So-far, So Good

It's Sunday Selfie time.... 

We are joining The Kitties Blue, from The Cat on My Head blog, for the weekly celebration of blogs and bloggers from across the world and across the species.

Download the link link from their site and join the fun!

This week I have a string of shots taken by my selfie drone, that shows some of the effort I have to go to to get my work done......

First one has to eye up the settings. 

Observe the look of concentration on the hunters face, the whiskers fanned out to optimise radar reception.

Then I take the jump, factoring wind velocity, gloves, and trajectory.....

And at the last second the claw is extended to press the timer, and........

Voila!  The perfect selfie (complete with photobombing mousie!)

To see what all our pals have been up to, click the links below.

............... and now it's Sunday Story Time!

This weeks story is.............. So-Far, So Good!

It is a cold winters evening, and Erin is sat in the flickering red and amber light of the drawing room fire, reviewing the soon to be published blog post. Beside her Mrs Hudson is enjoying not only the warmth of the log fire, but also a small pale cream sherry. She is also knitting Erin a new scarf and a four set of socks. Erin, whilst appreciative of the gesture is somewhat concerned that maybe the sherry glass was not small enough, and has drawn Mrs Hudson to the fact that they, the scarf and socks, are not normally part of the same garment!

And so the evening rolls on until it comes time for Erin to read the blog out loud.

"Ok, so here is the latest version of the post, Mrs H. Please feel free to jump in if I have something wrong......

So Far So Good, another episode from the diaries of Palace Life, by Erin the Cat, princess.

Now, I have to say that I do take my seats seriously. I'm rather partial to having somewhere comfy to sit, to take the strain of my paws during those long periods spent doing my blog dictation, cogitating the meaning of words such as cogitating, doing the Palace accounts, and tending to my pasteurising... er... pastoral duties. A task, I must add, that can be in excess of twelve hours a day, every day, and weekends too, at least!

Now as my housekeeper has some back issues, I'd obtained at no small vast expense, some marvellous sets of those rather natty food savers with blue lids, from a certain well know Scandinavian purveyor of fine food savers.

Note from Editor:- Please note, for the sake of fairness, balance, and a strongly worded letter from the Honourable Guild of Natty Food Savers (with blue lids), about our post entitled "Brainwaves and Boxes", we need to advise that other fine purveyors of food savers, doubtless with blue lids and possibly in Princess Pink, are or may or may not be available from all good purveyors of such items. Now back to the story....

What do food savers have to do with the housekeepers back, I hear you ask? And well you might, as I did, and therein lies today's tale. Not that I am fibbing, no ma'am not this princess. Heck you won't see my nose growing like Pistachio.

Mrs Hudson looked up from scarf she was knitting and, scratching her head with the end of one of the needles, gave a thoughtful look. "Erin dear, surely they're nuts. And wasn't he Pinocchio?"

"Now Mrs Hudson, I do think I know my nuts from my potato dumplings, when I see them. And one thing I am sure of, that lad wasn't made of potatoes and flour. Think of the mess if he'd gone out in the rain. Besides, he was made of wood, so he'd have had squirrels, and we all know they like nuts. I rest my kernel... er... case.

Now where was I?  Ah yes. As Mrs Hudsons back had been playing up, a trip was required to a certain emporium, of certain boxes, who also happened to do furniture. After copious amounts of out of tune humming and haring, and much fuel wasted visiting said store countless times and only coming home with a selection of food savers, she bought a new chair.

All however was not as I had hoped, and I soon discovered that my housekeeper had an inclination to incline and fall asleep in this chair on account of it being too comfortable. She dropped right off and forgot to feed me. In fact she was spending so much time on that chair sometimes she didn't drop off and still forgot to feed me.

Now as the other piece of furniture in MY office was one of those mono legged swivel stools, there was no way I could be expected to use that. I don't know if you have ever tried to gracefully jump onto something that not only spins but also tilts, but let me say it isn't for the feint hearted. So I did what any discerning princess could do, I jumped on it, or specifically I jumped on Mrs Hudson's new chair. And there, dear readers I have stayed, until last week when more boxes arrived!

Like a scene from that documentary series, Dr Who, like time travellers from another world those boxes materialised right before my eyes.

OK so maybe I might have dozed off for a bit... OK for an hour... or two... or maybe three, but those boxes just turned up!

So as all good princesses should do, I took the necessary time to contemplate the situation, to calculate and redefine the parameters of the dilemma, the quantum mechanics, velocities of worm holes versus relativity of Mrs Hudson's court shoes? Not entirely certain how they got in that equation, but they do seem to get everywhere so maybe they form the basis of time travel? Well they certainly could do with being out of this time zone on account of the aroma!

Anyways, lets just say I did a lot of cogitating and ruminating!"

Mrs Hudson looked up and gave a telling smile. "Erin dear, it sure looked like you asleep. You had that gentle purr going on and your ears and nose were twitching like you were dreaming of mice."

"I'll have you know, Mrs Hudson, that this Princess never naps on the job, that would be most unprofessional. Not least because... er... well there will be a reason, best I get back to you after checking the Official Secrets Act, just in case it's a secret.

Oh, and when I say secret, I don't mean the Official Secret Act, that's not secret as I know about that and I know you know about that too, on account of telling you just now. Nope, the secret is what Secret Act is secret about. Though one could argue that if we don't know it exists it actually doesn't exist for us and so it isn't a secret needed to be a secret.

Anyways, at the end of the day, napping is for nap time and working is for work time. So, if I am napping, it is safe to say I won't be working, or on work time.

Of course if I needed to nap for work that would be different. Then I would be work napping and it won't be a secret, unless of course it is the interests of National Security. In which case I will be working but will pretend I'm not and it WILL be a secret.

But whatever you do, DON'T wake me up to ask, well not unless its in the interest of National Security. I mean I do have to get my beauty sleep too, which has nothing to do with naps, and definitely nothing to with officials or official secrets.

Are we clear, Mrs Hudson?"

"Erin, you have totally confused me with all those secrets and not secret secrets. What secret is it that we're talking about?"

Erin smiled at Mrs Hudson and gave a very pronounced wink. "Glad we are on the same page there Mrs Hudson. By the way, I would recommend NOT sliding the knitting off the needle so as to scratch your head as it looks like you have dropped a few hundred knits and a thousand pearls."

Mrs Hudson gave a gasp and frantically tried to reinsert the needle back through the loops of black and white yarn. " I could maybe make you a nice set of ear warmers instead, dearie, if you prefer?" 

Erin sighed resignedly, nodded, and carried on.

"Anyhows, those boxes were a threat to National Security. To some they might just be boxes, but to Palace Security they are threats, as NO box enters this domain without my say so.

So, after due investigation, various angles of olfactory discernment and some smackypaws, I discovered a label. Seems like them boxes were for me!

Mrs Hudson, bless her, had in fact ordered a new Chaise Lounge. Yup those fiendishly clever Scandinavian peeps, purveyors of those storage containers, also do natty sofa's, in blue. Thankful though NOT with blue lids!"

Note from Editor:- Please note, for the sake of fairness, balance, and before we get a strongly worded letter from the Honourable Guild of Natty Sofas, we need to advise that other fine purveyors of  sofas, doubtless in blue and possibly Princess Pink, are or may or may not be available from all good purveyors of such items. Now back to the story....again!

"I do need to explain that the Palace has been devoid of a chaise lounge for some time, since my accession to the thrown in fact, on account of squatters. Yup seems like the previous housekeeper had allowed a certain group of individuals to take up residence, and breed no less. In fact if they had bred less it it wouldn't have been an issue. The trouble was they bred more, and in the Palace sofa. Mouses!

In deed the mouses soon started to take over the lower floors and also the arm rests and latterly were even seen to be enjoying afternoon tea on the head rest!

Well, you can imagine my upset.... OK there was a fair degree of upset and.... OK paws up, there was a modicum of pleasure when I had to deal with this issue on the old housekeepers behalf, who was sadly lacking in the requisite expertise and claws to get to grip with the matter.

Anyways, those there boxes contained a super-duper vacuum packed, squeezed flat, fully DIY enabled sofa,  and all the housekeeper had to do was assemble it.

Now being the modern princess, I was happy to lend a paw. Trouble was, things got off to bad start when the housekeeper, who had laid waste to vast tracts of the Great Hall during the unpacking stage, managed to lose the little pack of tools and the instructions booklet!

Well, many hours of nappi... er... searching later, I discovered that the instructions booklet had started to form its own thermally efficient, dynamically resilient, insulative substrata. OK, paws up, I was sat on it. But it was a rather comfy cushioning layer and how was I to know? After all it did have a sofa on the front page, and they're for sitting on, stands to reason.

I didn't feel too bad though, as it wasn't I but the assembly challenged housekeeper who lost the special spanner to assemble the sofa. Nor was it I who assembled the legs sticking sideways rather than down, and put the cover on back to front, twice. Nor I, that forgot to buy the back rest! I mean, I must be the only Princess that has a fully functional, five times size footstool.

Of course had this Princess been doing the actual assembly and not delegated, it would have been delivered, assembled by those funny looking stick insect like, two fingered humans in the instruction booklet..... AND it would have been in Princess Pink!

Not that I'm complaining of course, no ma'am, as I do have a rather nice new selection of cardboard boxes and the Palace hasn't acquired any more of those natty food savers with the blue lids. I mean, what more could a Princess ask for, besides a new sofa that is?


The End"


Mrs Hudson stood up and applauded. "Bravo bravo bravo, Erin dear. A wonderful tale without doubt one of your best. Now this housekeeper, do I know her as she does sound quite familiar?"

"You know Mrs H, I think maybe it's time for bed, don't you?"


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~