Austin Writes: When I Was Small

There aren’t any digital photographs of me when I was a kitten. But I’ll give you a brief description… like I am today, I was beautiful, sleek and wonderfully well behaved. I was black as night (still am) and always in control of myself and my fur. I was a really gorgeous kitten who everyone thought was stunningly handsome. Very little has changed.

Darcy Writes: When I Was Small(er)

Mhhh… I’m not exactly delighted about this feature my idiot brother came up with. This is the only surviving photo of me as a kitten, and… well, I don’t look particularly pretty in it. In fact, I look like a bit of a freak. Still, I’m gorgeous now, so who cares? I’m probably about three months old in this picture.

Donncha Writes: When I Was Small

So I was thinking, you’ve all seen plenty of photos of the three of us as we are now, but you’ve not seen any photos of when we were kittens! Poor you! It’s a real shame as I was a bloody cute kitten, so I figured I’d start this small mini-series, When I Was Small.

So, here I am, when I was small. Now, I betcha thinking I haven’t changed much at all, and you’d be right. But look how little I am! Compare my size to that of the mobile phone taking the picture – I was dinky! Tiny Demon! Also, look how my ears are way too big for my head! Bless me, I was adorable. I was also a bit cross-eyed when I was a babe, and believe me, I was bloody glad to grow out of that and into the handsome Demon I am today.

Favourite Photo Friday: Princess Darcy

Okay, so it’s Favourite Photo Friday on, erm, Monday, but go with it…

This photo is of Darcy, and was one of the first of her we managed to get that actually resembled her. Due to the adorable black smudge on her nose, she tends to look rather ugly in photos, which is a shame because she’s such a beauty in life. I captured this when she was stalking a fly, and I love it for two reasons. First, you can see how beautiful she actually is, and secondly, you can see how small she is. People don’t tend to believe me when I say how tiny she is, but with this, you can compare her to the DVDs behind her, which are only a bit smaller than her full length.  She’s a gorgeous, tiny wee Princess and we absolutely adore her.

Donncha Writes: The Call of the Wild

I KNOW. Where have I been? I know the whole interwebnet has been asking themselves where I am and sending emails to check I’m okay. Thanks both of you everyone!

It’s relatively quiet at Three Cats Towers at the moment. I’ve been enjoying some time outside singing with the sparrows, which leads to Paul trying to get me to say “I am a cat and a demon, not a sparrow” but I do NOT do it. Why can’t I be a sparrow? I so enjoy singing with them and I know they like my company, cos when I go outside to join in their chorus, all of them rush out of the tree REALLY fast to tell their friends I’ve arrived!

That aside, nowt to report. It’s been at least a week since a new toy was bought, but I’m told the humans are going shopping this very noon, so I’m expecting a big, fat apology toy. I’ve also been peeing on the bed quite a bit recently, and the FUSS they make over it, it’s really quite embarrassing for them. Austin was all like “hey, Donncha, why do you pee on the bed?” and I just gave him an uber cool look and said, “cos I can.”

Actually, most of the time I can’t, but it sounded cool. I can’t because whenever I within a three foot radius of the humans big bed, I’m being watched by either one or both of them. And if I so much as think about peeing, they’re all over me and throwing me in the bathroom, while yelling the always-boring “DON-A-CHAAAA” which, FYI, so doesn’t bother me anymore. And it’s not fair, cos sometimes I just wanna sit on the bed, not pee on it, but it’s like they don’t trust me no more or something.

Humans = weird.

Also, I totally chased Austin for an hour this morning – hee! In the end he got fed up of me and smacked me really hard on the nose, but I know – and he knows, deep down – who really won this morning’s confrontation: ME!

Austin writes: Lifestyles of the cute and the furry.

So, thought you might like to see all the stuff we own in this here flat. We get a fairly good go of it really, and this is my overview of what these “three cats” do in the “flat”.

This is our “area”. That’s right, we’ve got a whole area, we are that spoilt. It’s got our beds, the snug and the cat gym and is conveniently located next to a radiator. Also, that big black thing in the brown bed? Me.

This is the Ba-Da beam laser toy, the twins love it. I like it too, but I can never get near it because of those two idiots. The green thing shines out a laser that spins and twirls and you chase it. One of my favourites, probably because it’s one of the most expensive, and I have expensive tastes.

Yep, here at Three Cats Towers, we don’t have normal balls to play with. What do you think we are? Plebs? No, we have super engineered balls that do special things. The multicoloured thing is called a “Nobbly Bobbly” and has a bell inside and goes in all different directions. The pink this is a double ball, meaning it has a life of it’s own. Not things I play with much, but Darcy loves ’em.

Thought y’all might like to see that DVD I won. I let the humans watch it sometimes.

My favourite toy is here; the heart. It’s furry and does my head in, so I regularly kill it. Also pictured is one of the many mice toys we have, a particular favourite of Darcy. Oh, and a standard red ball. Don’t know why that’s there.

This is the Idiot Boy modelling the Cat Nip mat. Underneath the arch is a raised play surface and some mirrors, and the entire thing is packed with The Nip. We all go mad on it sometimes, it’s very battered.

Some of the dangly toys we have, just various versions of “a stick with feathers on it”. I, of course, am a nice, mature Moody-Murphy and I don’t play with childish toys such as these. No, these are just for the retard twins who have no class.

Hey! How’d that get in here?! I can explain… I’m not playing with a dangle toy… I’m… er… watching the twins do it. See the twins in the picture? Yeah, I’m watching them play. And I’ve got my paw raised because… I was applauding them. Yeah.

We do have a load of other stuff, but enough for one day. I’ve been awake for two whole hours, you know, so I’m well overdue for a nap.

Donncha writes: I totally love my new stuff! TOTALLY!

First up dudes is for me to say how totally HAPPY I am about my new toy, a Tail Tickler. I just thought I’d post up this photo so you can see how much I love it. That’s me, KILLING it. See how it’s crying out for help? It is one dead Tail Tickler. Donncha vs. Crocodile and I totally won.

Also, ALSO, our goodies arrived! A full week after they were ordered! But, I forgive ’em, because we finally got that new bed that Toni has been talking about for the last six years. NEW BED!  And you know what? It totally rocks. It’s got really high side so you fell all safe and snug AND (and this is so the best thing ever!) it has a little pouch and inside that pouch is a thing you can MICROWAVE so the bed is all warm! How amazing is that? Pretty amazing, believe you me, especially when you consider it’s STILL winter. I love our my new bed, it rocks.

I was in it for ages, then I went to get a drink and Darcy done gone stole it off me, the cheeky little minxette sister! So later, when she was in the big orange bed and I was feeling a bit naughty (and okay, a bit high on cat nip) I launched myself at her and totally nearly pulled her head off! She was asleep so she didn’t even see me coming! SO FUNNY.

Actually, M&D didn’t seem to think it was that funny. They totally took Darcy’s side. Now I expect this from Paul, as for some reason he’s utterly gone on Darcy, but Toni is supposed to be totally gone on me but she was still doing the old “DON-A-CHA!” which, you know, is getting kinda old. Before I knew it, Paul had grabbed me and I was in the bathroom on a “time out”.

So I cried for Toni. Naturally. I know she can’t stand to hear my crying, so I gave it a good old yowl at maximum volume. And even though I HEARD her say, “I really don’t like hearing him cry!”, she did NOTHING about it. I was in there for about 12 hours. When I was finally released, I went over to her and snuggled against her and was extra affectionate so she felt really guilty, and SO SHE SHOULD. What is happening to the world if you can’t attack your own sister once in a while? She is my sister; that is what she is for.

I mean, I don’t even really “attack”. It’s always playful between us three. But Darcy made such a big deal of it and I ended up getting punished. And you know what? It’s just made me more likely to do it again to teach her a lesson and teach M&D that you can’t be imprisoning a Demon like me.

Still, I’ve still got all my new stuff, and my brief period of incarceration has taught me a valuable lesson: not to attack Darcy while she is in bed. While the humans can see. Easy.

Favourite Photo Friday: The Iconic Donncha Picture

I’ve shamelessly stolen the idea for this feature from both Amber and Keris, both of whom I’m very thankful to for introducing me to the idea, and beings as we have so many photos of the cats, it seemed like a good feature to start.

First up is this photo of Donncha. Paul and I call it the “iconic” Donncha photo, because it’s just so beautiful. And the real brilliance is that it was a complete accident; he was sniffing around the camera (as Donncha loves the “light box”) and I accidentally hit the capture button and this is the result. Donncha is incredibly photogenic (and such a poser) and this is our favourite photo of him, taken when he was about a year old.

Austin writes: How I Got My Name.

It has come to some people’s attention, after reading the about page of this blog, that I, Austin, do not have the same surname as the humans. My full name is Austin Moody-Murphy, which might sound stupid, but is not my fault.

Firstly, Toni is to blame. Back in the day before I was born, good old Toni was utterly and absolutely obsessed with a certain rugby player name Austin Healey.

<—– That’s him, there, in case you care. Toni, being totally rugby obsessed and totally Healey obsessed, decided that she’d call her new cat (that’d be me) Austin in an ode to the object of her affections. It got shorted to Oz, and that was me, born in July 2000 and named after a rugby player. (Note from Toni: and a very good rugby player, at that).

And you’d think, really, that that would be the end of it, wouldn’t you? That, when it came to me, she’d exhausted her naming-cats-after-rugby-players possibilities, don’t you? Had I not suffered enough? Well, no. She and Paul were chatting one day about how I was named after Austin Healey, and they jokingly said they were give me a surname also after a rugby player. And before you ask, no, there isn’t a Moody-Murphy player out there – but there is a Lewis Moody and a Geordan Murphy. Here they are:

 

Now when deciding my “surname” (what is wrong with my humans?) they couldn’t decide which to go for. You see, Geordan Murphy is Irish – like Paul. Lewis Moody is English – like Toni. So they couldn’t decide, and in the end said “Moody-Murphy” and found it really funny, and unfortunately, it stuck.

So here I am, named after three Leicester Tigers rugby players. This was all cemented when Paul came home from the pub with three entry cards to win a trip to see the British Lions play in New Zealand in 2005. Toni filled one out for her, one for Paul, and then used the third as “me”, filling out Austin Moody-Murphy as the competition entrant. Amazingly, I won! Not the trip to NZ, but a DVD of the previous Lions tour. How many cats do you know who officially own their own DVD? Huh? How cool am I?

I’m even registered at the vet as “Austin Moody-Murphy”. I like it, actually, gives me a sense of identity away from the humans. So yes, that is how I got my name.

Store Review: Pet Planet

Store: Pet Planet
Purchased: 1 x Tail Teaser and 1 bag of Cat Nip
Cost of Order (including P&P): £7.49
Ordered: Monday February 25th
Arrived: Wednesday February 27th
Method of Delivery: ParcelForce

Pet Planet have done very well here in our first online store review. Firstly, the price of the toys was excellent, the tail teaser only costing £1.99 and coming complete with a bag of cat nip to insert inside it. The cat nip leaves were a standard price but still competitive.

Donncha has hugely enjoyed playing with the Tail Teasers and both Austin and Darcy have given them a good go as well. The cat nip leaves are certainly potent for the price and have sent Darcy around the twist – just what we intended!

The delivery is excellent; I ordered around 2pm on Monday and they arrived at 7am on Wednesday. This was standard delivery. It arrived by ParcelForce in a large, well-packed box, and we also discovered two Tail Teasers instead of one. We’ve only been charged for one, so we’re pretty pleased with that. Obviously we can’t guarentee that’ll happen to you, but it’s still worth mentioning.

Overall we’re delighted with Pet Planet and still have some vouchers left over, which we will spend with them rather than one of their competitors.

Five out of five.