This is difficult

I am at Cayton Carr again Ben. You know that and missed me terribly whilst you were at Kiaora . So did Win I know. She asked after me especially. You kept looking for signs of my domicile. I am sure you glanced up on the shelf at that green tray containing my brush and catnip and wondered if I was alright. Other He will have talked to HER about me I'm sure, and Win will have reiterated how gorgeous I am.

 I have been for 10days already. Its because of Christmas and your sisters issues with being in the presence of my DNA. I am sure THEY have not forgotten me. I know that SHE will have kept a dish of some Christmas fowl in the Deep Freezer for me, a bit of Giblets and Neck neatly diced and spiced with gravy made from the boiled up carcass of the turkey.  That will do nicely . I am looking forward to it on my return to Kiaora.  They didnt put a silly ribbon on me here, DG.

Sitting on £6 worth of paper with sharp claws

SHE is cross again. Of ALL places I heard HER say. Why cant he go somewhere else I heard HER say. Doesn't he know he's not allowed on furniture, I heard HIM say.

Now look here you two. I wanted to try it out, right, I was careful, right, stop going on at me, right.

You are very clever Master

I am so impressed. SHE is very impressed and  your Great Grandmother is very impressed. SHE has been showing all your new creations  to HER mother using her iphone . I think your  Great Grandmother is impressed with your Mother for being able to work an iphone out. Your Mother is very impressed that her Aged Parent has actually heard of EBay and Craft Central and the word  PLUSH which is nothing at all to do with Plumbs Upholstery .

SHE cant believe that its a year since THEY last came to see you at Craft Central in Clerkenwell, and here you are again.I hope your show goes well . Please let me know if I can do anything to help you , from here of course.  Send you soup or sugared almonds-you only have to ask. 

SHE and HE both send their love to you and want you to know they are VERY PROUD OF YOU.  Of course what they don't realise is that I am your Muse and best of Patrons, an Inspiration and a Mentor, but HA what do THEY know.

Chip

I have just played on the floor for 5 minutes  with what I now know was a chip. It fell from the oven and I was too quick for HER.  It smelled ok but it was difficult to grasp, being very hot. I have eaten it now. They are very surprised and discussing it as I write this.

My Christmas List Dear Master

I get rather cold now that I am older, and so Dear Master I would like one of those BEDS that pampered Cats have.I have been managing  with other forms of draft proofing and home build schemes but they dont seem to be really successful.

Please take pity on me.BUT I dont want any faux fur, faux animal prints or Tartan thank you very much.

This one is acceptable

Do get another cat

http://haydonhill.blogspot.com/

I've written to her cyberfriend Ray oka Daydreamer, to encourage her to get another cat. After all we are worth our weight in gold aren't we.

Cauliflower Cheese

Yes I do quite like it , I admit it. I have just been caught going through a bin bag by the back door on its way to the dustbin. It was all secure and tied up but THEY did not allow for the sharpness of my claws, my acute  sense of smell for cheese, and my utter contempt for that cardboard they call Cat Crunch which resides in my bowl. SHE doesn't usually throw anything away, but their daughter from Scarborough, your sister Ben, brought them an ASDA curry as a thanks for having the small boys, and so the left over Cauliflower Cheese had to go.

#cnmac11 for cats

I don't know how I will cope. Ben, your mother is leaving me again. Now you know I don't usually mind going off to Cayton Carr.This time I am a little anxious. I overheard Him saying to THEM that they would miss Wendy . Now Wendy has been my mentor at the Cattery for the last few years. She has metred out my rations, kept my apartment clean,spoken lovingly to me of home,and brushed me. So Wendy has retired. I am going to have to get to know someone new. HE says she sounded very pleasant . I say Will She Like Me. Will she realise that I am a superior Cat. Will she realise that I used to live in London ,and know a thing or three.Will she realise that I am an A list cat?

SHE is going to #cnmac11 and HE is going as her  chaperone.  I hope #cnmac11  is something to do with Cats and the New Media. I have a Twitter Account, I follow many literate and interesting felines. I have featured in publications and monthly periodicals like the Envoy.There is nothing much left for me to learn about the New Media except maybe posterous or css filing . BUT I would like to know why SHE and HE need to go at all. I could tell them everything  they  need to know. 

The Conference season

Well it might be that season for speeches, although I notice that Seaside venues are no longer de rigueur by the political parties of this island nation. I would have thought that Filey could  have been a really suitable venue for a gathering of the nations top political dogs, after all the top cats are here.

Filey has plenty of Band B accommodation of the sort that ordinary people like-clean and good value for money, and wifi when the wind is in the right direction ,and plenty of parking for the Media. After all Filey was the place of Sugartown and Nick Cranes Coast.

It is a good place to shop ,to buy presents for wags or habs*, of phallic rock novelties, and craft necklaces , or Chocs from our well loved shop Sterchis  now in Hope Street.

Filey is also an ideal place for transport links to London or Newcastle, has a landing strip for personal jets at Grindale and a Roman jetty and plenty of places to eat before 6pm.

I of course would make a good politician. I am good to look at, have no trouble speaking my mind, am loyal and well read. Although I have not been to a Public School  I know how to behave in Public, have good manners, and am upright and principled. I have had a small op so am in no danger of being led astray by bad company. 

I am not sure which Political Party is best suited to my talents to lead. I dont like red , blue or orange, green is more my colour, but as a realist I know it is apt to get lost in a garden. 

 I will give it some thought

*Habs- husbands and boyfriends

Pretty on Pink

My Bank Holiday , and the talk of Geriatrica

Rather a daft name for a Monday off I think. I don't have to do my banking on a Monday anyway, and I certainly dont need a holiday from it. I cant reach the ATM anyway, and have to depend on the care of Significant Others for supplying my needs. 

The upside of this day off with no physical  Bank Openings is that the City of London shuts up for the weekend and so you Dear Master don't have to go to work . I am SO GLAD then that you have come to Filey so see me, spend some time with me, admiring me , talking to me, and discussing my age.  You have worked  out my age . I am 16 Human years Old.

I am all there and half way  back , THEY will tell you. I am still in possession of all my cat faculties, I sleep well, eat well , can get around without the use of a carry, can spot a bird at 20metres, and smell chicken scraps coming out of the fridge even when I am at the bottom of the garden. You don't need to have those indelicate talks about me. 

cat years

My admirer , the Editor

Now that the News of the World has gone the way of all flesh and paper, I am about to rise as New star . 

Are they cats? Do they know u can see their roots?

SHE goes to the end of Queen Street and sits for hours at night looking out across the bay just incase SHE can see the Northern Lights or the Perseid Showers. I am not that kind of phenomenal New star, but more the Jedward Kind, without the silly hair of course and  brother, BIG or otherwise. No I am hoping that my NEW ADMIRER , who has featured this blog in a monthly periodical as Blog Of the Month, will make me into a CELEB type star, of the A catlist sort.

So I am going to have a makeover I think, have my whiskers trimmed, get brushed, and practice my Purr. I have already told HER that Catcrunch is just not good enough for my evening repast. I deserve something more gourmet. My sleeping places will have to be changed too. Its not enough to be shut in the kitchen at night and told to be a good boy. 

Really I should have a Gold Lame fringe on my rug, and it should be embroidered with precious gems. Celebs in the making need a publicist too. SHE wont do , SHE is not of the world just in it. I need someone who will get me on the One Show, and Hello Magazine, now that I am in the Envoy. I bet my admirer/Editor  sees a great rise in the Circulation as all the Filey felines make their carers read about me. Do you suppose I will be asked to carry the Olympic Torch from Filey to Reighton, I could manage that, with the help of some strategic  harness in place. Maybe I will be asked to open the new Development next Door on the site of the Old Crown.

Get your online Copy of the ENVOY here-I am in the September Edition. Paper copies, OKA the real thing are in Filey Library, and St Johns , St Thomas and St Oswalds churches -BY THE DOOR and by subscription.

A new place to sit

Did u think I had Gone?

Well I've been back at Kiaora now for 3 whole lovely days after my sojourn at Cayton Carr again. I was a pleasure for them all there  no doubt. I came home looking very brushed and happy. I have stopped whining for food every hour on the hour as it is just not working now I am back with HER (who thinks she should be obeyed). 

That ginger and white excuse for a cat has been trying to poach and encroach whilst I have been away. I know that, as the area around the back door and MY cat flap smells of that expensive Industrial Super Strength stain  and odour remover.

Yesterday we had a DRAMA here.
HE caught a stray mammal and put it in my Cat Box. SHE thought it was a baby mink, but the lovely  pink vet said it was a Ferret. Really SHE should have known that , growing up in the wilds of East Yorkshire. The Drama is over now -so if its yours you know where to go for it.

I am going to be famous...

An editor of a famous magazine is interested in me. Its is about time my career took off. I am an elderly cat now and I know my late flowering has not been unexpected in some quarters south of the Thames , but nevertheless now that I am being blogrolled and appreciated , talked about and discussed I am content.

Why didn't they use me?

Madeira Cake

Dear Ben

I investigated with my claws and managed to scrape open the aluminium foil wrapping on the pleasantly smelling parcel in the dining room.  SHE was really LIVID when SHE realised I had licked the top from  the fragrant sweetmeat.I heard her telling your sister that it was for Parish Sundae where she is doing the catering this week. SHE could still have used it,  but no it has gone out to the fat birds in the garden. SHE is making another one . SHE will put it in a tin this time I think.

Put me behind bars then...

Yesterday THEY got me into the brown box again. I had remembered it ,although it's many moons since I  was last tempted into it  by subterfuge. I just walked in this time. Wendy (as  THEY call HER) at Cayton Carr actually feeds me very well, and gives me more than I get at home here in Geriatrica by the Sea, but it was not to be . We all went to the other place. I had to stay in the box for along time, but didn't mind, as lots of  dogs made interesting viewing through the bars. I took ages to come out of the brown box, as my lady in Green was not there in the room with the high table and clean smell. It was another lady, in PINK. She was OK and said good things about me to THEM. When we went out to the car HE told HER that the vision in PINK was the BOSS at the VET HOUSE. 

Today I took myself off for a walk behind bars. SHE was Livid because I got into next doors tree and got a silly sparrow. It should have been quicker. I think SHE was really cross because SHE thought I might just make a play for the Bantam cockerel next door too. Don't think I haven't seen all the baby blackbirds either. They are just lazy lumps sitting and waiting to be fed - Survival of the fittest  I say.

Ok -Ive seen this!

What I overheard

I kept hearing my name this morning  so thought I had better hang around. SHE was not talking, it was that Brian Cox again, coming out of the machine. SHE quite likes his voice except when he says jeruwslem in stead of Jerusalem. She always shouts at him to get it right. People speak to her every day out of the machine when SHE sits in the kitchen and eats her breakfast . HE is in the sitting room with the BOX machine  with the  moving pictures. (SHE is hopeful that the BOX one day  will get bigger and thinner) .

So I pricked up my ears at the Samson word and started to listen . It was awful. THEY are going to cut my hair and I am going to push the Church Over by its Pillars. What happens in between is too violent for My Little HIMS to read here.I carried on listening but then it was a Mills and Boon about Ruth, who I don't know, she must live up the road, not at Kiaora.

Phew , it was not me after all, she said .

Pre-raphaelite or wot

Ben -wot do u think of your sisters NEW LOOK. We in the land that time forgot LOVE IT.

Even SHE said nothing but praise.

SHE caught me standing on the word of GOD

Dear BEN

It was lovely to hear your voice this morning, I'm glad I was earwigging next to HER . I see from your Facebook page that you were up early, and already had 15 messages of greeting before 8 am and even been up a wall yourself.

Have a lovely day, my dear friend , I will be good today -JUST FOR YOU

love Samson

And a very Happy Pentecost to all my followers

Here is a picture of ME near the RED poppies in my garden. SHE was really glad that I didn't squash any of her Cosmos, but I did hear an expletive or 2 when she saw where I parked my bum elegant rear for Whit Sunday.  There is a story here.

When SHE was getting married to HIM in 1972 she helped arrange the Flowers for HER big day at ST James ,Sutton -on Hull ,  a village now home to some ODD THINKERS  but then the intellectual spawning ground for the likes of HER also I think an ODD THINKER.

SHE did a lovely arrangement  in RED and WHITE . She was surprised to see that a fellow Constance Spry  had gone up to her symphony of white and red Gladioli and tucked a Yellow one at the back. SHE was told that it was bad luck to have RED and WHITE flowers together and not good for the wedding. When the others had gone home SHE went and removed the yellow flower. Now nearly 40 years later and still married to HIM , SHE remembered this . RED and WHITE are the colours of Pentecost.  SHE did not do red and white for St Oswald's this week.  It was her turn to do flowers, but the Pink ones from last week were not dead, and Pauline was doing the Stone Altar with yellow and red in memory of her daughter who loved those colours.

We don't DO superstition at ST Oswald's anyway now that we have had a sermon about it.

I however knew that SHE wanted really to let people know that Pentecost is very important, and that if we all prayed for the HOLY SPIRIT to fill us then the Church would not have to rely on Rowan Williams and Victoria Coren to tell it how it is.  So I sat near the RED poppies for her, and will do so again when the White Cosmos have decided to flower.

Pigeons Continued

I was a bit peeved that SHE has been talking about me behind my back. I will of course do all I can to help with the smooth running of the house and garden  that revolve around my needs. However I do not engage with pigeons or rats  or  Herring Gulls or other vermin of Filey. Please let this be known.

Dear Ben -My Bank Holiday

I am asleep on the old church pew in the Dining room.
THEY are waxing lyrical about the rain and checking the level in the water butts with glee. HE is gardening , all kitted out in W's*. SHE is planning the rows of spinach SHE  is going to plant when the sun comes out at 4 o'clock.
Ben I have been looking at the Twitter links to your Etsy info. I am well impressed. Clearly all the things I taught you when I mentored you in Brighton and then London, and more recently on the use of Twitter,   have not  been wasted.I love the bear as a Pirate.

Have you been watching Pirates of the Caribbean ?   SHE watched it , or at least some of it yesterday. Your attention to detail is very good. SHE says to tell you  SHE is pleased your Open Studio days went well.
Have you thought about CATS as well as bears? Love Samson


*wellies and waterproofs

This Saturday might be special

I am looking forward to Saturday as I understand its going to be a very special day for me

Dear Geordie

It was sort of good to meet you briefly yesterday. I have been hearing all about your visit from HIM and HER. I know I am going to have to try harder now to get back into their good books after the wounding incident. I have heard that you sat quietly , did as you were asked, stared inquiringly when your name was mentioned and just were all round exemplary in your demeanour.
After you had gone Home with your HER I knew just where you had been in the sitting room, and want you to know that I did not mind.
Love Samson,
we boys must stick together.

I am so sorry

I  have scratched HER.  It was an accident.  SHE was brushing me and I reached out a bit, forgetting for a moment that it was the hand that fed me.

Now I understand

I am ready

Dear Ben,

   Much has been going on here. Your sister has been collaborating with HER. They dont know that I've been watching them , but I have

• They have hidden packets of Cashew nuts and  Bombay Mixture in a bag in the kitchen
• They have got 4 cartons of Hagen Daz Icecream of the variety White Chocolate and raspberry
• There are 6 flags  prone on   top of the desk, 5 actually , because I have nicked one  for myself
• There  are 2 packets of Bunting in the cupboard under the stairs,1 packet of Party plates  with a Union Jack flag design and a plastic table cloth in like manner
• All the beds upstairs are ready for little HIMS and your sister and her spouse
• They have got a Radio Times
• The fridge is full of something called Crudites, oka carrots and celery cut in Julienne strips 

I don't know what's going on but will let you know.

Love Samson

             

I like this

Lent and The Fame

Sometimes you must wonder if I am retired like HER. 

The answer is No! but I am so busy that I don't have time to write to you so often Ben.

Sorry to give you excuses. It would be more correct to say that I am resting between Gigs. You see,now that I have found an audience, other than Aunty SHE in Cheshire I am aware that my posts have to be Purrfect. SHE looks at me every night and says You must do a post for Ben , Samson. I look at her all poised and SHE just gets on with Twitter or the Filey Parish Blog. SHE has been thinking of the excellence of my posts, and wants me  to astound the wider world , now that it has found me,so that my posts are worthy of the CatBooker.

I am on a parallel track from her, but a much Narrower one. I have come to that repentance that says count yourselves less than others.

• I am going to take captive every thought of praise ,and give it straight back to the ONE who created all such as me. 
• I am putting to death pride not sitting around any more waiting for people to admire me. Infact I am going to start behaving like the cat that I was designed to be. I am going to sit and look for birds
• I am not going to scratch HER when she is combing my delicate parts
• I am going to be grateful for Catcrunch. Cats in other parts of the world have to get sustenance from refuse tips or old ladies on a mission.
• I am not going to seek Fame after all. I did wonder if I got HER to make me a garment from dried fish it would hit the headlines, but I expect not. My muse  Lady G has just told the world that she and her fans are Christians. I am very glad. She can have all the fame she likes. I am going to be me after all.

As you can see............

Ophelia

Dear Aunty HER

This is to tell you that I am thinking about you today. I am very sorry to hear of the death of my cousin Ophelia ( Phee) .
SHE tells me that you have buried her in your lovely garden. Next time you come to Kiaora I am going to help you to dig up some snowdrops, in the green , to plant above her.

with love from Samson

Regression

I am worried about HER. SHE is acting in a strange and yes I will say it a worldly manner. SHE has made HIM buy a Sunday Paper just to get a CD of the caterwauling I am being subjected to  this morning. SHE will be more than lonesome tonight if this carries on. I will not climb up on HER knee and purr. I will not look elegant on the hearth rug. I will make a mess with that white gravel stuff , and make sure it goes all up the hall. 

That is not all . She has  changed the profile picture of the FileyParish  Twitter page to indulge more of HER regressive and nostalgic tendancies.
SHE needs to get a life , I say.

I am being followed by a cottage

Well not just any cottage, but one of the nicest cottages in Queen Street, Flora Dora Cottage. I love the name , and I like the cottage.  It is where Michael Portillo oka Bradshaw stayed when he graced us with his presence. He saw me through the gate I think , and thought I  was lovely.

Not exactly FOLLOWED , let the reader understand , literally . It would look very silly trying to follow me around the grounds of my home. No , followed on Twitter.  I suppose its really as daft as a Norwegian Blue/Persian Cross being on Twitter, but I have an amanuensis called HER.

I am also followed by HER favourite journalist called Ruth Gledhill, who has Princess Natasha  , who I follow.

Used to be 6, then 5 now its 4 o'clock

I am trying to improve my living conditions.

When I came to live in this outpost on the North Coast SHE allowed me one pouch of meat or fish in jelly a day, and the rest of the day I had to eat that stuff the vet says is good for me-Cat Crunch. Then came the cheap cooked chickens SHE got from Mills Metro  to boil up the carcass for stock. SHE used to give me tasty scraps sometimes.  I used this to my advantage, purred at HER, and by subtle means and sheer devious patronage managed to be very grateful for more and more until she forgot that it had started out as giving me LEFTOVER CHICKEN SCRAPS.  She then bought cheap cooked chickens just for me, when they were REDUCED in the new supermarket-Tescos of Filey. She still made the stock , chicken sandwiches for HIM , little HIMS, HER and all those hangers on in this house. I got delicious morsels every day. Then austerity took over after Christmas, or Winterval as I call it. SHE has put me back on Cat Crunch  for my health she says. 

OLD GRANDMA SHE helped me out by donating all the meat from HER Chicken Carcass bought for soup. It has kept me going for 2 weeks until last night . 

Now 6 o'clock was my supper time. I have managed to reduce the time down to 4 o'clock by being vocal. I don't purr.  I go right up to HER and whine, and whine and whine.

It has worked at last, today I got my chicken supper at 4 o'clock.Except it was CAT CRUNCH and will be for ever more I heard HER say.

Last year , this year

Raspberry me

I promised you my review of last year

• It was over quickly
• I now know what a Thrush looks like
• The Little HIMS are my friends, even if they do eat red representations of me
• Cayton Carr is still my favourite Holiday Destination
• I do not use Twitter to my advantage 



Our Darkling Thrush 

• I dont mind snow or ice as long as I dont have to go out in in it

Playing with my Christmas gifts

Happy New year  Dear Readers