We’re going to be taking a trip down memory lane today 🙂 My mummy says we have lots of new followers who’ve not seen some of our baby pics before, and indeed a lot of the photos I’m going to share have not been seen by even the longest standing of our friends 🙂
So it’s all about me today! 😆 But my mummy said I need to include Lula too, so I suppose it would be nice to do that 🙂
Lula and I were born on 14th May 2011, we were the only two in our litter and we’ve not spent a night apart ever 🙂
We came to live with mummy and daddy in August 2011 and we soon settled in.
We found lots of new games to play like “playing with the scratching post that doubled up as a door post” – I bet you’ve not heard of that game before have you?
We also soon discovered the lovely new tunnel that the hoomins had bought for us
We loved our scratching post too, though it didn’t last all that long and is now replaced by our Tigga Towers 🙂
It was also good for snoozing on… at least I liked to snooze, Lula always has been the more alert out of the two of us 🙂
Even when she lay down, she didn’t always sleep!
But she did give in and have a nice catnap now and again, and we both looked so innocent!
When we weren’t sleeping, we explored around the house, Lula liked the bath
When the water wasn’t switched on, she found a more conventional way to have a drink 🙂
Meanwhile, I liked to practise the camouflage look in the houseplants!
Sometimes I spent some time alone on the cat tree
And Lula snoozed on the sofa!
At the end of the day, it was all about being cute, and here I am trying to be just that! 🙂
As you may have seen on our Facebook page, my twin and I celebrated our 5th birthday yesterday! Yay! I had lots of nice chicken treats and some yummy tuna cat food for tea… though I get those most days so perhaps my mummy should have made a bit more of an effort on reflection 😯
As seems to be customary on these occasions, I’ve been looking through the archives to find some baby photos that my mummy said I had to share. I’m not sure I like it, but you know me – I’m a good boy and always does as I’m told *crosses paws behind back* 😆
So life started off at Sue the breeder’s house and after a few weeks our new owners – i.e. mummy and daddy – started to visit us quite regularly. We made sure we pulled off the cute look 🙂
Then after 15 weeks we went to our new home and soon settled in 🙂
Lula made herself at home on the kitchen table lol 🙂
And she also liked to have a good look around the bathtub
Though I preferred it when there was water in it
I told mummy off for taking pics of me with green bits in the way
So she made me move and took another
Lula started off her successful show career before I did
Whilst I stayed at home and helped mummy with her iPad (which were quite new out at the time) 🙂
Friday, Harry and Robbie came to tolerate us quite quickly (as long as we didn’t try and eat their dinner 😆 )
And after a nice dinner, what better thing is there to do than have a nice catnap? (some things never change 😆 )
So there’s our first few weeks/months in a nutshell! Doesn’t time fly?
I hope you’re all having a lovely Valentine’s Day! ♥ ♥ ♥
Instead of you all having to listen to me rambling on in today’s blog, I thought I’d do a photo blog, sharing some of our favourite pics of pairs! Pairs of us lot of course, to celebrate this romantic day 😉 Though not all of the pics are very romantic 😆 But they fitted the theme … kind of! 😯
Welcome to the final part of my review of the year which covers October to December and what a busy three months it was! I have really struggled with choosing the photos for the blog today – it was so hard deciding what I should leave out as there are so many I could have shared 🙂 But being as I posted a random pic of me at the start of the last post, here’s a random pic of Lula to start things off today! 😆
October
Early October saw Lula, Spike and Annie go off to the Tabby Cat Club show in Warwickshire 🙂 This was Spike and Annie’s second competitive show and I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count which number show it was for Lula. Once again, her Olympian class was very tough and she wasn’t placed, but in their subsequent reports, one of the judges said that she is: “A super gentle girl with plenty of star quality” so that was quite nice 🙂
Spike did very well at the show, he won his breed class and two of his large side classes and was such a good boy, but was overshadowed slightly by Annie who not only won all but one of her classes, but also went on to be judged Best in Show Pedigree pet so was up for the final Best in Show Judging! There she beat the Best in Show Non Pedigree Pet to win Best in Show Overall Household Pet! What an achievement at only her second show! We were all so proud 🙂
Also in October, that mysterious building I mentioned last time was finished, and it turned out it was a nice office for my mummy! 🙂
But even nicer than that, it also meant our cat garden could be re-modelled and was made twice the size, incorporating the office too! So we now have even more space to run around in and more things to explore! 🙂 And mummy can keep her eye on us if she’s in her office, though when we get cold or tired, we of course also go in there and have a nice catnap on the sofa 🙂
November
We had two of our favourite cat shows in November – the Bengal Cat Club Show and the pinnacle of the show calendar, the Supreme!
At the Bengal Cat Club, Spike again did very well, winning almost all of his classes 🙂 Again he was a very good boy too, except for when he spilt his water all over his pen 😯 It’s a good job mummy takes spare blankets with her 🙂 But again, he took it all in his stride…
We didn’t dare believe that Annie would do as well as she did in her last show… but that’s exactly what she did! She won Overall Best in Show Household Pet for the second show running! What a clever girl! 🙂
Three weeks later and it was time to go to the Supreme! Lula went on exhibition for the Bengal Cat Club and was impeccably behaved all day, she does like to show off though 🙂
Annie and Spike both again did tremendously well! Annie won the special fun kitten class, beating lots and lots of other kittens; she came first in her breed class and also won best of breed too! 🙂
Spike didn’t come anywhere in the special kitten class, but like Annie he won first place in his breed class and Best of Breed, but the difference was his breed class was one of the largest in the show! Such an achievement at that level to beat so many other wonderful Bengal kittens, again we were so proud, though Spikey was his usual chilled out self 🙂
Phew! What a busy month that was!
December
We decided we’d be on our best behaviour in December as we wanted to make sure the nice man in red visited us at Christmas, though I’m not quite sure Spike got the memo saying that!
I thought I’d at least pretend I liked the two peskies and allowed them to share my perch 🙂
It’s not like I do like them, you understand, but they just seem to follow me everywhere! 🙂
Pretty soon, it was time for our final show of the year, the National! Again, Spike and Annie went and were very good kitties. They had an excellent show, though not as good as previous ones. Mind you, you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise if you looked at Annie’s pen!
The weather was quite reasonable most days, so we spent lots of time in the cat garden
And we also managed to get together for our very first group photo of all seven of us!
And then we had Christmas when our good behaviour paid off and we got lots of yummy treats 🙂
Which pretty much brings our review to a close, my friends! I hope you enjoyed travelling the journey with us! Let’s hope this year brings lots more exciting things and here’s to a happy and successful 2015 to all of you!
Welcome to the third and penultimate instalment of my review of last year 🙂 I must warn you in advance that this post will probably feature those two pesky kittens quite a lot, so here’s a random non-kitten photo to start off with 😆
July
Hmmm… I’m trying to recall…what was that big thing that happened in July? Oh yes! That was the month that not only one but TWO kittens invaded my World! 🙂 In the last episode of my blog, I revealed that the hoomins were only going to bring Spike home… a few visits to Sue’s house later and it had been decided that Annie would be living with us after all! What a palaver! 🙂
So on Friday 18th July, one day before they were 13 weeks old, the two peskies arrived here 😯 At first it wasn’t too bad as they stayed in their own room; I could hear but not see them which was fine by me! Mind you, they made enough noise in there, they sounded like a herd of elephants at times, not two little kittens 😀
But then, just a couple of days later, they were allowed out into MY cat garden! The cheek of it – no-one told me that would happen! 😯
But after a little while, I decided they probably weren’t so bad after all. Lula decided she liked them within a couple of weeks. Harry and Friday had accepted them quite quickly, though Robbie took a couple of months! But we knew he’d be like that, even before they were brought home – he’s a funny old chap sometimes who doesn’t like things to change.
We had another new arrival in July too – our Tigga Towers tree had proved such a hit and was such a wonderful place for us to rest in the kitchen/diner area, that it was decided we could also have one in the conservatory to watch birdies and the cows in the field and generally watch the world go by from in supreme comfort! Even Robbie decided to forget he didn’t like the kittens sometimes to have a snooze on it 😆
August
From lovely weather in July, August was a little less summery, though the Peskies continued to make themselves at home… *sigh* … 😀
Their big event this month was their very first show! They were going to The Pet Show on exhibition, along with Lula, to show off the Bengal breed to all the visitors. There was no judging involved, and although busy, my mummy and daddy were able to be with them 100% of the time, along with Sue our breeder, so they had a familiar face to look at and a cuddle whenever they wanted… Mind you, nothing phased them and they took it all in their stride!
While they were snoozing in their exhibition pen, mummy and Lula went for a wander around the show hall, and who did they see? The very lovely and famous Bob from the best selling books by James Bowen of how they went from the streets to worldwide fame! Here’s Bob chillin on the chair!
James was meant to be signing books, and had a very long queue, but when he saw Lula, he decided to get up and say hello! He had a very long chat with both Lula and mummy (Bob stayed on his chair as he doesn’t like other cats). After a while, his agent had to drag James back to his chair as people were getting impatient for their books to be signed, what a very lovely man he is!
September
September dawned and Spike and Annie went to their very first competitive cat show! They did very well, both winning nearly all their classes 🙂 My mummy and daddy were very proud! 🙂 They were so well behaved too and were a real hit with judges and visitors 🙂
They also went to another exhibition show – the National Pet Show at the NEC in Birmingham. Again, they behaved impeccably and were real ambassadors for the breed 🙂
But the thing they most enjoyed? Spending time in MY cat garden 😆
But pretty soon we noticed changes on the other side of the fence from our garden! Whatever could it be? A mysterious building was emerging (my daddy was actually building it, but “emerging” sounds a lot more mysterious 😆 ) …
We will no doubt find out in the next episode what that turned out to be, so tune in then folks! 🙂
I hope you all enjoyed your New Year celebrations, whatever or wherever they may have been. As I said to Edna on our Facebook page, I’m only three years old so I couldn’t stay awake that late and was enjoying a lovely little catnap by the time the clock struck midnight 😉 Luckily there were hardly any fireworks around us so I didn’t get disturbed 🙂
Thanks for all your lovely comments for yesterday’s post – we’re glad you enjoyed the first part of our year in review; let’s hope you like the second just as much! Quite an important event happened in this episode, one that would change our World for ever!
April
Easter fell in April this year. And something magical happened on Easter weekend… On the morning of Saturday 19th April, three little furry babies were born to Flirtie who I showed you in the first part of our review yesterday 🙂 She had two gorgeous spotty girls – a brown and a snow – and a brown spotty boy too!
Our breeder, Sue, was very pleased that all three kittens seemed healthy and happy and Flirtie gave good signs of being a wonderful mother, looking after them with lots of care.
You’ll no doubt notice that I said these babies were born on the morning of the 19th…. In the evening there was a bit of a surprise! Just when everything seemed settled, another baby decided to make an appearance – 10 hours after the others! This was a BIG boy, and seemed to be quite a light, almost blue colour, though neither parent carries the blue Bengal gene so this shouldn’t have been possible.
But my mummy and daddy weren’t too perturbed by all of that because they were due to have the brown spotty girl and got regular updates from Sue as to her progress 🙂 Here’s the babies when they were a couple of weeks old
Pretty soon all 4 babies were named – my mummy and daddy chose the name Annie (pedigree name Tobysden Tsarena Anastasia) for their girl, whilst the snow girl was called Mia and the boys were called Vladimir (chosen by Andrew, his future daddy) and Coco.
Mummy and daddy went to see Annie as soon and as often as they could and it soon transpired she was a bit of a cheeky girl! 🙂
May
The kittens continued to make good progress and Flirtie turned out to be a wonderful mother! 🙂
The babies were starting to explore their surroundings out of the nest, though they did sit still long enough for a group shot now and again 😀 Coco had developed rich brown colourings by this time, he had clearly come out of his Blue phase 😆
Whilst visiting the babies, my mummy and daddy also met Lucy, another of Sue’s stunning kittens who was then around 5 months old, though she was big for her age!
Meanwhile, back in our world, Lula and I enjoyed playing in our cat garden as the weather was so glorious!
June
Time flies by so quickly and pretty soon, June was upon us! With it came some bad news…. mummy and daddy thought they wouldn’t be able to have Annie any longer 🙁 But all was not lost as Sue was happy for them to have Coco, the boy she was originally going to keep for herself. So very reluctantly the decision was made and not long after that, my mummy and daddy chose a different name for him – Spike – though his pedigree name (Tobysden Tereschenko) had already been registered and couldn’t be changed, though this was not a problem anyway.
However, my mummy and daddy were very sad that Annie wouldn’t be joining our World as they had become rather attached, mummy in particular….
But show time was here again and this time it was off to Ellesmere Port for the Merseyside show! Neither Lula nor I got placed in our title classes though Lula did win best of breed (again) 🙂 Little Lucy who you met earlier won not only Best Foreign Kitten but overall Best in Show Foreign Exhibit – a superb achievement!
After the show, I had a word with my mummy and daddy. I told them I didn’t really enjoy going to shows at the moment, so they agreed that I could have a break from them. We’re not sure how long for but we’ll see how it goes….
And so that’s the first half of the year in a nutshell my friends! Join us for more reminiscences in our next instalment!
You may recall in my last post on Sunday, I said I’d be writing an extra special blog this week to celebrate the New Year? Well, that’s exactly what I’m going to do! In fact, I’m not going to write just one, my friends, but indeed I think I will write FOUR 🙂 I’m going to take you all on a journey down memory lane with a review of 2014 in our World, starting with January to March today and doing the rest of the year as the week progresses! Does that sound OK? 🙂
January
The year started off quite quietly… much to Lula’s disgust we had absolutely no snow to play in though that was more than made up for by the fact that we got a different play area! We got our first Tigga Towers cat tree, and oh what fun we had exploring it! Four of us five kitties loved it straight away, Harry always takes a while to realise he likes new things so he wasn’t sure (though he loves it now!). Here we are exploring it within minutes of daddy putting it up 🙂
February
Despite keeping a close eye on the weather forecasts, February didn’t bring any snow to our World, in fact the weather was quite mild for the time of year!
Lula and I went to our ‘local’ cat show – the Shropshire Cat Club show, though, as in previous years, it’s held in the neighbouring county of Staffordshire and not in Shropshire at all! 🙂 I got a Reserve Imperial Grand Premier certificate and Lula, who was competing in the higher class of Olympian, wasn’t placed though she did get a nice rosette to show what an achievement it is to compete at this level 🙂 She also won Best of Breed so not all was lost, I suppose 🙂
March
Guess what? Still no snow in March so we’d pretty much given up on it by then… *sigh* ….
So instead we watched birdies in the sunshine from the comfort of our warm conservatory 🙂
Around the middle of the month, we had some wonderful news confirmed! Our breeder, Sue’s queen, Flirtie, was definitely pregnant – yay! We were excited because she had had a few false alarms, and also we were hoping to have a kitten from her litter, so this was very good news indeed 🙂
Here’s a pic of Flirtie when she was a kitten herself – she’s the one at the front, she always was a very confident girl 😆
Meanwhile, the new Tigga Towerswas still a huge hit with most of us, though Harry still hadn’t got the hang of it, so Robbie (his best mate) kept him company in the big bed 🙂
And on that sleepy note, that’s where we’re going to leave it for now! Please come back tomorrow for Part 2!
We’ve heard about some terrible weather that our US friends have been experiencing recently, we hope you’re all ok <3 We’ve had pretty mild weather for the time of year here in our World, although it has been quite grey most days. But we’ve heard that cold winter weather is on its way and Lula couldn’t be happier! She loves to play in the snow as you can see here in our video from YouTube!
Of course, the pesky kittens were born at Easter time, so they’ve not seen any snow, I wonder what they will make of it? They probably won’t mind it – they’ve been playing in the bathtub today with their robo fish, we shared a video of that on our Facebook page 🙂
But to whet their appetite even further, we’ve been showing them some of our snow photos, just so they can see what it’s like 🙂 These are from a couple of years ago as we didn’t get any snow at all last winter. We thought it would be nice to share them with you too! 🙂
Now they’ve seen these photos, Spike and Annie say they can’t wait for the snow to arrive! They’re hoping it will come soon now December is almost here! 🙂 We’ll just have to wait and see I suppose! 🙂
We’re very excited in our World! Things have been a-changing and our cat garden, which we always loved, has now been made even bigger! You may remember me telling you about the mysterious building my daddy was making – us kitties were all wondering what was going on 😯
Well, it’s now all become clear! That building is for my mummy, it’s her new garden office, or as she calls it – Bengal Cat World International Headquarters 😆 It’s very nice inside, I must admit, and so cosy too! She even put a new couch in there just for us kitties to have cat naps on 😀 Or at least, that’s what we think anyway, though I’m not sure she quite agrees 🙂 Here’s a photo of the inside …
But of course, we’re more interested in the garden and it’s now about twice as big as before! Plus, the gate has been moved and is Annie-proofed, so she can no longer squeeze out from where the gate meets the wall 🙂 She’s not so pleased about that.
But overall, it’s a winner and we all love it! Here’s some more pics! 🙂
So that’s why we’re so happy – my mummy loves her office and can now spend hours watching us playing instead of doing any work! She says she’s just keeping an eye on us to make sure we’re ok but it means we can’t be as naughty as we normally are, so maybe we should suggest she gets some nice window blinds or something…. 😀
Phew! What a lot of wind and rain we’ve had in our World today! It was such a shame as it meant I had to stay indoors and catnap most of the time…. *sigh* … it’s just one of those things I have to put up with now and again 😉 😉
Now those two you-know-who pesky ones have come to live with us, it’s got us reminiscing about our kittenhood a little. That, along with requests from some of our friends to see how we have progressed from babies to 3 years old (now) means we have lots of lovely pics to share for you in our blog today! We’re going to start with both Lula and me as young kittens, right through to now!
So to start, here’s a couple of pics when we were still at Sue our breeder’s house 🙂
We were a little late going to our forever house, as my mummy and daddy were away on holiday when we turned 13 weeks old, so we went to live with them a couple of weeks later. But we soon settled in 🙂
At a few months old, we were still smaller than little Friday
At around 6 months old, we were allowed outside on a supervised basis
Here we are at a year old, we used to love looking at the fish in the pond in the big garden 🙂
By the time we were 2 years old, the cat garden had been made to keep us safe and prevent us from wandering off.
When we were 3 years old, we decided we love the cat garden as there are so many things to do – including having play fights!
Lula’s eyes have got bluer as she has matured
And I’ve decided I like my catnaps more and more as I have matured 🙂
And on that note, it’s time for us to try and get some sleep, as long as that wind and rain has died down! 🙂