Village Life - Owning a Winning Racehorse

Yesterday was a big day for horse racing in Britain.  No, I'm not talking about what happened somewhere called Aintree but what happened here in our little village - where the local pub (the Pack Horse) ran a Race Night.  I ended up owning a racehorse - and it won its race.  |Prrr.

Village life is very different from living in London (where I used to live with my humans) or other big cities.  In the village, your neighbours talk to you (and about you!).  In the big city, you can search out someone with interests to match yours.  In the village, if you are sensible, you just get involved in what is happening.  And maybe - after 5 or 6 years - they get used to you too.  They may even tolerate one family in the community having a toy cat who writes a Blog!

Our village is very small.  There is no shop; no Post Office, no school.  There is a pub but business is hard for all rural pubs these days.  The current landlord of the pub is a nice local man who has given good service so my humans want to support him and help him make a success of the business (this is where it gets a little difficult because they talk about the quality of the food and drink and I don't really understand that because I'm a toy).

So the point is that my humans are not really keen horse racing or betting people but they went to the Race Night because there would be nice neighbours there and to support the village.  It turned out there were eight races and people were offered the chance to be named "owner" of each of the horses as well as to bet on them. All the horses had funny fictitious names (like "Nearly Fell, by Eileen Dover").  In the Fifth Race one was called "Pinocchio by Wooden Lie".  Nobody had yet "bought" him and my humans decided to give the money to name me as owner.  The horse ran as "No.2".

The evening got under way and the humans apparently had fun (no, I wasn't actually there!).  As it happens, the horse in position "No. 2" won in both the third and forth races.  My humans tried to console themselves that one race should not affect the result of the next but the chances for "Pinocchio" did not look good.  Well, I don't need to waste time - "No. 2" did win three races in a row.  The landlord called up the owner and Mikki went up representing me to collect my prize.  Here I am with it in the picture.

I'm very pleased with my prize - and even more proud that I can call myself the owner of a winning racehorse.  I don't think I'll be drinking any of my prize.  On balance, I'm glad my humans didn't act on their friend's suggestion to set up the picture with a  drinking straw from the bottle to my mouth.

I don't even think the humans drink much Martini.  It'll have to wait until they find another way of taking part in village life - by inviting the neighbours round for a party!

And what about the big horse race yesterday and the poor horses who died?  What do you expect me to think?  Moral dilemmas are for humans.  Life for toys is more simple.  Give me a cuddle.

Prrrr.

The Whole Family - The Rest of the Weekend

My humans and I were quite busy over several days last weekend:  the wedding was the highlight (see previous post).

For a lot of the rest of the time, we were looking after Andrew's mother, who is now 89 years old and lives in a care home in Hexham.  I am interested to watch all generations of my humans' families but (or because) I don't really understand this idea of getting old.  As my friend Mickey Mouse once said, "the great thing about being a cartoon character is that however many birthday parties you have, you never get any older".

Andrew's mother now needs quite a lot of help.  She wanted to arrive at the wedding in style from a nice hotel so we took her to one nearby.  We asked for a specially adapted room but the one provided (said to be "accessible") was useless.  She could not have used the bathroom safely).  Strangely, the regular rooms were better and Mikki looked at several before moving Andrew's mother.  It all took time, which tired her. Well, she slept soundly through the night.

Fortunately, the next day - the day of the wedding - dawned fine and we all got out into the sun to admire the gandens.  Here am I with my human, Andrew.  Yes, that's Mickey Mouse on his tie.  Mikki decided he should have a cheerful tie because weddings are happy events - as this one was.

And Andrew's mother was looked after extremely well by the bride and groom..  Thanks, again, Anna and Tom..

On the way to Hexham - and again on the way back - we stopped in Harrogate to do business relating to the sale of Andrew's mother's flat (apartment) there. We visited the lawyers and got a removal man to take out some of the larger items of furniture.  It added to what were already long days driving for my Mikki.  She likes me to sit in the front passenger seat when she is driving and I do my best to amuse her, keep her awake and remind Andrew to give her things to eat and drink from time to time.  "Eat and drink"?  Now, that something else about human behaviour I don't fully understand.

Prrrr.

Anna and Tom's Happy Day

Just home from a weekend in Hexham, Northumberland, and I will tell you about the most important thing.  We want everyone to know how much we all enjoyed Anna and Tom's wedding celebrations and how much we wish them well for the future.

I suppose my humans aren't totally conventional.  Andrew must be a little unusual.  He lets his toy cat have a blog, after all!  But even he wasn't intending to take me to the wedding of his nephew Tom to Anna.  It was last Thursday evening, over dinner with Anna and her parents, that she invited me specially to the ceremony.  You see what a wonderful, kind and very special person she is.  She volunteered a photograph:  and here it is. Doesn't she look good in that lovely wedding dress!

The whole day was lovely.  It was held in a sort of giant glass pavilion, called "the Winter Gardens", that was connected with the school Tom went to.  The ceremony was held there and Tom and Anna chose their own special readings and had their own special wording for their vows.  After that, we went into another hall while the Winter Gardens were prepared for a meal and then dancing.  It was in this hall that I had my picture.  I think Anna looks very pretty.  I also think my Mikki looks very good - and Andrew says I must say he thought so too.

Once the food and drink came out, I got back in a little carriage the humans had brought for me.  But I will show you another picture we took earlier.  This is me standing next to the wedding cake.  The peacock feathers are appropriate as Anna's surname before marrying Tom was 'Peacock'. In this picture, you can get a bit of an idea of the glass walls of the building and the lovely grounds outside.

I didn't eat any.  I'm a toy.  Andrew says it was delicious.

More news of the weekend in a later post.
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(Toy) Cat and (Tin) Dog

Time for a little change from Disney (my humans say:  Why?).  Here's a picture to illustrate my humans' interest in science fiction.  Here I am with Doctor Who's dog, K9.

K9 wasn't very lively when I met him.  Dogs are such lazy creatures:  or perhaps he was just switched off.  All he did was sit there in this exhibition letting people look at him.  This was in Cardiff (Wales) a few years ago.  I think it was soon after he had made his return to the show in "School Reunion".

One of my humans' special memories is the one time they went to a Doctor Who convention.  That was even longer ago - back in 1993.  It celebrated 30 years since the show first aired and, of course, was long before it came back to tv.  One of the humans' special moments was being in quite a small room watching John Leeson (the actor who does the voice of K9) get down on hands and knees and speak the voice.

Another memory of that day was meeting Mikki's favourite Doctor, Jon Pertwee, in his TARDIS.  I really don't want to say anything that might suggest how old my humans are - but Andrew's favourite Doctor was William Hartnell!!

It was at that same convention that the humans bought their own TARDIS.  It's a little smaller that the Doctor's (that's only on the outside, of course) at only about 3ft 6in high.  My cousin Big Softy sits on top.   He likes cuddles  . .

 . .  And so do I.

Prrrrr.Prrrr

Happy St Patrick's Day

Happy St Paddy's Day - as everyone seemed to say when were were in Walt Disney World at the right time (which I have to say was about 10 years ago when my humans didn't have anything like as nice a camera as they have now.

This is a picture of me (and my "cousin" Travelling Beanie) taken at the Rose and Crown, the "English Pub" in Epcot during celebrations of St Patrick's day.  All the human visitors were given these silly plastic hats to wear and my humans thought it would be funny to embarrass their toy cats with them too.

The humans accepted the invitation to buy green beer in accordance - they were told - with the "Olde English Custom".  Well, I don't know whether there were any places in England that did this but we had never come across it before.  We think it may have originated in such traditional "Olde English" towns as Chicago.  I'm told students in Miami also have some sort of Green Beer custom and perhaps that's where Disney got it.

My humans have visited Ireland several times (though not on St Patrick's day).  They can assure you that the Irish have great respect for their beer and are unlikely to have thought it a good idea to pollute it with green dye.  And the best beer is black anyway (having tasted both extensively, they offer no public preference between Guinness and Murphy's).

So, if it's a day for embarrassing pictures, I am also putting up this one of my leprechaun (aka Andrew) taken at the same time.  There's one of Mikki on Twitter but she looks a lot better.

  Andrew claims he only had the one pint of green beer and that his appearance is totally due to the camera (and his normal mis-shapenness).  I leave readers to judge.

OK, that's it.  We've all had our fun and we've all been willing to join in having fun poked at us.  Perhaps next year I can say something more interesting on St Patrick's day.  Meanwhile, let's all have a group cuddle.

Prrrrr

Cricket and Camel

Andrew has been trying to get his computer working more how he likes it and to understand the mysteries of "Windows 7".  His latest project has been to try out putting family pictures as the background to his desktop.  I thought I would show you two.

First, of course, one with me in it!  This is me with Jiminy Cricket in Epcot.  He doesn't appear much in the parks.  Personally, I'm not surprised.  There can't be that many people who want to cuddle an insect and even I find it a bit disconcerting to come across an insect quite a big as this.

It could be said that Jiminy isn't really an insect, any more than Mickey is really a mouse.  My humans have a lovely video clip about Jiminy.  This was part of a television show, "The South Bank Show", marking the release of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".  In the clip, Ward Kimball, one of Walt Disney's "Nine Old Men", explains how he created the character.  What it came down to was that it's darn difficult to make a loveable Disney character from an insect (cats are a lot easier).  So what we ended up with was not a cricket at all - but a "Jiminy Cricket".

But he was more "insect size" in "Pinocchio".  

My other picture this time is of my human, Mikki, on a camel in Petra, Jordan.  That was nearly 20 years ago, which is a long time.  In fact it's so long ago it was quite soon after I came to live with the humans and long before I persuaded them to take me with them on holidays (vacations).  My humans have been looking for this picture because Mikki also wanted a print to replace one she had of her riding a horse (horses are lovely but the camel is more unusual).

The humans' trip to Jordan was interesting for many reasons.  They say they learned a lot from both the history and the current life in the country - but those are other stories that are a bit profound for a toy cat.  Andrew also picked up an ear fungus - but that's definitely a different story.  My humans were invited to join a tour by Andrew's parents.  Andrew's father was then in his 70s.  It turned out that my humans were the youngest people in the group - and his parents were the second youngest!!  The rest were hardened veterans of touring historic places.  Many knew each other and several skipped up mountainsides with ease.  Well, after descending a particularly precipitous path  from the "High Place" at Petra, Mikki realised she was both a long way from where she started and wasn't sure how to get back.  So it was wonderful luck to see a local man hiring the camel to ride.

The picture was taken by one of her hardy companions, who were content to walk (but glad of directions!).  The print has just replaced the horse on our "rogues' gallery" - a wall of the downstairs cloakroom covered in family pictures and other prints with special meaning.

And the photo isn't just of a tourist sitting on a camel (of course it was that too).  It was of Mikki using local  transport she really needed.

And Andrew has got both photos on his computer.  Both have had to be "cropped" seriously because both are in a vertical format while his computer screen needs a horizontal one.  I don't mind losing the insect's legs.

On reflection, I'm glad I wasn't with my humans in Jordan.  Mikki wouldn't have had any free arms to cuddle me - and I certainly didn't want to pick up any fungus (in my ears or elsewhere).

Much better to be back here, where anyone can cuddle me any time.  I said any time.  Or NOW.

Prrrrrr.

  

Figaro on "House of Mouse"

I've had lots of fun the last couple of days but I haven't been able to tell everyone about it until now.

All this month, Mikki is running a quiz for one of the Discussion Boards she visits.  One of her first questions was about Daisy Duck's nieces, April, May and June.  Now Mikki has posted the answer, I can tell you what got me excited.  One entrant told her about them appearing in the "House of Mouse" show called, "Ladies' Night".  This set Mikki off to look at the show - and prove the entrant right (bonus point for that).

But the important thing is that this is also one of the "House of Mouse" shows where Figaro appears.  He is in the "Daisy Bothers Minnie" cartoon.  Naturally, I have been looking at the cartoon on "You Tube" and admiring how handsome Figaro looks.  He has some resemblance to me, don't you think?

The story is about Figaro having a nice evening at home being stroked by Minnie Mouse when Daisy Duck (towards whom Figaro is very tolerant) turns up and takes over the place.  Then an escaped lion (towards whom Figaro is very brave) attacks them.  The day is saved when all the bath water Daisy has run washes the lion back to the zoo.  As you can see, Figaro has a prominent part at this point so I think it is fair to say he is the real hero of the piece.

He also appears to be enjoying the soapy water far more than in his classic short, "Bath Day".  Perhaps he has mellowed over the years.  Or perhaps, like the great star he is, he just plays the part he is given.

I enjoyed watching this bit of "House of Mouse".  There is still a lot of fun and energy in these little shows.  I know my more purist friends will say the animation is nothing compared to the classics like "Pinocchio" and the shorts of the 1940s but I just like to see Figaro is still about.

Prrrrr.