and she suffers from that and also it’s an emotionally hard job with bereaved people.
There are thousands of unemployed young people here, it doesn’t make sense forcing older people to work when they could free up jobs for the young to get a start in life.
We always expected she would retire at 60 like I did, after paying in years of contributions, she missed out on widow’s pension too, born just too late. So where did her late husband’s contributions go? Vanished into thin air when he died 🙁
The worst is that employers can now finish older people who can’t do their jobs, this government are very cruel to ordinary people.
It does sound cruel.
Poor Babz.
I don’t have a clear understanding of your syste, but it doesn’t sound fair at all.
When I had to stop working, I was (still am) too young to draw Social Security, but I was able to draw Social Security Disability after a slew of red tape and physician statements. This benefit will convert to straight Social Security (same amount) when I turn 66.
Do you have some sort of disability benefit there? It seems Babz should qualify.
The government are taking disabled peoples disability benefits away from them, saying they must find a job. Blind people, amputees, people with cancer, all being targeted.
If a person can’t do their own job they have to go onto job seekers allowance and find a job they can do, but there are no jobs!
It’s hard on Babz but she loves her job and is good at it, she has no choice but to carry on because she would never get another at her age. Sickness benefit or disability are almost impossible to get now and she doesn’t want hand outs, she and other women her age just want their rightful pension they’ve paid in and worked for.
Our country is in a dreadful state, children going hungry, old folk freezing, only the rich are happy about it all.
Yes, the rich fly above it all. They are not part of it. That is why we are fed up with the establishment.
Most of that isn’t unlike here.
Many people are able to abuse our system though.
I don’t know how they do it. Perhaps, they have corrupt doctors.
Poor, Babz. Working in pain every day. I hope she is appreciated, and I have no doubt that she is super at her job.
Yes one good thing Babz is well appreciated by her firm because she puts everything she has into her job and is well loved and respected in our town for all the charity work she does too.
I’m very proud of her and help her all I can as a voluntary ‘honorary staff member’
I feel guilty at having retired at 60 and she has to work on, it’s very unfair.
I hope it is a jolly sleep! Happy season for giving. It sounds like you gave and gave.
Not much sleep in our house lol on my early morning up our Jozef jumps on and off my bed when he decides it’s morning, usually around 5.30am If I hide my head he walks in what feels like hob nailed boots on me and drags the covers off, I have to give in and get up. On Babz morning, he goes into her room and stirs Walter up to help him get her up. He always knows whose day it is!
But we have a lie in until 7.30am every other day zzzzz and we can have a snooze in the afternoons over Christmas zzzz lol
Sleep!
Do any of us remember what that was really like?
That’s corner of our living room Michael lol see the tiny TV set which looks so old fashioned against those huge things most people have now. Our boyz love that part of the room, we never shut them away from any part of our house, we are a family and we share all we have and love being together.
It’s a sad time of year for us with anniversaries of our loved ones we miss but we know we have to make the most of what we have and try to have a bit of fun and happiness ourselves before it’s too late.