tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32705292012-01-21T00:32:18.251ZNew Cat DiaryLife and times of Mr. BinksChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comBlogger351100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-84979955011038924342010-04-29T13:34:00.002Z2010-04-29T14:44:04.973ZThis blog has movedYes, from its home on www.dubiouslogic.com.Mr. Binks is alive and well (and asleep upstairs, taking maximum advantage of what solar gain there is).I decided to keep it but the translation may take a bit of work to get the formatting back.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-1104685124684958542005-01-02T16:58:00.002Z2012-01-21T00:32:18.267ZJust a new year mention to say that Mr. Binks is absolutely fine - here's a pic that I used as a Christmas card for my mum - she was thrilled, but then she's a complete softy for that sort of thing.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-1079597204136816022004-03-18T08:06:00.000Z2004-03-18T08:14:46.233ZWow! Has it really been that long?
Spawn of Satan
We went away for the evening, staying over with friends. We've done this a few times. In early instances we locked Binks in with a litter tray but as he got older we just made sure there was some food down for him and pledged to be back a good time the next day. This would be about the third time we had left him for the night in London.
When we Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-1058007809393634062003-07-12T11:03:00.000Z2003-07-12T11:03:29.376ZBlogger changes have made me tentative to update but the template looks OK, my temerity was misplaced. So, what's been happening?
With summer here the catching season is upon us. That's true in both town and country. With fledgelings about, the city is still full of prey but that said, Binks has not been so prolific, accounting for only two. The blackbirds outside are ever vigilant and their Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-940507632003-05-09T13:46:00.000Z2003-05-09T16:38:28.000ZA few things to report
Another week in the country
That went very well - Binks settled down to being very much a rural cat. The weather (it was over Easter) was glorious and he spent most of it outside. The builders were next door but he has found a spot in the dell, a disused gravel pit to one side of the drive. This is always the spot that we thought he's inhabit. It is pretty much a Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-905377462003-03-11T19:28:00.000Z2003-03-11T20:13:16.000ZSome time since the last post...
Happy to say nothing amiss. Several anniversaries to record. farthest back was Binks' first Christmas. We read that some huge proportion (85%?) of pet owners give presents to their animals over the festive period but we did not - does that make us bad?
Another potentially sentimental day passed more or less unremarked upon - January 6th, a year since his arrivalChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-853022862002-11-30T19:44:00.000Z2002-11-30T19:46:38.000ZWe've been gripped by some sense of normality for weeks now. No catches, no unpleasant early morning surprises. What passes for cold weather in these globally warmed times has started and that's meant more lap residence.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-844870542002-11-13T20:20:00.000Z2005-01-03T00:05:02.236ZA Week in the Country
We had a week in the wind and the rain. The cat-flap is now in the back door of the country retreat (at some pain to the builder who I'm sure views it as a good door ruined). Obviously we had every expectation that the house would be filled with mice. In fact he was reasonably abstemious; two on the first evening and two on the last. Each comprising of a one dead (gnawed) Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-818808852002-09-20T18:04:00.000Z2005-12-11T00:38:05.486ZCatching upThere have been quite a few developments and I've slipped behind.Party PeopleWe had a big do. Well big for us, where we fed about twenty people buffet style with everyone milling around in the kitchen (as they always tend to do). We expected Binks to beat a quick retreat, either upstairs or over the gardens but no. We had his platform put slightly out of the way (as much as anything Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-802485352002-08-14T22:17:00.000Z2005-12-11T00:43:37.733ZThe Case of the Disappearing CatIn order not to frighten the guests by live mice (or a naked Chris) running round the bedrooms in the middle of the night, Mr Binks was locked in the kitchen for the night with no access to outside. Awake by 7:30 I decided to go down and give him his freedom, only to find two guests already in kitchen indicating that although they hadn't seen the cat they thought Jeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15373447726438646723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-799899472002-08-08T17:46:00.000Z2005-12-11T01:17:39.273ZIt's been while so I thought I'd try a bring you up to date. First off the catch details; two weekends in the country and each yielded the same; three mice. One deceased and one brought to the bedroom in, to all intents and purposes, the middle of the night. The remaining one seems to have escaped whilst being carried across the kitchen. On weekend one it got behind the fitted kitchen. This meantChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-790166162002-07-16T13:12:00.000Z2005-12-11T00:52:37.150ZInsectaAs I have a feeling 'Red, in Tooth and Claw' could run and run, let's call a halt though, in the interests of accuracy, we may have to keep discreet count of the wildlife in order to verify or defuse the statistics widely promulgated.So it's a single mouse, tiny and alive although traumatised. I think that the field mice/voles freeze when disturbed as a defence against their more usual Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-786920092002-07-08T16:50:00.000Z2005-12-11T00:54:27.270ZRed, in Tooth and Claw (III)Ah. Spoke too soon.This morning it was a rat. Dead. By the kitchen door to the stairs. The looks to have been a certain amount of disruption upstairs in the front room on the rug. These are not pictures I particularly want to fix so let's move on.We've never really had a cat that caught rats before (let's not kid ourselves, in London they say on average you're only Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-786602492002-07-07T21:50:00.000Z2005-12-11T00:57:00.850ZRed, in Tooth and Claw (II)This post got delayed so the final toll could be established.Last weekend was at the country venue and on Saturday morning we discovered a mouse outside the front door - dead. Binks ingored it and so did we - slightly wrong-footed to find ourselves with no means of burying it. That state of affairs persisted until he tried to take it indoors. That was an easier Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-781516362002-06-24T22:48:00.000Z2005-12-11T00:58:07.640ZRed, in Tooth and ClawWe more than half expected that this would happen but the 'mouse' incident may have led us into a false sense of comfort.This morning we came down to a house filled with feathers. Pigeon feathers it seems for the remains of the poor creature were in the front room. But there was evidence on two more floors - CSI would have had field day (but I'm glad to say, no bugs as far Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-780442622002-06-21T22:52:00.000Z2005-12-11T01:03:18.526ZThe Longest DayToday was always going to be be difficult.Last solstice I, we really, lost Eric our cat of seventeen years. During that time - a period that eclipses all but a few of my friends and even Jean and me, Eric and his sister had been my companions. Jean brought Samson, her own cat with her and for many years we were three cat household, at least one (and probably two) more than the Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-779522162002-06-19T22:07:00.000Z2005-12-11T01:12:55.276ZHurrah! New Cat Diary comes of ageI chased the links through Google today and there is one. After a bit of work with the advanced search (which seems to require the full filename) I found,Tuesday, April 23, 2002look what was in the recently updated queue when I logged out of Blogger!....... and I had to log back in just to tell you about it...posted by comatose kid at 4:10 PM Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-778985372002-06-18T18:19:00.000Z2005-12-11T01:13:51.586Z"That cat's fallen over again"I kind of like this shot. I know it's out of focus and all, but it has the right feel for when he comes up to you. That's par for the course if you're attempting to do anything on the floor like read a newspaper. The photo comes out of one of those very-mini digital cameras you can get at Tesco. (I'm glad I wasn't expecting too much as the quality is not very good Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-774255402002-06-06T17:41:00.000Z2005-12-11T01:14:48.136ZHappy Birthday!Binks is one - today. I'm not sure if that's a real birthday but that's the one he's stuck with now. It appears on his rehoming forms but conforms very much to the estimate of 'seven months old' back-dated from when we adopted him.I think he deserves a catnip mouse.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-773844152002-06-05T18:43:00.000Z2005-12-11T01:15:54.120ZOff the MarkMr. Binks celebrated the Jubilee by catching his first mouse. Well, it looked very much like a Meadow Vole (Field Mouse) to me - this was in the wilds of Suffolk.We had driven out for a half hour or so and on our return found him unmoving in the normal car park spot. In front of his outstretched paws was a small dark brown bundle. He made no move when I came over to pick it up. It Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-768074272002-05-21T18:37:00.000Z2002-05-21T18:37:49.880ZCountry Living
It was a good weekend. We did the country thing.
We made a mournful visit to see our friends who lost their cat (below). I still didn't know how to talk about it. There's the scare behind the accident that haunts all cat (and pet) owners and as can be imagined, with her looking out for the remaining kitten, heightened to extreme . It was a week ago now and at night so the Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-766585422002-05-17T14:19:00.000Z2002-05-21T18:20:00.000ZI learnt today that a close friend has lost one of her cats.
Her kittens were a month or so younger than Binks although they had been with her a little longer. They were brothers. On Saturday one of them was hit by a car and killed.
I called Jean up as soon as I got the email this morning. I couln't really frame the reply - I hope we'll be able to see them this weekend. I have a mental picture Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-762610642002-05-07T13:44:00.000Z2002-05-07T14:34:10.000ZBack to Normal
I'm glad to say that he's shrugged off the sneezes.
It's all a bit of a mystery; he doesn't seem to get fully fledged cold symptoms but he clearly couldn't breathe properly and wheezed slightly - every bit like hay-fever. Searches for allergies didn't throw up much but one colleague of Jean's said that she pulled up all the yellow flowers in her garden in similar circumstances.
Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-760776622002-05-02T13:20:00.000Z2002-06-05T18:52:03.000ZPoorly Again
Yes, he's snuffling again.
It started on Saturday, five days ago - one moment he was sleeping while we read the papers and suddenly he was sneezing. He was still full of beans and after a bit of nose-wrinkling and washing, the sneezes got less frequent. Sunday he was much better but still sneezing occasionally. That made us think is was like last time when he had a sneezy few hoursChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-111524642002-03-26T23:28:00.000Z2002-05-02T13:07:54.000ZJust another day
Where to start? At the beginning I guess.
We're all supposed to be going on holiday. In fact we were bound for the country today. Actually make that yesterday or even the day before. We can't blame the Binkster for the first two days delay but today... We were finally packed, almost. His nibs had yet to be introduced to the carrier and we were just packing foodstuffs from the Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-95239742002-02-08T19:33:00.000Z2002-02-08T19:34:57.000ZWe're all going to the vets tomorrow..
In fact we've been really. It was the innoculation visit.
We left the rescue with Mr. B just starting the regime. I thought it was because they were cheapskates but animals have to have some preparation of their immune systems (humans too for all I know), so the jabs he had were good only for 3-4 weeks. As those may have brought on some mild 'flu like Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-94362982002-02-06T13:15:00.000Z2002-02-06T13:15:45.990ZWet Weekend
The east coast was not for the faint-hearted. Or hat wearers.
This is much later than I wanted but I'm glad to say not an indication of anything amiss. Binks only got to go out very briefly before the weather closed in on the Sunday (Saturday was uniformly grim) so he's still very much an indoor cat. In fact I'm getting a little worried about the inevitable time when he does gain Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-90084532002-01-24T18:15:00.000Z2002-01-24T18:15:35.206ZNew Adventures
He's been in the wars again.
Last weekend saw him with a dodgy eye. One evening late on, he appeared with his left eye partially shut. It seemed not to bother him much but over the next day or so it wept slightly. It was back to normal by Monday. That same day some clue to how it mught have happened occurred; he races everywhere and shot into the computer room (glorified junk Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-88218672002-01-18T19:27:00.000Z2002-01-18T19:27:38.000ZFlying Cat
I'm glad to say Mr. Binks is very much back to rights.
In fact he's moved into overdrive and is running around the house about four feet off the ground. He's been pretty quick to learn - though not always observe - the house rule of no cats on the kitchen worksurfaces. He eats all the time and has developed a plaintive cry as if he can't believe you haven't fot up, moved to the door Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-87197512002-01-15T19:02:00.000Z2002-01-15T19:02:35.250ZSnuffles
The weekend was not without worry.
On Friday Mr. Binks developed a cough. At first this seemed mechanical; he rushes around the kitchen, ever eagre to find out what's going on even while he's eating. That he had inhaled a bit of food during this didn't seem surprising. He sort of dry coughed a bit but it didn't slow him down and next morning it more or less gone, certainly by midday. Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-85974372002-01-11T13:44:00.000Z2005-01-02T14:09:32.806ZIntroducing...
Thanks to a colleague's lend of a digital camera the least bad of my attempts is here.
Binks' confidence grows. He's fascinated by everything with particular favourites being the fish and us and must be where anyathing is going on or might happen. He managed to get between the dishwasher and the cabinet last night - a gap that seemed only about three inches wide. We didn't panicChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-85388282002-01-09T14:21:00.000Z2002-01-09T14:50:24.000ZWasps
Mr. Binks continues to explore.
We are to keep him indoors for three weeks or so. Initial instructions were to allow him to calm down in a single room, 'not the kitchen or a communal room'. That leaves a bathroom? A bedroom? All equipped with trays and water? So that didn't last long. For safety reasons he is currently confined to the kitchen overnight and when we're out. Monday was the Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-85095822002-01-08T12:49:00.000Z2002-01-08T12:49:15.056ZCandles
Last night had its own theatre. Just as dinner went into the oven the lights went out and we've had no power since 9:00pm. That meant candles and despite our attentiveness Binks has a few scorched whiskers and a valuable lesson for minimum cost. He's learning fast; not to be on the work surfaces and table (though that is hard to resist as it supplies a great vantage point for the Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-84824962002-01-07T14:24:00.000Z2002-01-08T12:32:04.000ZWhat's in a Name?
Somewhat belatedly I've been checking 'Mister Binks' on the Internet for unfortunate connotations. There was a close shave with 'Mr. Bigglesworth', Dr. Evil's (hairless) cat in 'Austin Powers'. Fortunately there are no hideously embarrassing associations with the name - well none discovered to date. 'Mr. Binks' throws up a slew of references for an award winning German ShepherdChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270529.post-84658742002-01-06T23:34:00.000Z2002-01-08T12:35:31.000ZMr. Binks came home today.
The New Year's resolution not to remain catless reached critical mass very quickly. On Saturday we went to the animal welfare (Mayhew in North-West London) to 'take a look at them and have them take a look at us'. We found them a charity doing a good job in the circumstances (volunteers, short staffed, scant organisation) and they found us a good risk, despite our Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00895059998863266080noreply@blogger.com