Welcome to our brand new blog

In March 2011, I decided to move along with the times and begin a blog.

"Norskwood Norwegian Forest Cats" are Ali, her other half Steve (who reluctantly builds and maintains the cat garden and who does all the heavy lifting!) and our toddler son Gethin who was born in September 2010, plus an assorted cast of beautiful but delightfully dotty Norwegian Forest Cats. We're based in London, UK and devote a lot of our spare time to the breeding and showing of our Norwegians.

This is an attempt to keep a kind of diary of their exploits as and when I have a spare minute in between babies, cats and kittens' demands! Hopefully you'll enjoy it...



Wednesday 4 September 2013

Cat Garden Fence Upgrade- Day Two

Another glorious hot day and today was the second day of the Great Fence Rebuild Challenge! Yesterday Steve and Neil replaced several old and very fragile panels with purpose built ones.

Today they had to replace the part of the fence that is by the back door of our kitchen- it doesn't have the concrete posts that we have for the rest of the fence that go all the way down the 100 foot garden to the garage, so they had to devise a way of building a sturdy and stable fence.


Firstly, the old panels come down revealing our next door neighbour Melanie and her old shed, which we discovered had rotted at the bottom! So, this was where Melanie's 7 month old kittens had been getting into her shed...a mystery solved.

 
Steve, Neil and Gethin discuss how to best replace the fence and make it secure.

 
Gethin is all excited- Daddy has come up with a solution to the problem. They're building a frame, and bracing it to the existing fence and the kitchen wall.

 
So, Geth gets the measuring tape out to assist his Daddy. Steve is stapling the wooden slats to the frame.
 


 
Steve reattaching the mesh to the frame before starting the last panel.

 
Nearly there, then we can go to the pub for lunch and a pint!

 
Job done- I painted the slats that didn't have any wood treatment on and put the BBQ etc. back where they live, and it looks so much tidier.  For those of you who are eagle-eyed, yes, you're quite right, the cat in the photo isn't a Norwegian Forest Cat! This is Ruby our first pedigree cat- she's a British Shorthair. She just about tolerates the NFO's!
 
Lovely... next to be done is the lawn and the border next week. New turf for the old pitted and frankly tired old lawn, and railway sleepers to retain the border down the bottom of the garden.


Tuesday 3 September 2013

The refurbishment of our Cat Garden begins at last

Stage one- Gethin helping from next door
 
Today we began to renew many of our fence panels in our cat garden- this has needed to be done for a while now but this summer has been incredibly busy. I've had Carpal Tunnel surgery, my Uncle sadly died unexpectedly and my Step Mum hasn't been well.
 
So, I am very excited to say that Steve and his friend Neil have been hard at work building and fitting the new panels after Steve treated the wood yesterday. The weather couldn't be better for this kind of project. Gethin likes to help of course.
 

Neil measuring up
 
This is the first part to our refurbishment- and the boys did well to get several panels done.
 
Gethin giving Steve a hand in our neighbour's garden
 
The cats have all been interested and only one made a bid for freedom- Sookie ventured next door very briefly until Steve grabbed her! They were very well behaved on the whole though.
 
 
"I think this panel is nearly done Neil"!
 
At the end of the day, Gethin was pleased with the job done when he inspected the new fencing from the comfort of his police car!
 
 
Gethin gives his seal of approval!
 
More panels to do tomorrow, then we'll get the lawn re-turfed, the border edging replaced and then start down the boys' runs with some new decking and the wood treated- will it never end???! Answers on a postcard...




Tuesday 28 May 2013

Long Time, No Post!

So, it's been 6 months since my last post of here- scandalous I know. Where does the time go to?

Anyway, yesterday was the first birthday of our Red Devils "Ooops" litter from Sparky and Cracker. It's hard to believe that those little kittens- all Red Tabby or Red Tabby and White are now a year old. I remember them being born so clearly.

One of them, Toksvig is on holiday with us along with her "brother" Mags, photo below.




I emailed all the litter to wish them a Happy Birthday and received this photo of Sol aka Pippin back. he's a lovely big lad and very well loved.





We sometimes see his sister Lola who also comes to stay with us and she's a darling- and very confident. I'm now hoping that we'll get some more photos of the litter so that we can see how they've grown and developed.

Yay, I've had these lovely photos from Seth and Solaris- they're looking great. now all we need is some from Custard.