Oh my head, my head!
It’s been a very long, busy week, both in and out of work, so Tommy and I are having a lazy Valentine Saturday at home (as we did last year), watching DVDs and catching up on sleep. We hope you had a great day whether you were alone, with that special someone or just hanging out with friends or family.
I’ve been in Thailand all week and as it’s new year, my housekeeper is not around to feed Tommy. So for the first time in almost 4 years, he had to leave the apartment to go stay with a friend. I bought a little cage for the taxi trip across town, packed up his bowl, plastic cup (for water), kitty litter and his favourite toy, so he’d have at least one thing familiar to him in an otherwise totally strange environment.
He was fine in the cage. Cats I think are the least claustrophobic of animals. In fact, they seem to like small places. But as I suspected, as soon as we were out of the apartment, he did his usual Rainman impression and freaked out.
My friend came to collect Tommy, so I didn’t have the chance to make sure he was calm and comfortable in his new temporary home, so I’m hoping he adjusts and knows I am coming back for him.
I’ll be back tomorrow morning and my first stop will be to pick up Tommy and give him a big hug!
This is the final Caturday of the year of the rat as we prepare to welcome the year of the ox on Monday. It hasn’t been a good year for China with riots in T*bet, earthquakes (yes, plural) in Sichuan and the milk contamination scandal discovered in September. Let’s hope the year of the ox treats us better.
The temperature is hovering at around minus 2 degrees (28 Fahrenheit) but with the strong wind chill it feels closer to minus 10 degrees. In fact I almost died last night trying to walk from Xintiandi to Windows Scoreboard with Dingle and Swiss James, who ignored my protests and stubbornly refused to take a taxi – my ears, my ears!
To help me get through the rest of the winter, I am taking a winter sun break and heading south for a few days of sun and sand. As my house keeper has gone back to her home town for new year, for the first time in almost 4 years, Tommy will be leaving the apartment and staying with a friend. I really hope he’ll be okay adjusting to a new place and hope he doesn’t think I’ve given him away. I’ll be back in a week Tommy!
Happy holidays. See you all in the “niu” (Ox) year!
Question : When is a door not a door?
Answer : When it’s ajar!
Buildings don’t have central heating in Shanghai, so in the cold winter, I put all my portable oil filled heaters in my bedroom and lock myself in. It means my bedroom gets up to a nice and cosy 20 degrees, while every other room in my apartment remains at a cool 11 degrees, brrrrrgggghhh! For this reason, I keep my bedroom door firmly closed when I go to sleep at night, otherwise an ice cold draft comes in from the living room and the temperature in my bedroom plummets faster than the London stock market.
Which is why it’s really annoying when Tommy does THIS in the middle of the night:
Oh, if English isn’t your native language and you didn’t get the joke above, when a door is slightly open, we say the door is ajar, which is exactly what happens to my door every night when Tommy decides that he needs to go to the toilet!
I know you can hear me, your ear is twitching!
Cats are funny creatures. They’re not warm and friendly like dogs ….. unless they want to be. So you can call their name till you lose your voice and if they’re not in the right mood, they won’t even look at you. But you KNOW they can hear you because their ears point to where your voice is coming from.
WoAi demonstrates how NOT to hold a 2 month old newborn.
Well, Tommy if you’re reading this, I expect better co-operation next week, otherwise Caturday will be scrapped and replaced with Caiturday, featuring the far cuter, far more co-operative Caitlin. Are we clear?
Tommy usually likes to keep his distance and sleep on his own perch. But now and then I wake up to find him at the foot of my bed. I should of course kick his furry arse to the floor, but somehow I just can’t bring myself to do it and end up having to sleep diagonally or with my legs apart either side of him to avoid disturbing him.
Well, I’m in HK but Tommy is still in Shanghai looking after the apartment and keeping it free of vermin.
I’ve never understood why, with a comfy bed and sofa, he often prefers to sleep on the hard cold floor and rest on the even harder base of my floor standing fan. It’s one of his most favourite places.
I apologise for Caturday fans hoping to see the latest pictures of Tommy, but this week’s Caturday has to make way for an important announcement which is going to change my life forever and it has only just happened. So, are you ready for it? Are you sitting down? Okay, here it comes:
WoAi has just installed satellite TV in his apartment!
Yes, I now have an impressive list of channels to keep me entertain during those rare evenings I am not doing some entertaining of my own.
Oh, and apparently my brother and his wife gave birth to a baby also. I’m not sure because he called right at a very exciting part of Depserate Housewives (his timing is always poor) so instead of picking up I let the call divert to voicemail and can’t be bothered to check the message as it involves navigating several keypad menu options in very bad English. But I’ve seen photos on Facebook of his wife holding a small person who looks much too small to be my 4 year old nephew, although I’m not really an expert on these matters.
My new – yet to be named – niece with her delighted mother. For those interested in the stats, she was born some time yesterday at Ealing Hospital in west London and weighs about the same as most babies weigh after just being born.
Congratulations Rich. You’ve got one of each now, a complete set.
Camouflage: a method of cryptic or concealing coloration that allows an otherwise visible organism or object to remain indiscernible from the surrounding environment through deception (source – Wikipedia)
Ever since I got this new throw for my sofa from Ikea, it’s becoming harder to find Tommy. I’ve almost sat on him several times and once while watching a movie, I was getting a bit tired and almost lay on top off him.
Those of you outside China may not realise we’ve been on a 7 day break to celebrate the National Day Holiday. I actually took an extra day, so it’s been 8 solid days off for me. What did I do during these 8 days you may wonder. Well, the plan was to have no plans at all. To just wake up and do what the hell I feel like is a rare luxury for me, so that’s exactly what I planned to do for 8 days. I’ll confess, there were several days I did absolutely nothing and it was pure heaven. But I also got lots of minor chores done that can’t be done during a normal working week, and here’s a summary of things I’ve achieved this week:
1. Went to IKEA to buy some much needed bed linen. My existing bed linen is well overdue for the rubbish bin. Going to IKEA was as stressful as it is anywhere in the world, but the upside is I (and from time to time, a companion of my choice) get to roll around in brand new sheets and quilt covers.
2. I got a much needed haircut on the last day of the holiday. It’s not that I dislike long hair, but it just looks awful on me.
3. Visited the newly opened Marks and Spencer (THREE TIMES) mostly for food and wine, but also picked up a birthday card for my brother Rich so if you’re reading this, just pretend you haven’t read this part.
4. Repaired the heels on my Tods loafers. They’re only 5 months old but the heels have completely worn out already.
5. Bought some new shoes, more of which will be written on this week’s Fashion Friday.
6. Cut, or rather, trim, Tommy’s extremely long claws (he kept getting his paws stuck on the upholstery, which is bad for him and bad for my furniture.
It’s not been a total success though. There are a few things I still never got round to doing, including a day trip to one of the nearby ancient towns (Zhou Zhunag or Xi Tang for example), take some photographs, give Tommy a long overdue bath.
All in all though, it’s been a great week. Some people say if you didn’t have to work, you’d be bored. I have said it before and I’ll say it again – not me!
PS – I can’t think of a category for this post, so suggestions are welcome for a new category to be added. Something like “WoAi’s mundane ramblings” I reckon.
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