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Paws on my shoulder, whiskers in my ear

And what nicer way could there be to wake up?

Luna and Clover have been with me just over a year – I picked them up from Brenda’s amazing rescue at 4pm on 27 November last year.

And I can’t remember what life was like before, nor imagine life without, my wonderful, ridiculous silly kittens.

Here they were on the day they came home:

My new additions settling in incredibly fast. Feels like they've been here forever! Luna on left, Clover in box. #kittens

A photo posted by Carla Louise (@duckingfabulous) on

And here they are, merrily taking over my life in the most wonderful way possible:

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Illustrated by the wonderful Eli Trier:

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Claiming their cat palace (and all the space in my conservatory):

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And immortalised in Christmas decorations by the immensely talented Chloe at Slightly Triangle:

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Wonderful, silly kittens. You can find more of their antics on their blog, Silly Kittens.

They came from Alresford Cat, Kitten & Feral Rescue, which Brenda runs from her home and finds new forever homes for more than 300 abandoned cats and kittens a year. Should you wish to donate, please use the button below and I will ensure funds get to her when I next take cat food over 🙂




Witchy portrait fun

My first Halloween/Samhain with my two familiars, and I thought I’d have a bit of fun.

In preparation for trick or treaters, I had positioned my broom by the front door, bought most of my local shop’s supply of miniature chocolate bars and dug out my pointy hat.

Luna-kitten was looking rather obliging, so I also made a Halloween picture while I was at it…

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Loving my new lens!

Thought I’d share the best outtake too – I’ve never seen her look quite so horrified at my antics.

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Clover was very sensibly snoozing on the back of the sofa, just out of shot. She’s a great witch’s cat but she doesn’t like to flaunt it.

And as Saturday was the start of NaNoWriMo, I have accidentally now written almost 5000 words of a story/book about how Luna and Clover came to be witch’s cats… it’s so much fun letting my imagination out to play!

Postbox: Custom cats!

A few weeks ago, I spotted a post by my friend Chloe on her artist page on Facebook, of two hanging decorations which had been painted as portraits of cats.

After some excited squeeeee-ing and some emails backwards and forwards, my very own commission was in the works. It arrived last  Saturday – and look how gorgeous they are!!

The parcel:

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The decorations:

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Squee-inducing extras (I adore Chloe’s work, and one of her paintings has pride of place on my mantelpiece):

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And finally, Clover investigating her miniature self. Luna wouldn’t sit still long enough and has sharper claws, so I didn’t let her anywhere near her mini alter ego!

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Chloe is an artist specialising in mixed media illustration – her work makes me squee on a regular basis, and we are hoping to feature some of her prints in Ink Drops boxes later in the year.

You can find her at Slightly Triangle, and also on Etsy (so much gorgeousness there!) and if you want to commission your own pet portrait or custom work, you can get in touch with her via her website or her Etsy shop.

I haven’t decided quite where to hang them yet – they’re making themselves at home on my mantelpiece in the meantime 🙂

Two kittens and six months later…

Somehow, time has flown past, and these two little darlings…

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have been with me a whole six months, and have become these rather gorgeous young ladies…

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You’ll notice Luna still hasn’t grown into her ears…

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They don’t snooze together much, but they’ve grown into the most loving, affectionate, perfect pair of cats I could ever wish for. It’s their first birthday next month (so the vet says from their teeth) and I think I might treat them to some kind of jumpy scratchy post with platforms.

Most recent pics, when I just got home from holiday and they were happy to be home, happy to see me and especially happy to “help” with the unpacking…

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I do love my silly kittens cats!

Most of the Luna & Clover pics live over at Silly Kittens – pop over and subscribe (at the bottom of the page) if you’d like to see more kitty pics than make it onto this blog!

Carla xx

Sneak peek: best ever cat toys

Or so my kitties think!

Now, the downside of living by myself is that it’s nearly impossible to play with my kitties and photograph them leaping through the air at the same time.

However, here’s a quick sneak peek of the cat toys that arrived in the post on Give A Girl A Unicorn Day:

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I was particularly taken with the Las Vegas Show Gulls!

The butterfly is from the same people that make Da Bird and the Cat Catcher, which I have to say are my cats’ favourite things (so much so that they’ve managed to break both – there’s a lot of gaffer tape used in this household) and early tests have proved that they find the butterfly equally captivating. And anyone would be entertained by the sight of me running around the house and garden like a lunatic, waving a pink butterfly around and hotly pursued by two excited kittens at high speed.

My poor neighbours.

The last of the bunch is a mat with a rustly insert, and a clever twist – you unzip the side, pour in some catnip and re-zip the side.

Luna and Clover have never taken the slightest bit of notice of any of the catnip toys I’d bought them before – I assume they were too young. But when I took this downstairs, they were definitely more enthusiastic about it… and are now crashed out on the landing, snoozing.

It’s exhausting, this playing thing!

Keep an eye on Instagram and Twitter, and their own Silly Kittens blog, for more pics of them using their new playthings!

Just helping

Some of you will know I’m running four workshops at this year’s Essex Book Festival, on social media and writing in the digital age. (Details here if you want to join us – tickets are selling fast!)

I know what I want to cover in the workshops, but yesterday I’d set aside some time to get the structure in place and make sure I’m not cramming too much into the hour-long sessions, so that my writers actually take in the information and can apply it.

So after getting my big flipchart pad out, I went upstairs to get some coloured pens. I came back and was greeted by this:

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Luna was snoozing in the conservatory by the heater, but Clover definitely wanted to help…

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I love my kitties, but I’m learning to add extra time onto everything to account for watching, laughing at and cuddling them along the way!