I am back - finally

aargh! I must keep this up to date more often.

Anyway, as you'll have seen from my website, I have now joined the ranks of successful Burmese breeders - it only took 18 years! Still, I think that having bred through 8 straight generations before achieving something on the scale of BOV Burmese kitten at the Supreme Show, is far more satisfying than simply buying 2 highly inbred kittens, putting them together and creating an instant Grand Champion. At least I can hold my head up and say my lines are reasonably outcrossed - and that I never breed a litter without serious consideration of the parents' pedigrees and degree of relatedness.

After the success of Saturday, I had a disappointment on Monday when I heard that the potential Burmese stud I was hoping to import had been identified by his vet as having a very small hernia - no-one else had noticed it even by the age of 12 weeks! So of course he is not suitable for breeding and I have to go back to the drawing board re. finding a suitable boy with a decent pedigree. I will get there in the end - the breed desperately needs new lines in the UK and no-one else seems even slightly concerned :((

Saturday's excitement made up in a small way for the sadness of the previosu weekend - we had to say goodbye on Sunday November 16th to Rosa (Vervain Coraldawn), 14 year old red Burmese girl and the 3rd generation of my line. She had a suspected intestinal tumour and despite a bit of a rally after antibiotics and steroids, went downhill and developed renal failure. She went to sleep very peacefully at the vet's and I'll be collecting her ashes later this week - another casket to add to the 4 already on the top of the kitchen cupboards. Cherry is Rosa's great-great-great granddaughter.

This coming weekend I don't have to go anywhere! Yippeee - can stay in bed till after 8am both days, and watch England being crushed by the All Blacks (well, only the highlights as the live stuff is only on Sky - ridiculous!!) It hardly seems a year since they achieved the impossible, they've already lost to Australia and South Africa on the last 2 weekends........

More very soon - that's a promise!

Back at last!

Not quite sure why I haven't been here for so long - Lincoln show tasks have taken over for the last couple of weeks, and there've been various other complications such as judging, poorly kittens and kids, not to mention the arrival of a new litter of Asian kittens on June 9th, rapidly followed by Evie's premature delivery of one (dead) kitten 10 days early :(

I took 2 of Nina's kittens to the Burmese Cat Club show last Saturday, and both did very well - 2nd in their Opens, and placed in all misc. classes. Cherryplum (lilac) was 1st in the breeders class - she will now be staying here. Her half sister Tehya was BOB lilac kitten and runner-up to the overall BIS kitten!

Wimbledon is on and I've managed to watch a few matches - Andy Murray's win over Gasquet on Monday was incredible, pity he couldn't repeat it against Nadal tonight! The final looks predictable yet again.......

HACKED!!

I WAS HACKED!! Have been online since 1995 so I suppose it had to happen sooner or later......... at about 1.30pm today I received loads of "undeliverable mail" messages, and it seems that someone had hijacked my email address to send out a spam mail about some Chinese electronics supplier! This went to everyone in my contacts list, which is a LOT of people. So apologies if you were one of the unlucky ones.............
I checked for viruses and spyware - nothing at all, which at least reassures me that Zone Alarm is doing a good job. Problem is that my mail account is now locked and I cannot send anything. According to the help files it should only last 24 hours or so - I do hope that's the case.

Kittens are doing well and 2 are now over 1kg. (they were 10 weeks old yesterday). First vaccinations last Thursday and no apparent problems thank goodness. It is now extremely difficult to get good photos as they just will not stay still long enough - they have the run of the house during the day now, and have found several cosy places to sleep (when they do sleep!)

I'm hoping to get some help tomorrow so I can get some decent pics to post on here, so watch this space!

I really should update this more often! We've had amazing weather here for the last week or so - temperatures of 22C or thereabouts, and no rain. It can't possibly last, seeing as Thursday is my birthday that'll probably be when we get a thunderstorm.........

Nina's kittens are 8 weeks old this Friday and it seems that they have all found new homes. I'm debating whether to enter a couple of them in the Burmese Cat Club show on June 28th, but they'll only be 14 weeks and 1 day, so not sure if I should. I have another 10 days or so to decide, before the closing date. I am still finding it difficult to decide which of the girls to keep myself. The 3 blues are all incredibly similar and I still need collars on them to tell them apart.

I've added a few more photos to the web album

Now I need to think of names - I've got several sorted out but can't decide whether to give my girl a Tolkien name (Luthien??) or a spring-themed name (they were born March 21st).



We have no hot water at present - the heating pump finally packed up last Wednesday, a plumber came Friday evening, said it was the pump, gave it a thump and it started working - only to stop about a minute after he left! Repeated thumpings have failed miserably :((
Plumber is coming back to fit new pump tomorrow evening! It will be nice to be able to have a shower and wash up cat bowls without boiling a kettle......

Photos uploaded

I updated my album of Nina & Theo's kittens with a few photos taken last Sunday when they were just over 5 weeks:

Nina and Theo's kittens


And, as promised, I now have some photos from my weekend in Scotland - I've posted them to my picasa web album here:
Scotland April 2008

enjoy!!

AND......... I heard the other day that Teemu is now going to have his registration amended - finally justice (not to mention common sense) has prevailed!!