more cat pictures

[winterbadger]

http://pics.livejournal.com/winterbadger/gallery/0000gcyz

as I try to consolidate all the trip photos and their annotations on Fotki...

Comments

[winterbadger]

I confess, most of my exposure to Trollope was through the 1970s adaptation for television of the Palliser novels. The starting point (or at least a waystation) for so many great careers!

Come see the kitties while you're home, if you can wangle it; Finn and Nick (named after Nicholas vander Poelem another favourite literary character) are very friendly, and Gilbert, though grumpy, generally does no worse than wnder off and refuse to be tempted to interact with people...

[magaidhbhan.livejournal.com]

Ok, now that you've said that I don't feel so bad admitting that the only Trollope I've read for pleasure (and hence can remember really well) is The Warden (which I really enjoyed... and if I'm remembering rightly, I wrote an essay about it in high school called "on the nature of snowballs." Mm, me and literary criticism ... ) -- I think I've also started The Small House at Allington, but I can't remember a thing about it.

Oooooh, kitties ... here's hoping the opportunity will present itself to meet them! I tell you what, one of the things I've missed the most living on this windswept little island in the sea is my pets. (we've got a big, stupid, adoring black lab annnnnd barn cats -- generally between 10 and 20 of them -- though a fair few are quite affectionate and one even gets to come inside ... the Grand Old Man).

[winterbadger]

I recall being struck that my usual cat luck didn't work so well on Skye. Usually wherever I travel (and a lot of places at home in the States) I manage to run into cats and make friends. When I lived in London there was the notorious calico cat who lived upstairs. On my last trip to England, there was at least one black cat I met on a lane either in Warwickshire or the Lake District who climbed up on my shoulder. In 2002 there was a nice cat in Dunkeld who wanted to come back to the hotel. In May, I think Nora was doubting my storied cat-charisma; I think the best we did were some ducks in Oban and a dog, a friendly border collie in the hotel in Cove. I did score a very friendly (though squirrel-obsessed) grey and white cat in the West End of Glasgow last time, but no feline friends on Skye or Raasay that I recall.

[magaidhbhan.livejournal.com]

You didn't go far enough south on the island! Should have come to Ardvasar -- there's a sweet wee ginger kitty that always greeted me by rolling over on her back so I could rub her belly as I was walking down to my bus stop in the mornings over the summer -- and then there was Fatty aka the Moillet aka Highness (aka Sleat, which is his actual name) who would also occassionally deign to wrap himself around my ankles once I'd reached said bus stop. You're right, though, there aren't much in the way of cats roaming the streets on Skye -- I imagine it's probably because of how many dogs there (almost every house has a border collie, crofter or no). But the ones that are here are awfully friendly!

[winterbadger]

Yeah, I spent a lot of the last trip in or around Elgol, Portree, or Raasay, with just the one night in Kyleakin so I could come to the feis at SMO. I was in Armadale long enough to take the RIB tour ourt over the Sound of Sleat, and then back to take the ferry away :-(

I did stop by the post office in Ardvasar to mail some postcards home. :-)

Well, someday, after I actually move to the UK (*fingers crossed*), and once I set up my Web-based freelance technical editing and authoring company :-) I fully intend to move it to Skye. :-) So then there will be three more kitties there (though they may not be out wandering around greeting strangers either).