Today is a special day for us as two members of our family are celebrating a birthday. But I am sure we have been involved in some sort of time travel experiment that we are not aware of, as there is no way that 9 years have passed since the CFH were born.
It seems like such a short time ago that we made the fateful decision to add two Bengal kittens to our family.
They were born on 17th April 2003 and were special from the word go. The breeder, Jamie, owned both their mother, Mojo (Millenia Junglebeat) and father (Otis Redding) and they were two of a litter of 6. Their mother had an accident when they were just a few days old and broke her pelvis and she could not keep all 6 kittens. Jamie had to try and hand rear three, who did not make it – and she kept the other three. There were two boys and a girl.

When we first met them when they were four weeks old we were smitten. We knew we wanted two kittens and I desperately wanted a boy. We had only had girls before and Nigel would have preferred 2 girls. Until we saw Fiki that is. There was no question we wanted Kira as she was the only girl. The other boy was identical to Kira, much darker, a more traditional brown spot colour. The other boy, who was to become our Fiki, was smaller, had runny eyes, was quiet and withdrawn and was the most amazing colour. He had inherited from his prize winning grandfather the very prized rufus gene and was, even then, a very russet colour. His coat went on to become a deep rich mahogany and he is also blessed with glitter, another prized gene. He was, however, clearly the runt and the kitten you should never buy. But we were already smitten.

Eventually, after a health check and a long conversation with the breeder, both were to be ours. We do still wonder whatever happened to the other little boy and I hope he had a happy and caring home too.
We visited them again when they were 6 weeks old and then collected them early at 12 weeks and brought them home.

We had no idea what a difference in every sense they would make to our lives.
They have been such joy – and such stress too- with their very unique characters and beautiful loving and devoted natures. They have caused us endless laughter, a few tears and a fair bit of shouting. They have had their accidents and their health issues, especially poor little Kira, but they have enriched our lives. Bengals are not to be adopted lightly – they are unique – but we love them. Fiki, the little run who weighed exactly half of his sister when we brought them home, is now a massive 21lb cat with the naughtiest most loving and adorable nature ever. Kira, who has eye problems, allergies to pretty much everything except air, Fiki and us, is a much smaller but equally devoted little cat who follows us everywhere. They both just want to be with us constantly.
This is our handsome boy

and this is our beautiful little girl

How have 9 years gone by in such a flash? Maybe, now he is 9, Fiki will stop being quite so naughty. Maybe not – I fear!
Happy birthday CFH xxxx
It was fitting that I should finish this page made for another of Shimelle’s challenges today. It was made for Challenge 5 and takes the inspiration quite clearly from the examples given.



and it is not her birthday and she is not a Bengal and she did not come to us as a baby but I cannot leave her out ... this is our beautiful Boo who is now a poor old thing who is deaf, has cataracts and is a grumpy old thing but just as beautiful as her siblings

And I also made this for another of Shimelle's challenges - this one for the 'use the same photo twice'.

Photo of the day today was snapped by Nigel this morning. They have cattle grazing on the heath now and this morningt hey were right by our fence so here are two pretty meadow ladies.

Today I am thankful for
- all of the cats who share or who have shared our lives and our hearts but especially my little - well big actually - CFH.
Barb you asked yesterday if we have Michaels here and no we don't but I make sure to shop whenever we visit the US.
You also asked if I had any photos of my dolls house - If you looks at the subjects down the right hand side border and click on Dolls House that will take you to all about that.

My one minute devotional today is
My wife, Julee, and her mom, Wilma Cruise, were extraordinarily close. No matter where Julee was in the world—and it could be anywhere—she called her mom in Creston, Iowa, every day without fail. Even after Wilma’s capacity for speech was pretty much wiped out by a stroke, Julee was the one person who managed to carry on conversations with her. The nursing home would call Julee when they couldn’t figure out what Wilma wanted; somehow Julee always knew.
Wilma died this year, very peacefully. I did everything I could for Julee as she sank deeper into mourning. I tried to get her to eat, to exercise, to make it to her doctors’ appointments. I told her that God was with her no matter how alone she felt, that He was really there, closer than ever. I sat up with her late into the night, sometimes without even talking. But still she grieved.
Finally, in frustration and despair, I told a friend there was nothing more I could do. “I feel so inadequate,” I said.
My friend looked at me for a long time, then said simply, “It’s death. We’re supposed to feel inadequate.”
We humans can overcome just about anything, but we can’t overcome death. And the deeper we love, the harder we grieve. Finally, we come through the other side, as I know Julee will, when our love becomes acceptance—perhaps of our own inability to let go of people all at once. We don’t want to let go, so we let go in stages—imperfect, painful, not always pretty. And each and every step of the way, God takes hold of what we have let go.