On Friday, I called the RSPCA because a cat that loved to come to my garden looked like it was in so much pain and it made me panic, as I hadn't seen him like that before.

I don't know whose cat he was, but I sure as heck dislike the owners as it seems as though they abandoned him when they realised his grave condition and didn't want to pay for his treatment.

I grew so fond of this cat, because for a while I tried to make him trust me as I used to put food out for him, and slowly tried to see if he let me pet him, which after a while he did! He was such a sweet little Tabby cat, that just wanted to be loved. My cat and him used to get into fights, because Albus used to get jealous that I was feeding him and that I tried to make him like me.

However, about two months ago, I noticed that 'Kitty' (which is what I used to call him, as I obviously didn't know what his real name was) began to change. He began to lose fur in his hind legs and tail and began to limp. At that time Kitty didn't really let me get near him, so I couldn't get a good look at his condition. But, miraculously, after a week his fur began to grow back even though, his limp remained. I also noticed that he was beginning to spend a lot of time in my garden. Once I saw him sleeping underneath our garden table. But anyway, the moment when I began to fully worry was when I noticed that he couldn't hold his pee. He would always have a pool of urine underneath him, and even leave traces of poo behind. In that moment, I knew that I probably shouldn't let Albus near him as the cat was clearly carrying somekind of disease.

Matters got worse. Once he tried so hard to come inside my house as the flies that followed him everywhere, wouldn't leave him alone. They would hover over his behind and I could tell it irritated the cat a lot, as he wasn't able to stay in one place for a long time. So this one time, after I had finished putting food out for him, he went over to the door and began to push it with his paw and came in as soon as there was a gap big enough for him to fit through; however, once inside he refused to leave even when I tried to shoo him out. I began to cry because I felt so sorry for him, as I knew my parents wouldn't let him stay inside because he was peeing all over the place. So, I kind of built him a little home from an old cabinet we had outside and he quickly settled in and happily slept inside it.

We had a barbecue about two weeks ago, and I had put out some meat for him to eat. However, he never came, and for about ten days he didn't come back. I thought his owners had finally realised that the cat needed serious help, or that they might have moved home.. On Thursday, thanfully the cat came back. I honestly have tears in my eyes remembering how happy he was to see me. My dad was the one that actually called me outside to tell me that the cat had come back, and as I quickly got to the garden I saw Kitty running towards me and mewoing. I patted his head with a smile on my face as I heard him purr with happiness. It was such a lovely moment, as I'm an animal lover and my aim was to make that cat like me, and when I saw he truly did I felt so overwhelmed and began to cry. Sadly, we noticed that the cat had lost a lot of weight and his behind seemed as though something was stuck there. The poor cat stank of urine and the flies quickly followed him. However, I noticed that his return made him more attached to me as I saw him follow me everywhere. He even began to try and rub himself against me. I felt so sorry for him, as I knew he really wanted a home.

It was when I woke up the next day that I saw him sleeping in one of our garden chairs and as I went to give him food, I saw his urine on the chair had blood. I called my mum, and we decided to call the RSPCA. This cat needed serious help.

After hours of trying to contact them, and waiting for their email, they told me that I had to confine him as my message had been passed on to an officer and they were coming to get him. I had to borrow a cat basket from the neighbour, as I didn't trust the cabinet I had used as his home to keep him there for the three-hour-long wait that took the RSPCA to get to my house. The cat began to meow and get violent, that he even scratched me. My mum almost had a panic attack when she saw my scratch mark as she didn't want it to get infected knowing the cat's condition; so I disinfected it like a kazillion times and finally convinced my mum that I wasn't going to get rabies. I was having lunch when I decided to go back and check how the cat was faring, when I saw he had somehow managed to get out of his confinement and go back to the cabinet. I didn't want to go back outside as 1) I didn't want him to scratch me again and 2) I didn't want him to think I was going to try and put him back in the basket and have him run away.

At around 6pm the RSPCA officer finally arrived. She was so lovely and helpful that she praised my good intention at trying to save the poor cat's life. When she saw him, however, she told me that the cat was seriously ill and that there was a very small chance of actually being able to save his life, the best solution was to put him down. She said that his septum was no longer attached to his body and that was why he couldn't hold his pee in. She added that she would call me after they had taken him to the hospital, so I would know what had happened to him.

About two hours later, the call came and she told me that the cat was "now in heaven". I bursted into tears as soon as I heard that as I felt so guilty for somehow being the one to end his life. But the officer told me that I shouldn't feel that way, because I actually relieved him from his misery. He couldn't even sit and was in so much pain. That I should be happy that he at least had me, as without me he would have had a very shitty death.

I miss him. He was such a gentle and friendly cat, that I'm glad I at least helped him in some way. Saving him made me want to take care of more animals, and save them all! The officer also told me, that I could volunteer at the RSPCA at the cat shelter seeing as I am so fond of animals, and so I will deifnitely try and do that this summer. I will deifnitely keep you all updated on how that turns out.

This is a picture of the cat that I had on Instagram, he was adorable.


Rest in peace little Kitty xo

So yesterday was Easter and to celebrate the season's festivities, I decided to bake some cookies. The first were called Almond & Raspberry Jam Drops. I kind of didn't follow the recipe instructions precisely because I thought the amount of butter that it asked for was horrendous. So my measurements were as follows:

45g of butter, softened (as opposed to 225g....appalling, I know)
1/3 cup of sugar
1 egg (even though, it asked for the egg yolk only)
a cup of plain white flour
a handful of almonds, toasted and chopped (if you're one of those people who likes to be precise, it asked for 55g of almonds)
2 tsp of almond extract
4 tbsp rasberry jam

You mix the butter and sugar in a bowl with a wooden spoon first; you then add the egg and integrate it in the mixture. You then add the almond extract and sift in the flour along with the chopped almonds. Mix everything together with your hands, and shape the dough into small balls. When spreading them onto the baking sheet make a hollow in the centre of each cookie and fill each hollow with raspberry jam. You finally, bake the cookies for about 10-15 minutes until golden brown at 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5. Voilà! You have made about 10 cookies (depending on the size of your balls). 



Also, mum was making some crochet decorations, and so I helped her to make one - the red one to be exact. 

The second cookies that I pushed myself to do were the Chocolate Chip; Cinnamon Cookies. These ones I thought were going to end up as a disaster, but they surprisingly were amazing too (if I do say so myself). The reason to which I thought they were going to end up terrible was because I added far more flour than intended; however, that was due to the fact that the mixture kept getting stuck in between my fingers with no hint of ever coming off. They were slightly harder than the raspberry ones though, yet still tasted lovely. They reminded me a bit of Hagrid's Rock Cakes, simply because I needed to use my molars to bite into them. 

But I'm still going to enlighten you with the recipe, so here it goes:

15g of butter (again it asked for 225g but I decided against that)
1/3 cup of sugar
1 egg
1 cup of plain white flour (that was before I added more)
a handful of chocolate chip cookies
for the coating
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp ground cinnamon

For this you basically follow the same drill as the first cookies, but instead on making a hollow in the centre, you will expand the ball in your palm and then roll it in cinnamon mixture to coat. Bake for the same amount of time. Et voilà! Another set of cookies. 

This is just a picture of a slightly dirty Albus with all the different sized eggs. He was rolling around in the dirt and hadn't bothered to wash him. But he still looks adorable, doesn't he?

So, yesterday was Pancake Day and that meant it was finally the time to stuff my face with these delicious things and actually have an excuse to do so.

Mum made the pancakes and I took the pleasure of covering them with all things sweet; Nutella, honey, condensed milk and strawberries on the side. I wonder, what you guys put in yours?

[100happydays, Day 2]

 So, Spring is almost here and that means beautiful flowers growing everywhere and yummy barbeques. We made an attempt at making a summer lunch today, which got me all excited for the summer season. Seeing the beautiful daffodils growing in our back garden makes me want to wear my flower headbands already, but I guess that's gonna have to wait.

In the meantime, I'm stuck to curling my fingers around hot cups of tea and getting lost in books while tucked in bed like a big toasty cinnamon bun. I'm currently reading the 'Song of Fire and Ice' series by George R. R. Martin; I personally love big chunky books because you just know they're going to be awesome, and A Clash of Kings has proven to be so. So, I guess reading will just have to keep me busy until summer, even though, the setting of the book isn't quite helping me get in the mood for it, as winter is about to arrive to Westeros. However, the story is so good that it doesn't matter.

Winter Is Coming. Or in my case, Spring Is Coming.

So, today was lovely. I met up with a friend whom I haven't seen in months, and went to a cute cafe in Syon park. We caught up with so much, and remembered so many embarrassing moments we shared in school.
After that, we walked to Pets at Home where we saw the cute bunnies and guinea pigs and I tried hard to restrain myself from buying all the cute fluffy fur balls.
Then, it had been so long that we hadn't seen each other that we walked to a different park not so far away.
On the way, I took my friend to a lovely cute shabby bookshop, that is literally the cutest thing. Inside, it smelled of old books and cinnamon and I just wanted to sit on the floor and get lost in all the books. But sadly that couldn't be the case. We needed to move on.


So we went to Osterly park and just strolled around for ages. My legs were aching when I got home, and mum made me the nicest cappuccino that literally made me feel so much better.


So, yeah. That was my day. Pretty long and tiring, but I loved it!

[100happydays, Day 1]

After a whole week of intensive work on a film with the famous Eulàlia Ramon as part of our European Cinema module; on today's final day of editing, I was overwhelmed to see the final piece.

I took the role of directing, and even though it was tough to handle the job at some points - like when a girl in my group had come in late and Eulàlia wanted me to dismiss her, or when the camera guy had lost all the footage after a long day of filming, and we had to refilm everything from scratch- it was all still worth it, and I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Although, perhaps for the second time, I wouldn't allow certain said people to perform certain jobs.

But since my dream is to become a film director, I found the experience truly insightful and worthwhile. We decided to make a horror movie trailer, and it all had to be done on the university campus; despite the limited space to film, we found the perfect locations and made great use of them. There was a moment when we needed to film on a set of stairs and when the receptionist of the house we had asked permission to film in, found us shooting there, she started telling us that we weren't allowed and that we needed to inform her two weeks prior to the day due to the health and safety regulations. Eulàlia, being the expert in those situations, handled the little problem immediately, saying that we were only rehearsing despite the receptionist having seen the whole camera equipment set up.

"Time is money," is what Eulàlia said after having done the shooting -on the spot, while the receptionist was still arguing with her- and was having a smoke outside the venue. She didn't let the receptionist's words stop her from getting her way.

I learnt a lot these seven days, and I'm quite sad that they have now ended. But I will definitely stay in touch with them, and fingers crossed, let it be the beginning of the realisation of my film directing dream.

For Valentine's Day I decided to bake a cake. I actually wanted to put this up for Lorrain's competition but I realised the deadline was midday and I finished this beautiful masterpiece *waits for applause* like two hours later. But despite that, I was very proud of my little cinamon sponge cake and it tasted great too.