Ribbons, feathers and a Catto. What more could I ask for?

He’s been up since 4am the little poppet. Now he’s sound asleep probably dreaming of sardines.

Let’s talk about diets and healthy eating choices shall we? Hooray! What fun. 🙃 From my experience, it has certainly been interesting and enlightening.

Food used to be important. I seemed to feel full, in an uncomfortable way, most of the time. Food was at the forefront of my day. I was its slave. I would chop and cook for hours. I would gorge on incredible amounts of unhealthy stuff. I ate way too much rice and bread, cakes and chocolate. And always had BIG portion sizes.

I was chunky and my belly was the place I chunked out, since I was a kid. People would ask if I was pregnant. Bless them, bless me, how embarrassing. Sometimes I just said yes.

Food was my obsession and breaking that habit brought me freedom. I guess I’d had enough of the old way. Something seemed to click inside and with the help of my companion, we both set forward on a low carb diet.

Now I eat between 30 - 60g of carbs a day. Amazingly I don’t crave the old stuff. It’s because I see my body changing and I’m addicted to that change rather than addicted to the food. The fat is gradually disappearing off me.

I eat well. Lots of salad, fish, eggs, vegetables, protein shakes, nuts. And having the added bonus of a ‘cheat day’ where anything and everything goes, I never deny myself anything and it always stays a treat. Something to be appreciated rather than abused.

It’s funny because the new food choices have made me realised just how much sugar there is in processed foods. Sooo much. And it turns out that even on cheat day I’m more discerning about what I choose to put in my body.

I also realised that while I’m grateful to have delicious food choices and appreciate that I can eat more than others, it’s not my entire existence anymore. Supermarkets just make me feel tired whereas before the biscuit aisle would elate me (and then depress me after I’d eaten them all). My purpose has changed.

I don’t slave away cooking for hours. I don’t think about food or long for it. I feel wonderful being a bit emptier. I feel amazing having a couple of bites of something and then moving on. I want to spend my time creating and imagining and exploring what I’m capable of rather than spending my time thinking about what I’m going to gobble up next.

Leo loves his purple ribbon sooooo much.

‘This is unacceptable. I expect clean, tidy cars when I enter them. With treats. And toys. And sweet music singing out my name’

‘Yes Miss Cookie Cat. Anything you say Miss Cookie Cat’ (bows low, retreating).

Cookie The Glorious Empress of Tunbridge Wells gracing us with her presence.

I’ve been exploring different parts of my body during dance time. Today my twisted foot inadvertantly got the treatment. I used some steep stairs as a prop. The aim was to walk down the steps as slowly as I could, rather than plonking down them. I found that as I lowered my leg down towards the next step, my other leg gave way, before the other foot was fully down, unable to hold its weight the more I bent my knee. The leg muscles need strengthening but I wasn’t sure which ones to focus on because I can’t feel my legs a great deal. I asked Simon to help me and he described what muscles he uses to walk down the stairs with. This gave me more focus. I’m gradually waking my atrophised muscles up. It’s really happening.

In the past, my right foot has hardly ever had much weight put on it. I’m good at not keeping it down for long. It’s a protection. It’s had trauma. However, this exercise made me rest my full weight on it for an extended period of time and it’s not used to that. It’s not used to tendons working and flattening. It’s not used to being weight beared. I get a bit scared doing it - it can be excruciating. Because it’s never been used quite properly. It’s never engaged. But I perservered.

It’s protesting now. It’s hurts. It’s throbbing and vibrating. I suppose because something new is waking up, being explored. Change is afoot (haha). It’s annoying though because the pain stops me in my tracks, when all I want to do is move faster and do more.

The hardest part is this - I know that going through the pain and keeping on using my foot, keeping on digging deep is the way to conquer it. The way to have more movement. Sure have a rest, but don’t get lazy and make excuses. I’ve had this lesson time and time again and damn it’s a hard lesson to hear.

Breaking through a pain barrier is a sure fire way of giving me more freedom of movement. I long to be rid of it. I grin and bear it. I limp and grimace and cry but still, I keep on going. I am in control of my body, not the other way round. And when I own it, when I drive it home that I am stronger than its core, then just like that (clicks fingers) it’s gone.

What a little pixie.

Buzz. My absolute favourite cat crush. 🎶😻🎶🎶😻🎶🎶😻🎶🎶😻🎶🎶😻🎶

Today is a full day of dance to make up for the last few days off. I adore dancing round this house. Speakers in every room. Cats round every corner. Luscious views from every window. Long hallways to leap along. I feel like Tom Cruise in Risky Business. This is a wonderful day.

Mmmmm lovely scritch scrotches thank you.

One minute of delicious birdsong featuring catto Leo as guest meower.

I was grateful to be back in the hot tub this morn. Not for long as I couldn’t see a thing, the light was so bright. But long enough to know how healing, warm water is. Buzz joined me on the side for a drink. Just what he needed I suppose. Warm chlorinated water!? 🧐

Pins and needles. How weird are they? The numbness, the tingles, the ‘oh my, how am I supposed to walk now?’ feeling. First the floppiness, then the spikiness. I get weirded out by the whole thing. I feel for all those kids sitting on floors in assembly. It gets better kiddos!

I’m buying a Chromebook. Instead of using my phone to write long posts, I’m going to play in the big girl’s playground and use a keyboard and everything. Think I’ve decided. It’s a start anyway (Acer Chromebook R13). Get me, talking about tech 😉 (that’s as far as I go though).

I arrived at our next house-sit yesterday, in Tunbridge Wells, in the South East of England after an intense drive on the M25. If you’ve never experienced the M25, it’s an ancient, busy, stop-start motorway with batshit crazy drivers. It’s like people are living such intense, stressful, power hungry lives down south (near London) that they get trigger happy with their accelerators. They’re all insane. And that made me a bit insane too and I’ve got to watch out for that. I don’t like the pressure that other drivers put me under. I’m working on getting better at this.

Roads and traffic have been the theme of the last two days. Today I went against sensible advice, ignored Waze directions and ended up in yet another South East traffic jam. I was so grateful to get out of it that I didn’t realise we’d added another hour onto our journey, heading into the depths of the unknown Kentish countryside to be faced with endless winding single track roads, wondering whether there’d be a car blocking the way behind every new bend, just wishing for normal wider roads again. How I longed for those wide open roads. I became a warrior driving us home. On some kind of mission. Just keeping on going. No matter how long it took. No matter how many bends I had to take. I’d get us there. Minutes passed by so slowly. Would we ever reach a semblance of civilisation again? And then something beautiful happened.

I saw vibrancy. I saw growth. I saw magic. Ferns unfurled along verges, bright green trees swayed in the wind’s warm embrace, rain lashed down onto lush spring growth and everything sang the song of Mother Nature. Oranges, pinks, purples burst forth all around. Lushness. Breathtaking lushness completely consumed me and I knew that everything was going to be ok.

Sound asleep cattos. In a big pile of squish. Leo usually gets the brunt of Buzz’s bottom in one way or another.

My first ever podcast interview It was fun 😃

Miss Cookie Face. My tiny shadow for the next ten days.

This is @macgenie’s cat crush. Hendrix. The cow cat 😻

I lasted half the night with Cookie in bed. Her loud purr got even louder when she settled herself on top of my head (she’s so hot!). My arm got pins and needles because well, I couldn’t possibly move a muscle and disturb her. So I lay restless, in pain, for the love of cats.

I’m lying here in bed with darling Cookie, listening to her purr, feeling her snuggling into me. After a couple of days without cats, I’m grateful to be back in their company. I’m a little tipsy, in bed with a cat and it feels absolutely amazing. So soft, so furry, so right 😻

Women are interesting, complicated creatures sometimes (all the time). One reason is because hormones are powerful little buggers making women behave in exciting, unpredictable ways.

Every so often it gets pretty full on. Sometimes we just can’t help it. Here’s how it went today. For me.

Lethargy. Weakness. Frustration. Laughter. Loved up-ness. Desperation. Exhaustion. Annoyance. Despair. Pissed off-ness (quite a lot of swearing). Resilience. Power (conquering a 3 mile walk). Joy. Giggles (so many giggles - the kind of giggles you get when you’re over tired). Madness (I can’t go into a supermarket without buying random stuff I don’t need). Space cadet-ness (eyes ever so slightly crossing). Gratitude (oooooo let’s smell every single rose along the entire street). Dreaminess. Demanding (I want a cheese straw and I want it NOW). Surrender. Pain. Sexiness. Annoyance. Relief. Relaxation. Affection.

It can be tiring feeling so much in a day, your mind wandering everywhere. Like running a marathon and not finding your rhythm, holding it together in a slightly delirious state. But we manage. One way or another.

So here’s to all the women and their crazy behaviour. Here’s to their strength that they can make it through the day. Here’s to all the pain they carry and overwhelming sensations they have. Here’s to keeping it together. Here’s to carrying on. Here’s to eating a whole packet of biscuits. Here’s to madness. Here’s to getting the dinner ready. Here’s to them taking a moment whenever they need to without feeling the pressure to conform. Here’s to them knowing when to say no and being able to stand their ground. Here’s to all men being sensitive to all women and their amazing array of feelings. Here’s to being listened to (unless you’re really going on, like an absolute crazy woman, then you just need to lie down and give everyone a rest).

Women. You are strong. You are powerful. You are nourishing. You are full of love and so damn gorgeous. I’m having a square of chocolate in your honour right now. Nom.

There was a boy in my class. He was very fanciable. All the girls fancied him. Stuart B. I wrote him a love letter once and signed my name with mysterious dashes. He figured out who it was and didn’t reciprocate my undying love. I was embarrassed and upset and so good at wearing my heart on my sleeve. My friends comforted me. How sweet they were.

The last year of junior school was also the toughest for me. For some reason most of the class below me alienated me. Every time I walked past them someone would say ‘Quick Holly’s coming’ and they would all hold their breath. It was tough and confusing. I never told anyone and I never cried. I just took it and pretended not to be bothered. But I always remember their remarks and the look of a crowd of kids putting their hands over their noses as I walked by. That was crap.

I remember my last day of primary school. We’d done what we thought was the most hilarious leaving assembly (I’m sure it wasn’t as funny as we thought but we giggled sooo much performing it) and had a happy afternoon painting and modelling. My mum must have been over the moon when I came out for the last time with a kind of monstrousity of a junk modelling project, painted grey (and still wet) made up of about twenty cereal boxes. I thought it was a good idea to bring it home. My friends painted it with me. It was my last memory of them so it had to come. They’d touched this box, it had their paint strokes on it and now I’d probably never see them again. It was all I had left. We were all saying goodbye to the safety of junior school and now there was a new era ahead. Secondary school.

The best year of junior school was the last one. Not because I wanted to leave but because I adored my class teacher. I wanted to live it twice over. Mr Patterson was his name. Scottish, fun, caring. I fancied him of course. He called me Jolly Fudge (my birth name was Holly Judge). He made me feel cool. I thought him wonderful. He came in half way through the year on supply. How lucky. I tried to find him many years later to say thank you, but with no luck.

My best friend at school, Katherine, and I would sit on the boy’s table. We liked the boys because they did silly things and made us laugh - they drew rude pictures, said naughty things, did weird challenges like biting their little fingers hard, linking them together and then pulling them apart with force. Who came up with that? Seriously. It hurts. Kids are so crazy sometimes.

I was a prefect. I put the classical cassette tapes on as everyone walked into assembly. I felt important. I had one problem in assembly - there was a girl who stared at me like she couldn’t stand me. I didn’t know why and I didn’t like it. So I made a pact with myself to stare back at her. I always looked away though. Damn it was hard not to. It was a big deal. A hard task. No one likes to stare someone out, especially if they’re a bit afraid. But one morning, after months of her eyes boring into me and me looking away, I made my stand. I stared at her like I’d never stared at anyone before. And she looked away. I was victorious.