The seldom seen cat

Allow me to introduce you to Bess! She's almost two and we adopted her from an animal shelter last Thursday.

She's been with us for 5 days now, spending the first 2 hiding under our 1930s cupboard. In order to allow her to get used to her new surroundings, we left her in peace, although we talked to her whenever we passed. We put out food and water, as well as her litter box in the vicinity of her hidey hole, and were quite relieved when on Friday afternoon and Saturday we noticed she'd made use of all her facilities.

On Sunday morning, we found her in one of our wicker dining chairs. Apparently, overnight she'd played with almost all of the toys we'd provided her with, which we found scattered all over the dining room. She'd also devoured all of her wet and dry food. She's still extremely shy so although our hands are itching to do so, we refrain from trying to pet her, continuing to talk to her in a soothing way instead until she's used to us. By this time, she has already tried out all of our wicker chairs, from where she can spy on us in safety.

For now, she'll remain the seldom seen cat!

As is often the case, I'm getting ahead of myself, but how could I possibly have kept this wonderful piece of news from you? But now I'm inviting you once again to step back in time with me, to Saturday the 20th of February.

If I'd woken up feeling a bit morose, my mood was soon improved considerably courtesy of the sunny and Springlike weather. 

After our final fruit & yoghurt breakfast of the week, I got dressed. Actually, make that twice, as my first outfit of the day was the Clara Oswald outfit I dressed up in for Kezzie's virtual Dr. Who cosplay party. This is what I changed into afterwards! 

The thin magenta jumper, which I charity shopped in December 2019, has a bit of sparkle in its weave and a triangular inset at the collar, and is from the mail-order company 3 Suisses. The blue and pink brooch I pinned to it was a flea market find. 

I picked up the floral pleated skirt at Oxfam pre-lockdown II, in October 2020, while the bottle green belt was charity shopped in December, just after non-essential shops were allowed to re-open again. I'm sure you've already spotted the bright green ankle boots I found the other day.

As I wanted to pay tribute to all the colours in my skirt, I added a pair of sky blue opaques.

With the temperature a balmy 16°C, I gave in to the lure of the garden, which was in sore need of some TLC. Most of the plants on the plant tables just outside our back door had suffered during our recent week of sub-zero temperatures. There were plenty of geraniums still cheerfully flowering before the cold wave hit us. Now they were limp and blackened and, in all probability, dead. Nevertheless, I gave them the benefit of the doubt and cut them back, grouping the pots at the back of the garden.

There were several terracotta pots and a leaky enamel coffee pot of pansies which, although flowerless, seemed to have survived unscathed. As, remarkably, did the pots of pinks, one of which is now going into its third year!

My garden chores were accompanied by the heady fragrance of Sarcococca (Winter box), an evergreen winter-flowering shrub whose diminutive flowers are highly scented (top right and bottom left).

Another sunny, early Spring day awaited us on Sunday, with the temperatures reaching highs of 18°C.

How resilient we humans are! Only just over a week ago the thermometer indicated sub-zeros down to minus 10, a difference of almost 30 degrees Celsius!

After our Sunday breakfast of omelettes, I dressed in my gardening gear (rust cord skirt and green jumper) and hopped into the garden again. I finally cleared the remains of the climbing  Nasturtiums and cut back armfuls of ivy, of which Jos made two large bundles for collection by the council in the first week of March. Surely he deserved that pot of vanilla and chocolate pudding after all that hard work :-)

Afterwards, I rewore Saturday's sky blue opaques, this time combining them with a handmade purple floral frock I found in a vintage per kilo shop in the Autumn of 2019. In fact, until I was typing this, I'd quite forgotten the existence of that shop, which I regularly frequented, alongside Think Twice, in my Pre-Covid lunch breaks.

I added a sky blue belt with a double-prong buckle, a white and blue beaded necklace and my blush pink retro style shoes, all of which were charity shop finds.

The Lucite brooch is vintage, and was charity shopped as well. I found it in a shop in Oswestry, Shropshire, during our last UK holiday in June 2019.

Monday was a cloudy day but, at 17°C, still unseasonably warm. It was insanely hectic at the office, leaving me a nervous wreck by the time I got home.

All clouds - except those inside my head - had dispersed by Tuesday morning, when we woke up to yet another gorgeous Spring day. However, realizing my days of leisure would soon be over, I was feeling jittery and unsettled all day. In a bid to dispel my apprehension, we thought a visit to the garden centre might be in order.

Of course, it was impossible to resist bringing home a box full of Spring colour!

The shop also has a pet department which, as we were thinking of adopting a new feline friend, we wanted to check out. Here, resistance was futile as well ... and money well spent, as they have all been played with already! Bess particularly likes the little balls, which came in a variety pack of three and have a tinkling bell inside.

Back at home, I planted up all my new treasures, which include tiny but striking Iris reticulata, which is one of the earliest Spring flowers, as well as a pink double flowered Bellis perennis (a cultivar of the common daisy) and a selection of Primulas.

Apart from the ubiquitous large-flowered polyantus Primulas, I was delighted to see several varieties of Primula acaulis hybrids for sale. These produce a profusion of smaller, individual flowers on single stems. I've read that they will self-seed profusely, so I might get some more for the garden as well. 

Here's the pot of yellow Primulas and Iris reticulata, taken a couple of days later, when courtesy of the continuing Springlike weather, most of the Irises had erupted into a firework of deep violet blooms with central yellow splashes.

I was wearing a firework of colour myself, picking an outfit whose main components (skirt, blouse, cardigan and even my ankle boots) were charity shopped during the pandemic.

The folksy skirt, with its print of blowsy pink roses towards the them, is vintage and wide and swooshy enough for a twirl or two. I wore it with a burgundy, flower infused Esprit blouse in a lightweight jersey fabric. On top, a mustard coloured cardigan by Belgian brand Van Hassels. It is slightly sparkly - which isn't easy to catch on camera - and is trimmed with red at its collar.

To the blouse, I pinned one of my vintage flower embroidered brooches. I added a multicoloured wooden beaded necklace and a tan belt with a rectangular buckle.

My outfit, combined with the Spring colour provided by the flowers, did wonders for my muddled soul.

In fact, the only thing that bothered me was my hair.  It might look reasonable enough in these photos, but its general unruliness and the grey which had appeared unbidden on the sides - if you look closely, you can see a wisp of grey on the right in the below photo - were doing my head in.

But not for much longer, as I'd managed to grab a slot at the hairdresser's on Thursday the 25th! 

All will be revealed in my next post!

In the meantime, what about this bevy of natural beauties? The daff on the top left is one of the few which are currently rearing their heads in our garden. They have re-grown from a pot of flowering bulbs I managed, with great difficulty, to procure in March 2020, when all non-essential shops were closed during the first stage of lockdown I.  I allowed them to die down in peace after flowering and planted them out in the garden back in Autumn.

See you next time, until then, it's the same year-old mantra: stay safe, sane and as sensational as possible!