Coco and D'Oscars

No, you haven't gone back in time; this isn't Snowball.  It's Coco, our special visitor for this week.

Here's how it happened... on Monday morning, our friend was walking past the pet shop around the corner from school, and heard a tiny miowing.  This little fuzzbucket was in an allyway, in a cardboard box, abandoned by some *insert rude word of your choice*.  I suspect he was the runt of the litter, and probably the only white kitten.  As soon as my friend told me about him, I knew what I had to do... persuade Matt to take him in. Actually, Matt took all of about 3 seconds to agree.  Our gorgeous Snowball and Sooty were both rescue cats, which means that someone with a kind heart took them in.  If they hadn't, they probably wouldn't be here today.  Especially Snowball.  He was even younger than Coco when he was found, and was sprawled on his tummy on the road.  It was our turn to do a good deed, and we knew that whoever ended up with Coco would be grateful one day to us, for rescuing him.  I had a free lesson, so I went out straight away, and his box was empty.  Looked everywhere for him and found him hiding in a bush.  He is so small, he can sit in the palm of one hand!  The pet shop had been feeding him, but there was no way they were taking him in; the shop is full of £1000 pedigree cats and dogs. No way they would take in a little street moggy.  So I scooped him up, and got a cab, with a very surprised cab driver who kept turning around to look at him whenever we stopped at lights.  I did get pee'd on in the cab, but maybe that's to be expected.  The mini one was purring away from the second I picked him up.  He just wanted a cuddle!

We still had all of Snowballs stuff from when he was tiny, including a crate/cage, so I chucked him in there with some food, which he instantly started eating (although the bowl is so big he had to climb into it to be able to reach the food!), and left him to it.  

Snowball and Sooty really weren't sure of him at all, and were quite grumpy, but Snowball eventually came around and was even playing with him.  Matt and I completely fell in love with him; especially Matt! 

I took him to the vets on Monday evening and the poor little thing had the full works done.  He had too many white blood cells, which he needed an antibiotic injection for, and he had an eye infection, which had left his face all scabby.  Snowball had this too when he was found - maybe it's a white cat thing?  So, eye drops three times a day.  I was in the vets for an hour and a half getting about 20 different things done. Anyway, now he is fine, if a little bit smelly and dirty.  We found out that he is a boy (thought he was a girl up to this point, and that he is only 4 weeks old!)

He is a really sweet little thing.  Very happy and playful, and he just purrs all the time when you cuddle him.  We decided that we couldn't keep him, so would foster him until we found a home.  I told everyone at school about him, and had some interest, even from people who don't like cats, just because he is so tiny and cute!  A friend of ours lives in the apartment upstairs, and she has been talking about getting a pet for a while.  Myself and another friend surprised her on Monday evening at her front door with Coco, and she really liked him.  So on Thursday evening she picked him up for a 'trial night'.  It's now Saturday and he hasn't come back to us, so it went very well!  She has agreed to foster him, but we are pretty sure she is falling in love and won't want to give him up.

So, it's been a very emotional 4 days with Coco (who is named after my drink of choice at Friday's Tequila Club - Coconut Margarita).  We were very sad to see him go, but he is only upstairs, and he has a good home now.  A happy ending, for a gorgeous little fluffball.  Here are some photos of his week with us.  The one below is just when I went to get him.  He seems to have different colour eyes, just like Snowball.  They are 2 shades of blue here, but Vicky told me yesterday that one has gone green, so it's definitely going to be yellow like Snowballs.  They could be twins they look so alike!

In other news, it's been a very busy couple of weeks.  School has been crazy busy! Here are a couple of photos from the last 2 weeks.  Tequila club...

Australian chocolate that our friend brought back for the office. We were very pleased! Chinese chocolate is not great...

This was Matt's May 4th, Star Wars themed flat crawl with his cricket club.  Thank goodness they only stayed in the flat for half an hour.  Still managed to make a lot of mess though. The floor was really sticky!

Last night was the annual D'Oscars ceremony, which is the Junior School's version of the Oscars.  In September the kids start making movies.  Different themed for each year, for example year 4 is on the environment, year 3 is animation, etc.  I made a film with my EAL class, but only one film per class goes through, and it wasn't theirs.  There is then a huge ceremony, where the winners are presented with trophies.  The films are judged by famous actors, directors and producers in Hollywood, and there were special good luck messages from some (apparently) very famous Chinese singers and actors.  The kids were going nuts!  It's themed every year,and this year was time travel, so the school was decked out in Dr Who, Back to the Future and Dr Strange props.  There is a red carpet, official photographers, and the entrance to the school was a giant Tardis.  It is the most ridiculous, extravagant evening ever, and we probably could have hired 3 extra staff for the amount of money it cost to put on this one evening.  They even hire in a gigantic high-tech screen and stage and lighting.   The kids get very bored, especially year 3s who I was with. The kids and staff have to sit on benches, while the parents get proper chairs, and it's on for 3 hours!  It's a huge black-tie event, and as you may have guessed i'm not a fan.  Mostly because it took about 3 weeks of lesson time to make our one film, that didn't even get through to the finals, when I should have been teaching my kids how to speak English!!!  Part of me secretly enjoyed the giltz and glamour- the parents really go to town in sparkly ball gowns and dinner jackets - but only a really small part!

I got home from work on Friday at 9.30pm!  This was my reward...

The other thing that happened recently was that I took some engagement photos for two colleagues who recently got engaged.  It was such a hot day we were only out for 25 minutes, and we just did them in the grounds of our apartments, but it's payed off; yesterday they booked me as their wedding photographer for their Richmond park wedding next summer.  I'm thrilled!  Here are a few of my favouries from the shoot, and you can see the rest on my website www.fayesphotos.com