Finally

With the Keeper - The Movie(s). Unedited!

Part 1 - Feeding the Ocelot.
(To avoid nothing happening, fast forward 1 minute.)


Part 2 - The Indian Desert Cat.
Don't blink or you'll miss it.

Keeping Vets RIch

It's been quite a few weeks for vet visits. What with check-ups and vaccinations, then poor Henry, not to mention Amber needing a blood panel and coming back with a diagnosis of hyperthyroidism. She has to go through it all again in two weeks' time. Both she and Shelley are now on daily medication for the rest of their lives, unless Amber needs surgery later.

Beano and Dandy needed dentals, but because an operation means starving the night before, and the usual nighttime abode (my bedroom) for those who must escape the food-filled kitchen has been occupied since February by Shelley, the dentals didn't happen. I was a bit worried about this, because Dandy had developed a bump on his nose, and I was going to get it checked out when he had his dental. It didn't get any worse, but it didn't go down, either. Then when he came in on Friday evening, I saw that it had got much bigger and turned into a veritable lump in just one day.

So today it was off to the vet's, who thought it was likely to be a basal cell tumour (which apparently is unlikely to metasticise (sp? can't be bothered to drag out the dictionary and look, I've never seen this word written down) and I left Dandy there to be operated on and also have his dental.

Well, of course, nothing is ever as easy as you think. The removal of the lump went well, but the teeth needed a lot of attention. Unfortunately for the vet's patience, my bank account, and poor Dandy's time out, he produced so much mucous while anaesthetised that he kept clogging up the breathing tube, which they had to change four times!

The bill came in at just over £400.

And now Dandy is running around like a headless chicken, wearing an Elizabethan collar that spooks him. But provided he doesn't rub his new slimline nose on anything, he has almost no scar, as John, the (very attractive Australian) vet did a bit of plastic surgery, only suturing the inside of the wound.

So cheap at half the price, really.

Dandy before...


...and after

Scottish Wild Cats

The small cat keeper at Port Lympne has emailed me these pictures of Skye and Sid as a memento of my day.

Aren't they just gorgeous?

Family Values

I've decided that Bobby now looks strange without the face fur. It took me a while to get used to looking at these again.

False Hearted Judges

With The Keeper

A couple of weeks ago I was disappointed not to find the Scottish Wild Cats that are part of the breeding programme of this native endangered species at Port Lympne Wild Animal Park, which holds the stud book. There were no signposts, and none of the staff had an accurate idea of where we could find them. I emailed the zoo and told of our disappointment. When I got no reply, I sent the email off again with an extra comment about being ignored. I received an email from the Animal Director at the park with his apologies (he had been on holiday, but meanwhile someone should have contacted me) and he invited me back as his guest. Today I drove the 70 or so miles to the park to take him up on his offer. He drove me as close as he could to the enclosure, then we had a long walk (now with a signpost!) on a steep path and up some difficult steps. We were joined at the enclosure by the small cat keeper just after we had found the female on a ledge at the back. The male was just visible inside his hidey hole.

I spent a couple of hours with the small cat keeper as he fed some of the beauties, and I went inside the safety barrier (though sadly not inside the enclosures) for closeup views of an ocelot, some Indian desert cats, a margay, and a rusty spotted cat (the world's smallest cat). It was not possible to get pictures of them all, because though they came at his call to get their food, some were gone in a flash, especially the rusty spotted cat, who is caring for two kittens.

I just caught a headless picture of the female margay.
It looks a bit like an ocelot, but much smaller. It was a very special day, and I had a wonderful time. Here's some edited footage of the ocelot (with some rather unpleasant tales of what the cat brought in) and a quick clip of one of the Indian desert cats. ***Sorry, the video has failed to load. I'm working on it, but the computer's being a bastard tonight - and a very slow one.

Why would I want to go on YouTube?

Today my friend Pat visited. She's not been to my house for ages. Earlier this year she was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and she is currently undergoing chemo. She is not having too adverse a reaction, though she does get rather tired. Nevertheless she is continuing her work at St George's Hospital, Tooting as a radiographer. She's a real tough cookie.

Anyway, as she has not had a landline for years, she has been unable to take advantage of the internet revolution. Now she has gone and got a free laptop by subscribing to a wireless connection via a mobile phone company. She's only had the machine for a couple of weeks.

I introduced her to the joys of Lolcats, then asked her if she'd seen any of the Simon's Cat cartoons on YouTube. "Why would I want to go on YouTube?" she asked (only in Kiwi - she's from New Zealand). She thought it was just kids' stuff.

So over to YT we went. We watched Simon's Cat. We watched some of the stuff I've found there and posted here over the years. While I went to make a cup of tea, I told her to try it out for herself, just type in what she wanted.

I came back to discover that she had found some stuff that we saw on stage in the 1980s, when we were regulars at English National Opera, where we met. This is what she was playing - one of my all-time favourite performances of anything anywhere. It's from Handel's Julius Caesar, and Opera seria (which means it has one great aria after another, with a little bit of recitative in between). The arias have three sections, ABA. When A is repeated, the singer adds ornamentation.

This is Valerie Masterson as Cleopatra singing an aria which translates in this English version as Venus Fair Lady, and I hope you find it as stunning as I do. Please give it a try.



Pat couldn't wait to get home and try out YT for herself.

Faithfully

Ah.














Er...

Pleasant FridayEvening

My V-loving friend came to supper last night, and with no new LOCI episode to watch, we trawled through his films to see which she had not yet seen. It turned out she had not seen Steal This Movie yet, so we sat and watched it (with the commentary, of course). So there she was trying to understand what was going on in the movie while listening to Vincent and Janeane chatting and laughing. She was quite worn out!

The Faithful

I tried SO hard to get this one without blurring - I have four copies

and none is clearer than this :(


That naughty boy look.



Let's not forget to include an iconic slideshow.

Faith

I don't really like the episode, but I love how Bobby looks in it.

And by the end of the season they were beginning to let his hair be itself.

There are those lovely fingers again.





As for this - fantasy land.


Want him to look at me like this.


Or this.






I couldn't choose just one of these pictures, so I made a slideshow so that I could share them all.