The cat that got the cream...ah, curry...

Poor Axel has been getting the rough end of the deal with the bathroom renovations.

For starters, his cat flap is gone - and no doubt he feels, his independence has been severely hampered as a result. He's been reduced to having to request entry and exit to the house. I am happy to grant exit at any time of the night - I don't want to have to clean up any accidents. However, once he is out, he is out until breakfast time. And it's been cold and frosty around here lately, poor boy.

He's also taken to trying to get a midnight snack out of us when we do get up to let him out, he trots over and waits patiently by the food bowl - a silent suggestion that since we're up anyway, maybe instead of letting him out, we could feed him. Not a chance. This trick got him turfed out quite quickly when he pulled it out for A!

We will reinstall the cat flap, it's just a matter of working out where. The logical position probably involves handling of asbestos so at the moment he'll just have to toughen up a bit - and so will we!

One final lesson for a sneaky cat - if you are going to lick the leftover curry from our dinner plates while we are not looking - hide the evidence. Caught red handed - or saffron nosed as the case may be! I don't know if I was more annoyed that he'd gotten onto the bench in the first place or amused that he'd eaten a reasonably hot curry!

And we're home

We're just home from our little holiday to Jervis Bay and a night in Sydney. It was so lovely and relaxing and despite a forecast before we left of a week of rain the weather was really good!

We did lots of beach walks and snorkelling, book reading and tennis watching, the Picasso and Harry Potter exhibitions and by pure good luck in our timing the Chinese New Year parade and fireworks too! Oh, and my first ever trip to an Ikea store!

Back to work tomorrow, but only 10 weeks until I finish up! Hopefully I'll find time between the unpacking to catch up on your blogs in the next couple of days. Hopefully I'll find the other camera cord so I can share some beach and snorkelling photos too! For now though, here's a couple of pics I love!

Axel getting in the way of A's packing!  "Please take me with you!"

Illumination in Sydney during the Chinese New Year parade.

Last night I cooked dinner!

Not a super thrilling statement in itself, but given poor A has been lumped with most of the cooking for the last, oh, 3 months, it was pretty exciting that I actually felt like doing it!

So, Japanese it was. And it was pretty awesome if I do say so myself!

In the very middle, tofu with soy sauce, ginger and spring onion. On the left Nasu Dengaku from momofukufor2. Really simple, but could possibly do with a bit less sugar?? And on the right, soba noodles with tofu, carrot and zucchini - hot for A, cold for me. 

A quick hello from Axel - he has an obsession with bags/boxes/tiny-Axel-sized-spaces and will happily clamber his way in for a sneaky nap. Very cute.

Anyway, today is get ready to go on holidays day. Get new tyres, clean out the cars, finish staining and sealing the outside of the doors in the picture above, set up watering system and so on. If yesterday's effort is anything to go by I predict I get less than half done and need about three naps so I best get to it!

Axel may not realise but it is most definately spring-ish in Canberra at the moment. I love this time of year, when everything starts to come back to life. I also love it because it's not a busy time yet in terms of doing work on the weekends and people are not yet properly out of winter hibernation (yes, in Canberra this happens. Social events slow down significantly over winter). So, a fairly quiet social scene mixed with 2 weekends in a row of stunning weather means we get things done around the house. More on that soon though. For now, here are some photos from a beautiful sunny weekend.

The last of the Broccoli - this one was as big as my head!

Lucky - all grown up and exploring the spa cover.

Beautiful blossoms in our front yard - ahh

Hope you have also had a lovely weekend!

31 Photos in 31 Days: 5-7

Day 5 - Dessert

Day 6 - Axel

Day 7 -  Garden

Happy birthday Axel

Today is Axel's 1st birthday. When we were younger my sister and I would make our pets birthday treats (you know, make the tinned dog food look like a cake shape and top it with dry food or something equally delicious). I think we're both past that phase but I will give him some tinned tuna for dinner. Yep, it wouldn't take much for me to turn into a crazy cat lady.

When we moved into our own place, the first thing I wanted to do was get a dog but the need for a new fence and a new job with longer hours meant it just wasn't practical anymore. I wasn't so keen on a cat. You can't take them for a walk, play fetch*, etc, etc. But honestly, now, Axel has bought us so much joy and provided so much entertainment that I wouldn't change things for the world!

Looking very cute but scared on his first venture into the garden

Looking a little sheepish after destroying a full packet of cat food and spreading it from one side of the bedroom to the other. Lesson learned - secure cat food at all times!

Wrestling with a 'green bag'

Just lazing around

In other news, shopping was fairly successful if not as budget minded as I intended. Oh well. Raspberry semifreddo was delish although I didn't take a photo. We now have a massive bag of blood plums from our lovely neighbour which I am going to attempt to turn into jam tonight and on the weekend we build a wardrobe. I'll post photos later. We are pretty proud of how it turned out!
Hope all is well!

*Actually, with the right toy and a crazy cat, fetch is, at times, more than a possibility.

While we were away...

Last weekend we left Axel in the care of the neighbours. They were happy to pop over and feed him so we left two packets of food on top of the washing machine. When we got home on Sunday night there was only one box there. A and I were wondering what on earth had happened to the other bag. It was just about full so surely the cat sitters hadn't fed him ALL of it??? He didn't look much fatter. It was a mystery.

Later that night A stepped on a couple of pieces of cat food in the hallway. We swept it up and thought nothing of it.

Monday morning I go into one of our spare rooms and stand on something. Cat food. What the...??? One more step, more cat food. Axel comes in slinks behind the futon and starts crunching away. I look around at him and see the once full bag of cat food in shreds. The floor is covered in cat food. Clearly the thought of his favourite food was just too much! Did he really have to destroy it in the only carpeted room in the house though?!

Axel the Destroyer - He may look innocent but it's all part of his cunning plan!

Reasons why everyone should have a cat

1. Curiosity is incredibly cute. When Axel first arrived, we could measure his growth in where he could jump to. Week 1, the dining chairs and then onto the table. Week 3, into the bath (but not back out). Week 4, out of the bath and onto the bathroom sink. Week 6, the kitchen bench. 

2. Give a cat a toy to play with and it's more entertaining than the TV. In fact, don't worry about the toy, just leave a pencil or pen lying around apparently they're far more exciting!

3. They can help you write your blog. Axel, not wanting to be left out of the blog world is awfully fond of walking across the keyboard and trying to contribute. Usually his contributions are limited to 'zzzzzzzzzzzzzz' or 'bbbbbbbbbbbbaaaaaaaaaaaa' but today he managed to choose this picture with a timely foot on the enter key! I think he thinks it makes him look tough. He's totally beating up the blind cords.

4. If you're the first person home, as I almost always am, there is someone to come home to. Axel runs up to greet us when we get home and is excited when we get up in the morning. This may well be food related but it's still nice!

5. They keep you company when you're on holidays and everyone else is at work.

6. On a cold Canberra winter night there is nothing better than a cat curled up on your lap.

Oh, and see those bricks he is sitting on? They are all out of the old BBQ that I demolished to make way for the spa. 

Oh yeah. Christie + sledgehammer = unstoppable! 

Erm, well, maybe not unstoppable, I stopped quite often. Sledgehammers, even mini ones, are quite heavy! More on that later!

A new addition

Last week A sent me an email about an add he'd seen on his work classifieds. Free to a good home. How could you say no to this little face?

So welcome Axel. You are very cute, a little crazy, but very cute!