I had some art to do today but was rather worried my sore thumb would preclude me from holding a pencil. In the event, I think we’re ok. Phew, the deadline’s next Wednesday so I really do have to finish off the line drawing, at least, today.

Eventually, yesterday evening, I decided to brave a bath, hand in air, etc… Mr BC was coming home late so I put supper in the oven, ran myself a deep hot bath and sank gratefully into it. One member of the household was not content with this though. About five minutes in the bathroom door was pushed open and Mr Cat arrived.

Mr Cat has a bit of an identity problem ergo that he thinks he’s a dog. He will walk to heel, follow me or Mr BC, depending who he has chosen that day, wherever we go and generally hang out with us. He likes to be patted as well as stroked. He never shuts up and when he wants to play he bounces along beside his chosen target barking. A high-pitched (because whatever he may think he IS a cat) terrier like yip. His best game is chase the red dot played with a laser pointer although anything that gets him attention is just peachy and yes, when we first got him, he would retrieve.

He’s a rescue cat, so we don’t really know how old he is, somewhere between 12 and 14 now and to put it politely, he’s a bit of a spacker. He’s incredibly bossy and has a sense of humour. When we first took him on, he was afraid to let us touch him so he acted the fool, dashing about, behaving like a complete idiot and making us laugh.

Mr Cat knew I was in the bath but he couldn’t see me. This clearly annoyed him and made him feel excluded so he set out to get my attention.

He tried drinking from the shower but as it hadn’t been used the tasty pool of soapy water he likes to lap up, if he’s given the opportunity, was not there. Lots of chirruping and general chat ensued as he wandered round the bath. He dragged the bathmat out into the hall where he disembowelled it energetically. That kept him busy for a minute or two.

I pushed the door closed again. It opened almost immediately and I knew that Mr Cat was back in the building… a face with a paw each side appeared at the end of the bath for a second or two and disappeared. A few seconds later, on the other side of the bath, further up, the face appeared again.

Behind my head was a chair, which I’d put there so my towel and water bottle were at hand. A large crash startled me as Mr Spanner Cat landed in it clumsily. I’m sure some cats are really dainty but ours isn’t, he often gets it wrong and falls off things. He sniffed my bottle of water but it had a lid! Ha! He couldn’t slubber on any of the bits where my mouth goes.

He pulled my towel off the back of the chair and had a good go at killing it. Never mind, it was keeping him quiet, I reasoned so I reclined happily in the water reading my book. There is a brief watery plipping noise. Out of the corner of my eye I realised Mr Cat was leaning, pointy eared, into the bath dabbling one hand into the water.

I have him a look.

He stopped.

I return to my book and the dabbling noise started up again, only this time I felt a furry front leg against my back as he tried to get to the water behind me. Another few minutes of this I reckoned and he would be trying to climb onto my head. With a sigh I got out of the bath, ushered Mr Cat into the hall, shut and locked the door. He sat outside and howled until I emerged.

He is quite mad.

I am now sitting in bed typing up his exploits before I get out and tackle the day. He wants me to go and groom him (I’m only allowed to do this while he eats his breakfast). He’s hungry because he’s not going to eat his breakfast alone if he can successfully nag me into grooming him while he eats so for the moment he’ll wait and nag… and wait… He has just walked across my keyboard for the 5th time.

Here is what he says.
~~~~~~~

It’s probably a swear word.

Here are some photos of Mr Cat in action.

Butter wouldn’t melt…

Provide a cat with a number of lovely spots to sit in around the house and garden and you can guarantee he will ignore them all, especially when Mr BC is all nice and warm. Mr BC works from home, often with this kind of assistance.

Mr Cat is a keen gardener.

The cork floor tiles make Hannah Barbera style skids and cornering a doddle and although he’s 12 Mr Cat is no more mature than anyone else in the house. He likes to play.

He doesn’t like thunder storms, if we have one, he shows us how to put a very large cat into a very small space… like this.

My latest project is a T shirt, the orange one with the space hopper on the front but this time on the actual bump.

To make the T shirt, two to be precise one each for me and a friend, I have had to buy two white T shirts and dye them orange then I will stencil or print and iron on (not sure which yet, the jury’s still out) the design.

Ever dyed anything at home? Hmm… well… it can be easy. Yesterday though, it was a bit of a challenge.

I have three things called eco-balls which I use in my washing machine. Basically they’re a ball screwed shut and held shut, for extra peace of mind, with a screw. Inside the ball are minerals which react with the water and basically do exactly what soap powder does, only, without the foam.

Needless to say one of my balls is slightly suspect, the piece of plastic inside holding the peace of mind screw being broken. It came like that but I couldn’t be arsed to send it back and went ahead and used it anyway. You know how I like to live on the edge.

I keep it zipped up inside a small gauze laundry bag - just in case it bursts open as that way, the gravel - er hem sorry mineral nuggets - it contains will stay in the bag rather than infesting the pump, pipework and other Essential Gubbins inside my washing machine which, I have learned the hard way, is a BAD thing (cf my adventure with the fluffy throw).

It has burst several times but only in the era before I started using the gauze bag although on the up side, since it was still new at the time, the particles of gravel were too big to get through any of holes leading to the machine’s Important Bits.

Yesterday, the time comes to dye my two shirts. Surprisingly I elect to actually read the instructions. First I have to wash them, then dye them in the machine, then wash them again, then set the machine to wash itself with nothing in it. My washing machine takes approximately one geological era to complete a cycle so I know it is going to be a long day.

Undaunted, in went the shirts, in order to make them as pure as possible - ie remove any dressings on the new material but also ensure they weren’t impregnated with the wrong kind of soap, I decide to wash them with the eco balls. Once we get to the spin and rinse section I notice the machine was making a decidedly strange - or is that worryingly wrong - noise.

I stop it mid spin and luckily, I notice the water table was decidedly higher than door level before I fling it gaily open and release a torrent into my kitchen (mmm… unusual). Being a washing machine destroyer of veteran character, I know this means something has clogged the pump.

I drain it, which takes a sod of a long time - imagine syphoning several gallons of water through something the width of a drinking straw, also imagine finding that the pump is set so low that no matter what you do, unless you can raise the machine on four blocks, the last thee mugs full will spew out all over the floor when you unscrew the special thing to get into the filter.

Once drained I find four pieces of red gravel in the pump. Bastard! The eco ball must have burst. That would be what the rattling was then. Never mind these were just small bits which had escaped through the gauze, the rest would be in the bag…

Ah… yes they would be in the sodding bag if the zip hadn’t come undone.

How many times have I put that bag with that dodgy ball into the washer without incident? At a rough estimate, I’d guess approximately infinity to the power of one million and three. Even so, the bastard thing has to break now, just because its friend the eco ball has broken too. Half an hour later I have picked all the balls out of the crevices and cracks in the machine and checked the pump.

All clear.

Good.

In go the shirts again, with the dye and salt, as per and I set the cycle instructed and go to my studio to finish my current commission. Three hours later I come back.

The washing machine is full of Lucozaide-coloured water.

Yikes.

Mr BC is in today, too. Better get jiggy with the syphon before he comes downstairs to make himself a cup of tea. I check the kettle. Yes, still warm. I should have time.

After another god knows how long syphoning dayglo orange water out of the machine through a drinking straw. I am caught red-handed when Mr BC walks in on me. I am not sure how he is going to react but the answer is, with amusement. Phew! Even better, he knows where the instruction manual is.
Another four pieces of sodding gravel in the pump.

The dying process is complete but I must now wash the shirts on a 40 degree cotton cycle, NOT economy mind… It goes without saying that my machine only has a 40 degree economy cotton cycle. Hmm… is this verboten? Not sure. I stick it on a synthetic non economy 40.

Mr BC and I are preparing dinner by this time. Is all well, he wonders as he points to the machine. I’m using half load and normal detergent but there must be something in the dye because above the orange water is a whole drum full of Cresta-like orange foam. Yes it sure is frothy man. It comes to light that Mr BC has begun to regard me as a kind of mad female Emmet Brown. He is never sure what I am going to do next or how it is going to come out. I’m ok with that, he is is still giggling merrily rather than cross.

Phew.

The machine finishes without mishap, I put it through on 40 with nothing in it but detergent, as the dye manufacturers instruct me and then, just in case, I put it though on 95 with nothing but detergent, as the machine manufacturer suggests I do from time to time.

I hope I have successfully de-oranged it’s innards. Time will tell…

I now have two more commissions - they really are like buses, none for ages and then three come along at the same time. There is an, as yet, unborn and therefore un-named and a George, pending. I have, however, completed the Benjamin, relatively without mishap.

Again, phew!

Finally a little light relief for you.

I saw this notice outside my local church, the other day, it’s a bit of a British Comedy joke but never mind, for those of you in the know.

Ah Ha!

PS. D’you think Glen Ponder plays the organ at this gig?

Mmm, red letter day today, time for our huge hairy cat, Chewbacca, to have his shots. I book him in for 10am so he can go out have a quick patrol of the parameters and then when he comes back to sit on my lap and purr from about 9 onwards I can lock the cat flap and stuff him into his box before he knows what’s hit him.

Good plan huh?

Yes.

Except as usual, the wheels fall off.

He goes out at the usual time and that is when we realise that our neighbours, either side, have clubbed together to have new TV ariels fitted at the same time. Their gardens - and ours - are full of strange men, friendly but strange nonetheless. There are power tools, noises and smells which do not compute and Chewie does a bunk.

Bollocks.

I wait until he is too late for me to make the appointment before ringing the vet to cancel. Within seconds he is at my side, chirruping merrily.

Git.

I ring the vet and explain he has just turned up. They agree I can be late.

Phew.

Once in the surgery, I open the box. He is sitting with his back to me, sulking. I up end the box and without changing position he slowly slides to the bottom. Finally he is weighed, checked and (hoorah) the vet administers a worming tablet. He is now asleep, upside down, where he shouldn’t be but I will allow him to spend the morning there, to make up for the trauma!

On a completely different note, I have found an interesting website. It’s one of these write stuff and earn rewards sites.

If any of you are up on this kind of thing you’ll know what I’m about, if not it’s places like epinions, ciao or dooyoo where you write product reviews in return for points.

The points add up and if you’re lucky after about… ooooh… ten years or so? You earn enough to redeem them for a £5 Amazon voucher. However for all the sweat blood for bugger all aspect (actually you can earn a good living off them but only if you treat it like a job, submit something every day and read practically everything else which appears so people find out who you are and begin to read your stuff) they have their uses.

Many years go I went to a book signing. I told the writer, Terry Pratchett, that I wanted to write a novel but that it wasn’t going very well because what was in my head was very detailed and somehow I just couldn’t do it justice, on paper.

I asked if he could give me some advice. He said I should just write stuff. Write something every day, write letters, e-mails or write about how I can’t think of anything to write. He said that if I did that long enough, I’d learn to drop the details in, in passing, by instinct and it would all come together. He’s dead right. It hasn’t come together quite yet but it’s improved enough to prove that yes, practice helps.

Anyway, as a writer, before I started writing this blog, I used to write reviews for review sites on the grounds that for those days where I couldn’t think of anything to write, I could pick something to review from their ready made categories and earn a very small amount of money for following Terry’s advice.

I still do this when I’m short of inspiration and then I submit the results to as many article and review sites as I can. In my view, since I’ve written the stuff anyway, I may as well get as many pennies for it as I can, they all add up eventually and/or give me another link to ingratiate me with those nice people at Google.

So, recently, I’ve found this site called Quassia which does pretty much this but it also follows the trend of article sites - you publish lots of articles with links to more information on your own site and it counts as an incoming link andGoogle loves you and yada, yada, yada.

Well, because it’s new, Quassia pays you more points than many other sites. Interestingly, it’s entirely geared to website promotion so you sign up add a website you want people to visit and then go about the process of earning points. The more points you earn the more your site is promoted - a bit like paid listings on Google, only sliding scale, the more you “earn” the higher your link is placed. You can also affiliate an adsense account with your area on the site - which seemed quite a good idea to me.

So… You get credits (they call them Quasia dollars but since they’re points and are not a financial thing, I prefer to call them credits) if…

• you tell someone else about it and they join.
• you write an article, yourself, points vary depending on whether the work is original to you, published for the first time on Quasia or elsewhere and how well it gets rated by other users.
• you look at new articles or “screeng intels” as they, rather pretentiously, call it, written by others and rating them on a quality level A - Outstanding, B - Good job, C - Decent enough, D - Below average, E - Awful or even F - Fail [Reject] although you can fail articles which are not in English, incomprehensible, about Quassia itself or pornographic.
• further units if your rating is the same as the majority
• further units if you are the first person to read and rate an article.
• Any article you submit has to be rated by 10 other people before it goes live.

When you’re rating other people’s work, you get extra credits for being the first to read it and if your rating agrees with the majority you also get bonus credits. I’ve managed double credits for most of the articles I’ve “screened” ie read and rated.

What’s on there? So far I’ve read some interesting recipes, some pretty good SEO and web editing hints and some absolutely AWFUL lyrics and poetry! I got 100 credits for submitting a bread recipe… which was nice, especially when I guess the nearest comparable site would be, DooYoo which gives you a mere 50 points for submitting an article - 50 points which have usually expired before I have earned the minimum redeemable points allowance.
In summary, it seemed like a good place to put soundbites, like yesterday’s thing about cats and static, it seemed like a good place for me to dump writing and earn something useful - optimisation (however little of it) for my business website in the form of links - I doubt I’ll do it enough to get actual promotional value - but if, like me, you have more than one blog or website to promote, it has a handy extra of allowing you to add as many sites as you like, so long as they belong to you.

I’ve no idea if it will work but it will be another useful thing to keep me writing a times like now, when inspiration is thin on the ground and it seems I can earn about 100 credits with absolutely no hassle from rating new articles as they appear. I just stuck the site up in a background window, go there sporadically, refresh the page and then read and rate the two or three new intels which have appeared.

I’ll let you know more when I’ve managed to link it up to my adsense account - which I stupidly linked with this site before I realised adsense on WordPress is verboten.

Still, I know some of you are quite active promoting your blogs (or at least, it looks like it to me although that might just be because I’m comparing your efforts with mine and I do, frankly, bugger all to promote this blog) so I thought the odd one of my readers might be interested. If you are and you want to join then if you go in via my page here I get some credits which would be very nice.

Oh yeh and a word of warning… they don’t respond to my kind of humour very well!  I don’t think I’ll be earning huge amounts of points for any of my material.  After explaining that kneading bread with nail varnish or false nails was a no-no I got, and I quote “Very interesting but lost my attention with the false nails part…yuck!“

I have been playing with Zazzle and I have made… THIS! Yes, it’s my look like a trucker, feel like a trucker comedy bump cover! If you’re pregnant and a bit warped you may think this is cool… then again, you may not be me, in which case you’ll be staring at it and going, “uh?”

My only small gripe is that I wish the print went a bit lower, the face will start over my boobs and what I ultimately want is for it to be exactly where the bump is. Never mind, you can’t have it all. I’ve sent off for it, anyway!

Space Hopper Maternity T-shirt
by
Drawnbyhand
Get this custom shirt
at Zazzle

Few men have everything but even fewer have the smallest clue what they might like for Christmas. Enter my dad, vague, charming and a little bit naughty. He has a walking stick, which he leaves in shops, church and friend’s houses all over town. So… this year I’ve had a label engraved to stick onto the er… stick.

“Hello, I belong to Mr XXX who will be looking for me. Please can you put us both out of our misery by phoning him on xxxx and telling him where I am. Thank you. Mr W Stick.”

I’m not sure it’s very funny and it won’t do for a main present but I thought it might actually be quite helpful and it’s certainly lateral…

In the meantime, I’ve managed to find some art things for my Mum, a bizarre folding colander for my Godmother and a frightening nothing for Mr BC… except for a small tree but that was for being kind and tolerant while I was too sick to do anything so it doesn’t really count.

Never mind, there’s an outside chance we’ll be sending some Christmas cards this year… very possibly before Christmas…

Wahoo.

Oh yeh and remember this post where I was whinging on about not having the kind of luck (or talent, actually but I was overlooking that in order to whinge extensively about the luck aspect) that involves meeting a publisher at a party who so loves my work from the description, alone, that they decide they would like to publish?

Yeh, well I guess the alternative is to hook onto somebody who has and then illustrate their book… there is a very outside chance that might have happened.