Eeeeowww! And that noise wasn’t coming from Gadget :-P

Hey guys!

Okay, I know it’s been a while since I last wrote but I was away for six days! And with being “away” somewhere comes something interesting to write about ^_^!

Every morning’s the same for me… Usually :-P. I’ll be woken up by Gadget’s non-stop meows… Well they’re hardly anything like a meow, it’s more an extremely painful long “MEEEOOOOOOWWWWOOOO”. It simply can’t be ignored! When I let him out of his room, Gizmo usually follows and waits in front of the door to say good morning to Gadget. It is one of the sweetest things ever! Gadget will come out and make little “mrp-ing” noises, completely ignoring me to run up to Gizmo and cuddle up against him. Awww!

After fifteen minutes or so of stroking and loving Gizmo and Gadget, Gadget will become tiresome and want to be fed… This is the painful part :-P.

The one morning I was making Gadget’s breakfast but Gadget being Gadget, got a little impatient waiting for me. Suddenly this THING was on me! I gasped as I looked down; holding on for dear life was, who else, Gadget!

He had jumped up and flung his little… little but SHARP… and DEADLY nails into my shirt… and partly into the soft flesh just below my ribs… Eeeeowww! And that noise wasn’t coming from Gadget :-P. He gave a last final “cute little puppy dog… but kitty cat eyes” and let go on his grasp. I’ll never know how he manages to jump so high! As he was getting ready for another “gut-ripping” pounce, I decided to quickly put his food on the floor to save my skin! :-P

Gadget is such a starvo! He’ll push his head in the way of Gizmo’s to get at Gizmo’s food, whilst his bowl is still half full of his own breakfast… He’s a right little boy :-P!

After breakfast Gizmo and Gadget will wrestle for ages or play chasing games then eventually fall down too tired to move! That’s a typical morning for them!

Last Saturday, we set off to a place about a good hour or so from my little town called “Bessieres” which is where Gui-Gui and Wilf, friends of ours, live. I’ve written about them before in “Saturday… which actually felt like Sunday because of going out on Friday, the Friday which felt like a Saturday…”. It was the first time Gadget would be going for a long car trip. This is excluding the twenty minute drive that it took to bring him home from where we got him from.

We thought he’d be fine with just sleeping on my sister’s lap the whole way, since he was like that with me for the twenty minutes… But oh no! He was the most squirmy, wriggly thing I’ve ever seen! And especially the most noisy! We gave up eventually trying to hold him and stopped at a shop that took us out of our way to go to, to buy him a cat carrier.

It was the BEST buy ever!!! The only thing that was unpreventable was the meow, meow, meooooww, meow?-ing. It was okay though, we made a “Meowxican” wave out of it… My dad made up the name of course :-P. See, Gadget would meow then I would then it would go to my mom, my dad, to Venetia, then back to Gadget… Gizmo didn’t approve and just kept on snoring. Eventually though Gadget got fed up and just fastened up his meows -_-. After half an hour he fell asleep for a few minutes, only to be awoken again when we went around a round about! <--Talk about a tongue twister :-P.

We arrived and all was well though! That Saturday we didn’t do anything too laborious… Unless you think swimming and relaxing by the pool is hard work :-P. Personally, I don’t! We had come down… or up… Yes it’s north of my little town to see Wilf and Gui-Gui, because they were planning on moving and they’d done so much for us we wanted to help!

So on Sunday, my mom, Venetia and I set off to clean the one room out, I think my fear of spiders is now definitely cured! Okay, actually it was cured a long time ago when I let one run across my hand, but now I mean really, really cured! I shan’t ever squeal when I see one, ever again. All my squeals are out of me now with the amount of spiders in there :-P.

We had lunch and then it was back to the pool time! The next couple of days was just spent packing. On Wednesday, we got up at the ungodly hour of five o’clock. We were on the road by six and heading for Marseille, a long five hour drive from Bessieres. The route was absolutely stunning, as the day got brighter, and we got closer and closer to Marseille I was becoming… a lot more sleepy! By eleven AM we were almost there, a little bit later we could even see the house!! But as we made our way through the busy traffic and finally got to the little cobbled street right before the turning to go onto the road and to the new house DISTASTER struck!

The van… truck that my mom was driving and which also contained all of my parents’ friends’ furniture couldn’t fit between the wall and the church! We were so close! AHHH! After three attempts and a slight bump with the side of the church, we eventually gave up. We took off down the other side of the church, and couldn't get up the narrow road to the house but we were as close as we could get... Here, we offloaded everything, and had to HAUL it up the hill... The very long… STEEP hill :-P.

Okay, okay! It wasn’t that bad but then the story would have been boring, I bring LIFE to my stories :-P.

There were dudes there working on the house... Ehem, I'm sorry I left out a VERY important adjective... LAZY dudes! They helped with the fridge and then went off to stand with their empty wheelbarrow and their shovel... Just standing there... Daydreaming...

Anyway, once we'd hauled everything up the hill then we had to bring them down make-shift stairs (the workmen were definitely taking their time on working -_-), and into the house.

Three hours later we were finally done and everyone was absolutely dead! (Except the builders... they were standing there still smoking cigarettes, relaxing over a shovel, or slurping on fresh figs from the tree...)

And then we had to take the van back to Wilf, see we had to drop "Gui-Gui" off in Marseille with the furniture, Wilf's following in two weeks time.

So it was another "fun" five or so hour drive! Joy!!! :-P

Oh no! Before we could get out and go, we had to ask the two French people who had been so kind in parking in front of the truck to budge :-P, well Gui-Gui did that bit ^_^.

When we got back to Wilf’s place my bed there couldn’t of welcomed me any more than it did :-P.

It was actually a great learning experience, I know now how to read maps and also that I won't ever be moving to a big city (far too much traffic :-P). Marseille was absolutely gorgeous though, it's right on the Mediterranean!

If we'd driven about 3 hours or so north-east from Marseille, we would have hit the border of Italy! That and seeing the "BARCELONA" signs on the motorway make me love where I live. Viva la France!

On Thursday we finally came home, there’s no place like my little town, I never want to move, never, ever, ever! It’s just… I just think this is the perfect place, I’ve never felt more at home… Except of course, when I don’t understand what people say to me… Then of course I feel like the right “étranger”… See what I mean… I had to check that I was right in using that word for “foreigner” -_-!

Oh! When we were at Wilf and Gui-Gui’s they had Sky T.V.! English speaking Sky T.V.!!! I was so excited but only found out closer to the end of our stay so didn’t get much viewing done. I like to just vege sometimes :-P!

The ice-rink! Now that’s news!! In just eleven days it’s going to be re-opened and I’m going to be there! The day is a little awkward: Wednesday the 17th but it’s okay because I can go all three days that it’s open for that week! Wooo! Vivement La Patinoire (I can’t wait for the ice-rink)!!! Free French lesions there ;-). Something schools wouldn’t teach you :-P!

When we were in Bessieres on the day that we were leaving, we witnessed the most horrible, cruel thing I’ve never seen!... You see, it was my mom and my sister who actually saw this EVIL creature attacking the poor, little, fluffy bumblebees! It was approximately four times or so the normal size of a bumble bee! It just… attacked them, so along the ground we spotted a few dying ones, it was so horrible and there was one bumblebee that only had one wing left :-(. We tried to give them a nice leaving with sugar water though :-).

Oh hey! When we were at Wilf and Gui-Gui’s new place I got to see the apartment of Gui-Gui’s friend and :-O… I was so impressed with his glasses, not spectacles, I mean drinking glasses… They matched the WHOLE interior, it was really new-age, with bizarre shaped chairs and even a giant “fatboy” (no, I’m not insulting anyone, it’s the brand name :-P) hammock in the centre of the room… The glasses were red and squonky… Awesome!!

Oh yes… About that Video Blog… I tried to do it but I had to take, like, a million takes, over and over again because I’d turn the camera on… and then just freeze up! It’s unbelievably weird talking to a camera, I appreciate “V-loggers” so much more now! :-P I will attempt to do it again this week but I’m not promising anything too wild!

Oooooh! Guess what I got!! A reader sent me in a picture of… Well you’ll see! Thank you very much to you for the awesome drawing! ^_^

Okay! I’m going to leave you at that and I promise to try and write soon… But that’s all of my news so far and I usually am a lacker of new news :-P.

Hoping to hear from you all soon!!

- Bianca

I’m going to go shower!

Good Saturday afternoon everyone!

So today, shall be a VERY exciting day, heehee, exciting for me is usually quite a small insignificant thing that happens… but this REALLY is going to be exciting… For the whole world of Kiss My Fishy anyway!!! Mwa ha ha ha ha!!!

Ehem… So yes, today, I have decided, that I’m going to go shower!... Okay, I do this everyday… but that’s the beginning of creating my very first “vlog”! Yep, that’s right, I’ve promised it before but now I’m really ready to do it! A vlog, for all of those people who aren’t so familiar with the term, is basically a blog, but a Video bLOG.

My mom’s been putting up a few videos, some of Gizmo and Gadget play fighting (Awww!) and others, so if you want to check those out her Youtube channel is – “http://www.youtube.com/user/Siovhinn”.

I have a new short poem for you guys! I’m going to post it, without the title, and then you can guess, at the end of this blog I’ll give you the answer to what it’s about!

*************************************************
You’re pulled and tugged at all night long,
You’re beaten and thrashed at because you’re wrong,
And when you don’t get a bed to lay upon,
You are in the cupboard left alone.

By Bianca Cassandra P.
*************************************************

I haven’t got much news, so like last time, this is going to be another randomer!

I’ve been meaning to write about someone that I haven’t heard for, for over a year, despite my attempts to get in touch. He was one of the nicest people that I’d met in Ireland. He was Francis!
Francis was a farmer that we met the year before we left Ireland, when we moved into “Hillside” the large 1900’s farm house. It was the coolest house EVER! It had these gorgeous carpets and curtains… and wallpaper, it really was magnificent. It even came with an AGA stove… AND a hidden stairway (this would have been the staircase used by the maid in the olden days, as it went straight through down to the kitchen and was the closest to the smallest bedroom of five)… It was so much fun to trick our friends, who didn’t know about it, with.

So yes! I get way too distracted!! Francis, he had the roughest hands, but the softest soul. He was born in Ireland, and had never left. When he was younger, Francis had been sent to the school in Northern Ireland “Friends” as a border. He was always longing for home though and decided that he wanted to take after his father, and sow the land.

It’s bizarre to think, that just by looking at a person, you know very little. If you passed someone in the street, you wouldn’t think, ahh, she can speak French and play the guitar… You just don’t know. With Francis, he was the last person I would have thought of to have a large pen collection, or his millions of post cards that he collected.

He even let my mom drive his combine harvester because she’d said that she’d always wanted to drive one. One day, he took us up to one of the old barns to show us his toys that he’d kept since he was a little boy. One was a little tin car that had a plastic man stuck inside it… It’d been stuck there for years :-P!

Even though I enjoy moving around and having the opportunity to go adventuring, I think it would also be nice to be someone who stays in one little town for their whole life and doesn’t just have memories, but the items from when they were younger too. I think the oldest thing that I have… bear in mind, I am only 14 years old!... Would have to be Gizmo :-P… 7 years is quite some time you know ;-P.

Francis dresses up as Santa and goes to the local schools in his area for Christmas, he even saved a school by raising one million pounds for it. He cried when we said our last goodbye the day before we left for Sicily, I thought it was the sweetest thing…

Missing you Francis, I hope that you come across this page someday :-).

Right, I think that I’m going to go shower… It’s “vlogging” time!!! I’ll try get it up on KissMyFishy’s Youtube channel and then straight onto here by today, but if not, it’ll definitely be up during this week.

Hoping to hear from you guys soon!

- Bianca

P.S. By the way, the poem was about a blanket ^_^.

Fudge, Licorice, Coconut... And Others Who Go By The Names Of Non-Food Products ^_^!

Hey guys!

I’ve decided to write a blog today because I feel bad that I can’t recall the exact date of my last post… I’m not getting very far too quickly with writing because every two seconds I keep having a fit of coughs… It’s unbelievably frustrating! I caught, what we think is, a summer cold a few days after getting Gadget, the kitten.

So I haven’t been feeling my best and haven’t been out since either… I also am not having a great time because I can’t really talk as much, as that usually leads to… would you believe it, more coughing! And I’m a very talkative person, so when I try and get a long story out in one quick sentence, I’m usually running out of breath at the end so it sounds like a deflating balloon.

As I said, I haven’t been out, so I haven’t got much news… therefore this shall be a very random post ^_^.

Since I’ve been living… I don’t really know any other way to put it… Since I was born! That works, I’ve had an enormous amount of pets… Well my parents had literally gazillions of birds and a couple of dogs on our property in Zimbabwe, but the animals that stand out for me the most are:

Nando, he was my green ring neck parrot when I was one or two until I was three years old. When we were FORCED to leave the country though, I had to leave him behind, so my parents gave him to friends of theirs… He was just learning to speak as well! Since I had to leave him, I’ve wanted another parrot since, not to take over the memory of Nando, of course, but just because I love animals and I’ve always had this vision of a parrot school… Okay, okay! I had that thought when I was seven… and yet, seven years down the line, I still want to make it happen :-P.

Except this time I would love to get an African Grey parrot, since they’re the smartest bird species, and I think they’re so gorgeous! Of course I’d have to get one now though since they can live up to 100 years of age… Hint, hint, wink, wink Mom and Dad! :-P It’d also have to be a baby… because it’s cute… Yeah, I know… lame excuse :-P.

My next BIG pet, well very little at the time, was Franklin my tortoise… or was he a turtle? I always get confused with the two… Anyway, yes Franklin was called Franklin because I was about four or five years old and I loved the children’s cartoon show “Franklin” about the turtle that went to school :-P. I remember Franklin’s first water slide sort of thing, and the way he used his little tiny claws to climb over my hand… And of course, how he smelt, so extremely bad… I don’t think that’s the reason we gave him away though, I’m not sure, but I think it was because we were moving up to Northern Ireland. This was when we were living in Southern Ireland by the way, we gave Franklin to a zoo.

In Southern Ireland I also had two pet fish, Sandy and Danny, because my favourite film at that time was “Grease”. My cousin came to stay with us for a while, and Sandy had guppies… My cousin, being a boy, thought that it would be cool to buy one of those miniature shark fish for my fish tank… Aww how sweet… Not! He put it into the tank, it chased the poor babies which luckily hid away into the castle ornament and survived, but one of my big fish (Sandy or Danny, I can’t remember which one it was) was attacked and killed before we removed the shark fish… I was so annoyed -_-. Before we moved up to Northern Ireland, we also gave the fish away.

We actually obtained quite a few pets in Ireland, my dad took Venetia and I up to a woman and we were allowed to choose a kitten each… Sadly though, this is when we realised that I was allergic and after less than two weeks of having them, we had to give them away.

My dad also took us to get two baby rabbits… I don’t think these lasted with us for more than two weeks as well. The neighbour’s dog kept getting into our garden every time we let the bunnies run around for a while, and once attacked Venetia’s. It was okay afterwards though. But the bunnies proved to be too much of a hassle to look after in the house, they really need to have a large area of land that’s secure.

Then in Ireland when I was seven years old, my parents gave Venetia and I a decision to make, we could choose to go to Disneyland for two weeks, or we could choose to get a puppy Shih-Tzu instead. Of course, we chose the Shih-Tzu!

Gizmo was the runt of the litter, when we went to the old couple’s house, there were a bunch of little puppies sleeping, pretty much on top of each other, all squished up. Gizmo was the quiet one, all on his own in the very corner of the cage. I wanted to get the one that looked like a hamster… but when my mom picked up the smallest one, and showed him to me, I fell in love.

He was completely black except for his chin, his chest and his one paw, so it looked like a little sock. Gizmo was originally called Othello, but soon changed because he looked more like a little gremlin. I think we must of seen him at two weeks, because for the three weeks that followed, on the Sunday, we were sure to drive the hour, just to see him. At five weeks old, she let us take him home.

This is Gizmo, 5 weeks old, in Venetia's (at the time 11 years old) arms... Now you can see how small he really was... Awww!!!

We were absolutely appalled by the fact that she told us that Shih-Tzu’s are to be kept in a cage, and are to be taught to drink out of a hamster/ gerbil bottle feeder… The cage lasted the first night then we quickly got rid of it. He’s a pedigree, his grandfather lived until he was 18 years old, so I’m really hoping he lives that long, or even longer :-P. He even has a show name and the papers, but we think that it’s cruel to keep their hair long, so we let him be, like his show name, a “Sporty Boy”.

Gizmo is my baby! He is the kindest, sweetest little thing you could ever have as a dog! We don't even think of him as a dog, he's far too intelligent to be put under that genre :-P. Okay! Sometimes... he can be smart, most of the time, he's smart enough, in the "smart enough way" to ignore us when we call him, or demand him to do tricks... That's how clever he really is :-P.

We also had “HotRocks”, he was a little orange kitty cat, that my parents brought home one night, as a surprise. We kept him for quite a while actually but soon had to give him to my great grandmother as my allergies were still too bad. He went through a million different names, but in the end, the last name given was HotRocks, because of how he walked :-P… Like he was stepping on hot rocks.

We also had Fudge, my hamster, Fudge ran away once... You see, I woke up one cold school morning in Northern Ireland, to find that one of the tunnels that connected to the hamster cage had come off! I quickly ran to the cage on the other side of my bedroom, to find that there was no Fudge there! After searching my room from top to bottom, I was forced to give up and go to school.

When Venetia and I got home, the hunt began again, a few hours later Gizmo began to bark wildly at Venetia’s cupboard. We moved the furniture to get to it, and placed some hamster pebbles where there was a hole that the hamster could have gotten in to. After being quite for ten minutes and waiting patiently, Fudge slowly emerged. I caught him and returned him to his cage, the fall from his cage must have proved too much for him though, because a week or so later, he fell ill… DUN DUN DUNNNN!

No, honestly though…

We took him to the vet, and he told us that he’d have to put him down. I didn’t realise how much I was attached to Fudge until that day, I couldn’t stop crying on the way home.

Rascal… Now Rascal, my word, did he live up to his name! He was Venetia’s 16th birthday present. A couple of weeks before Venetia’s birthday, we were walking in a park, and suddenly my mom said “Would you like another Shih-Tzu puppy for your birthday?”. It was quite a shock, and suddenly everything just happened so quickly, we bought a “Buy & Sell” newspaper (Not sure if you get it in America… or any other country outside of the U.K. for that matter, it’s just like a newspaper full of ads, by people) and we’d found a woman that was selling what we were looking for.

Rascal - That day

We called her up and within half an hour we were on our way to see her. It’s always how we’ve done it, we just rush into buying pets :-P! Venetia chose Rascal and a few weeks later he was at home with us. He was the naughtiest little thing, that was just so hard to train! Gizmo was very tolerant with him, but eventually Rascal was just too much and we gave him to our great grandmother. Her husband had just passed away so he lifted up her spirits again ^_^. Rascal became very settled down with her, and now is a lovely dog.

Rascal... As The Rascal :-P

In Northern Ireland we also had two budgies. Bashful, was my little blue one. We called him Bashful because of his stance, how he tilted his head, made him seem very shy. Chirpy, was much more lively… and well… you guessed it, very noisy!! Sadly though, one morning, I came down stairs, at 11 o’clock to find… Bashful… he was lying on his back :-(… With his little feet sticking up in the air… Bashful had died!!! I was so upset, we made a little coffin and buried him in the back garden. A little while later Chirpy flew away… It’s not fair that I love animals sooo much but they just don’t seem to work out with me 0_o.

We also, I’m not sure if I’ve already told you, had chickens for a while. That was also a very quick decision… Well see, I’d been wanting them for a while, since we’d moved onto the farm. And one day my mom and Karen (my grandmother) took Venetia and I to this local petting zoo, sort of place… We had just gone to see if they sold them… but ended up bringing six home.

Coconut was mine, Liquorice was Venetia’s and then there was Phoenix, Tawny, Little Feather and Kaleidoscope. They were so cute! We brought them home in a box and put them in the little front room, for my dad to see… Of course none of us wanted to tell him that we’d just brought home six chickens, so we left it to my mom :-P. He was really cool with it in fact ^_^.

Liquorice!

I taught Coconut to run to me and jump into my arms… I miss her :-(. We gave them away after quite a long time of having them, they’d just started laying eggs as well. But because we had two roosters in the lot, and my sister’s bedroom was closest to the barn that we kept them in, there was quite a lot of complaining about being woken up at all hours of the morning by them… It seemed that they didn’t know when dawn was… I don’t think the sun comes up at three in the morning in winter in Northern Ireland…

But that’s not the reason we gave them away of course :-P. We were due to leave for Sicily soon after ^_^.

Coconut!

In my time of keeping animals, I’ve also had “Sea Monkeys” and “Triops” quite a few times. It’s incredible how fast they grow, and they’re a lot of fun to watch, Triops do not have three eyes like the box says though!! They lied -_-!

And then of course there’s Gadget! I’ve told you all about Gadget before but I have even more information on Bengal cats now! So apparently he’s going through a stage that Bengal cats go through called “The Fuzzy Uglies”. It means that they get little white tips on the end of their fur, which camouflages their colours more. That happens at about three weeks old, which is when they would start exploring more in the wild. It’ll pass at around four to nine months so their true colours will show through and their markings will become more defined, so Gadget will just keep getting more and more beautiful! The pictures were just taken with my webcam, I'll get more high-quality ones from my mom another time ^_^.

Aww Cute! See his markings now? I can just imagine how stunning he'll be when he's all grown up ^_^.

I want a lizard. This will be my next pet… I’m hoping so anyway! I just have this thing about them. I love them so much! I caught a baby one the size of my baby finger in the garden yesterday. I was going to keep him as a pet, but thought that it was cruel to take him out of the wild. My ideal lizard would have to be an African Gecko… or a Chameleon, now that would be cool! Never put a chameleon on a black background though! Apparently, they get so upset and angry that their sides split… and they more or less explode… Of course I don’t know if this is just a myth or not, will “Google” that and tell you next time… Oooh, something to look forward to :-P.
Eeek! I’m sorry that I wrote an essay for you guys to read -_-.

It's absolutely stunning weather here, but with stunning weather... comes the sun... and the sun, is at times, a little too much to take. So, thankfully, it's cooled down an awful lot since yesterday, and now I can go relax outside, instead of in front of my fan in my bedroom... Yay, outdoors!!!

- Bianca

In loving memory of Fudge, the hamster. (Even though I know he’s not extremely likely to read this :-P, it feels nice to put it there.)

Happy 1st birthday Kiss My Fishy!!!

Hey guys!

I’m sorry for the wait again! I always forget to write up a Kiss My Fishy blog and then realise a little down the “line” and think "Oh no!!! It's been "insert a long amount of time here" since I last wrote up a blog!!"... And it's like my online memory, so if I forget what I did, or in what order, VWOOP, up I bring it ^_^. Extremely handy :-).

My word, I have so much news since last week!! The Tuesday past is really where the news is… We had to wake up at five in the morning… I wasn’t even sure that this time EXSISTED ;-)! Apparently it does... And my parents just HAD to prove it to me... By waking me up at that time! Well see I actually agreed to waking up (provided that there was espresso!)… But that’s not the point!

You see, Charlie (the Irish visitor, which I wrote about in my last post), his flight was at eight, or some ghastly hour like that… So in order to have at LEAST two hours to get ready, it was necessary to be awake early and then the drive is a good hour into Carcassonne, like I said before.

Once we where there, we dropped Charlie off, and went straight to the deathly-empty castle grounds of Carcassonne. We were there by half past eight and walked around, thoroughly enjoying it, for four hours. By the time Gizmo had given up on his legs and had chosen just to be dragged everywhere, we decided to head home. But the day doesn’t end there! I fell asleep in the car, and was unbelievably cranky when I woke up… and hungry! Even if I did eat a couple of hours before…

Anyway, we stopped at a pet store to see if they would clip Gizmo’s nails. I have no idea what happened to me, but I suddenly lost all of my French, and couldn’t figure anything out! I’m guessing it was because I’d just come back to life from being in a dead sleep, and my body wasn’t quite ready for being thrown back into reality again.
Eventually I got the message across and Gizmo was making… some-what-like-a-angry-monkey-noises... Honestly! That dog can moan! Once the lady was done, and I had gotten my French back in order, I asked her if she knew of any places where we could find a kitten. She had no idea -_-.

You seeee, my parents had been talking about getting a kitten, since we found out that I was no longer allergic… or at least not allergic to Wilf and Gi-Gi’s cat Billy (they are the couple who came over for the barbeque in my post “Saturday… which actually felt like Sunday because of going out on Friday, the Friday which felt like a Saturday…”)… So yes! The search began…

When we arrived home, my mom checked the post and found that there were two ads in the English speaking-French paper (I know my dad’s going to make a pun out of that one -_- :-P) that suited us, so I called them, and actually understood half of the address! When I say half… I mean… I got us in the right area, and from there we knocked on doors and asked people if they knew a woman who was selling a little, white kitten… There was absolutely no mobile signal out in this little rural area, 20 minutes away from my little town, so I couldn’t even do my MAIN plan! This was telling the woman that we were opposite the graveyard. Could she please come find us?... Okay not exactly rocket science, but it would have made my life so much easier.

After being an hour late for the “rendezvous”, we were almost about to give up, but decided to give it one last shot! Knocking on the door sealed my fate… Out came an elderly woman, who was missing more teeth that any person should be missing… She was soon followed by a tired looking, grey-haired, stout, man, who was rather menacing, without a shirt on and his tan in the shape of a vest…

They were actually extremely nice; we asked them and the man, pointed towards the hill, mumbling to his wife. Soon the wife was making a box shape with her hands saying “veranda”, after repeating the movement a few times. She changed the subject, and asked if we were here on holiday or not. Five minutes later, we were back trekking up the hill to the little house, where we found, another elderly couple, who pointed us further up the hill.

There, was a woman in a hammock, I repeated the sentence about looking for the woman, and she replied with “C’est moi!” (It’s me!). Relief! She led us into her house and went into a back room where she brought out a little white kitten, and also a Bengal. I fell in love immediately, but we couldn’t decide which one would be best for Gizmo’s sake and the kittens’.

After choosing… and getting down the hill, we changed our minds, and did a quick swap. I think that the lady (who I still have not learnt the name of -_-) was actually upset, but I’d set my heart on the tiger one! Two weeks before we’d even chosen the kitten my parents had a name ready… “Gadget”! It doesn’t quite work in French though, so it takes a while to explain why Gadget is called Gadget (The reason… only because of Gizmo’s name ^_^). He is the most gorgeous little thing! On top he’s like a little tiger, except not orange more blacky-brown, (his nose is so adorable, it looks absolutely identical to that of a tiger cub) but when he rolls over onto his stomach he shows the colouring of a cheetah! I will be getting up some pictures of Gizmo and Gadget together soon!

They’re still a little bit weary of each other but over the past four days they’ve progressed immensely with not minding being around one another. Gadget will be three months old on the 8th of August, which means that he was born on the 8th of May. The same day as Venetia! Aww, he’s a Taurus!

I have another poem for you! This isn’t written exactly how I usually would write a poem (the story just popping into my head and me going with it) instead when Charlie was here, he gave me the first sentence and a half (The river danced its merry way and sang its happy song, A songbird soared on high) and I was supposed to finish the poem.

Two minutes later, I was done, and called Charlie back. Of course, since it was intending on being a happy, summer poem, he wasn’t impressed on how I’d twisted it around… I love it though!

It’s a story… I wouldn’t actually harm any creature, especially a songbird -_-. You just have to be open-minded when you read it ;-)! You see, the world just keeps going on, no matter what… That’s what it was intended to say anyway :-P.

************************************************
The river danced its merry way and sang its happy song,
A songbird soared on high, and then was shot on down,
The world turned grey, the night took over,
A child in the distance cried for his mother,
The war had began, the dust had lifted,
As the songbird slowly drifted,
Down below he hit the earth,
That was the sudden birth,
The shots rang out loudly,
And still the river swayed mildly.

By Bianca Cassandra P.
************************************************

Oh hey! I just noticed something that I can’t believe I didn’t notice on the right day!! Happy 1st birthday Kiss My Fishy!!! Yes, I posted the first Kiss My Fishy post up a whole year ago now, since 8th of July last year :-O… It’s hard to believe that it’s flown by so quickly! Since I didn’t make such a big fuss over this, I shall be sure to make a HUGE fuss over “My 50th and 100th Posts” :-P! Look forward to it ;-).

Okay! I think that I’m going to make some hot chocolate and then head off to bed. I’m extremely tired, so shall read through this tomorrow morning and make sure it makes enough sense then.

Hoping to hear from you guys soon!

- Bianca

ROCK ON!!!

Hey everyone!

I know it’s been a while since I’ve written, and now I feel especially bad that I neglected Kiss My Fishy this month. My mom checked how many hits it has had last night and it’s … Okay I can’t really remember but it’s fewer than 200, and above 100… That’s a lot for me :-).

So let’s dip into the news! Yesterday after spending a day in town with Venetia (my sister), we came home and played badminton on the patio with my mom and a visitor that’s over here from Ireland (will get around to Charlie in a few). It was an enjoyable “doubles” game, until DISASTER struck!!! As the badminton came hurtling down towards me, in its angel like way, I missed :-O… And it landed behind the chair… Okay not so exciting, I know… Not so gasp-able either (since I usually miss :-P).

See, I seemed to have failed to see the ever-so-mean-jutting-out-there-to-hurt-you corner of the chair, so as I bent over, eye only on the shuttle-cock, “GADOOF!”, straight into the chair. Forgetting completely about the badminton, I dropped my racket and held my eye as the pain struck. I did actually cry but I wasn’t whiney! It just seemed to be my reflexes that made my eyes suddenly gush with tears, although I controlled myself and Victoria Falls only lasted a few minutes :-P.

My sister… laughed. Venetia does that EVERY single time I get hurt… But it makes me laugh as well so it’s okay :-). And she doesn’t laugh because she’s mean, I think that’s also just her reflexes :-P… Yes, that’s right! Blame it all on the reflexes ;-)!

Straight away we were back to the game. I couldn’t let Charlie and Venetia win THAT easily… Of course, they still won though, when they beat us by reaching 21 first… twice… >.<.

My mom set to the medical work and after… many… many minutes of trying to clear all of my eye make-up off and having one butterfly stitch put on the small cut on my eyelid, I …
I’m sorry Venetia’s bothering me at the moment so I can’t seem to concentrate -.-.
I was fine again :-). Of course, I got “You wear too much make-up” from my mom, but of course I do. I’m a teenager, it’s appropriate to wear inappropriate amounts of make-up! :-)

Charlie even made me an eye-patch! Wooo! Heehee, will have to try get a picture of that on me :-P. I thought it would be a brilliantly clever idea to put ice on my eye to bring down the slight swelling… It just made my eyeball cold :-P.

Soiree DJ, which was on the 13th, was one of the coolest nights I’ve been to! Like I said in my post “”I-Have-No-Idea-What-You’re-Saying-To-Me-So-I’ll-Just-Smile-And- Nod”… Smiling and nodding doesn’t actually work by the way…”. “It was more of a teenage thing. Loud “tektonik” music (well, rave music), flashing lights… DJ’s and everything!”… Well of course there would have to be DJ’s but they should really get mentioned for being there either way :-P.

It was so great! It was extremely funny when we got there though, we met up with our friend Chloe and as Venetia pulled out her mobile to start recording, we looked up and two… semi-naked (this IS France you know :-P) woman that had started dancing on the stage. So Venetia quickly put her camera away again :-P.

We even bumped into some girls that we had met in “La Patinoire” (the ice-rink) but had spent time with at the previous night-music thing. That was the “Tektonik” one, which was brilliant as well, I think it was more for younger children, but it wasn’t time wasted :-).

Yes, so we hung out with “Camille” and “Anais” that night. The next day was “Bastille Day” which also happens to be Anais’ birthday!

Bastille Day was brilliant! We went to town and watched the half hour fireworks show, my mom got some amazing photos, and then we walked up to the “Place De Jean Jaures” (the centre), where they were having a “bal”, c’était magnifique! (It was magnificent!)… Again with the loud music, but live bands this time. A really enjoyable night :-).

Yes, so those were the most exciting things happening this month in my little town. Vivement 2009! I can’t wait for 2009! :-P

I can’t believe that we’re already coming up to August. The summer has just flown past. It’s only 7 more week-ends until the ice-rink opens, which is really bizarre for me! I thought that I’d never be able to get through summer without it… Now I think it’ll be strange when it re-opens :-P. But never-the-less looking forward to it unbelievably!! Try get my crossovers back on TRACK… Heehee, sorry it’s been a while since I made a not-so-funny pun :-).

Ahh, now back to Charlie! On the Wednesday just past, we set out on the hour and a little bit long trip to Carcassone. To drop off my grandmother (Karen), who’d been living with us for two months, but has now set off back to England. Charlie was supposed to arrive 10 minutes later, but of course, being any visitor coming to us, his plane decided to be a good hour late. So we just hung out and had lunch. Eventually Charlie arrived. It was so great to see him after a year and five months of being out of Ireland.

Oh! You know what else happened! So a couple of days into Charlie being here, he said that I had an American accent, of course I didn’t believe him, retorting that it was a very colonial accent. But yesterday, I stopped in “Glup’s” to talk to two English girls that were here on holiday. Explaining that I don’t get to speak to many English-speaking people, and that it’s a nice relief from battling with French all of the time… After I told them that I had lived in Ireland before France, one of their jaws actually dropped and she said “You sound American!”. My poor accent’s so confused with the Zimbabwean, and Southern Irish, and Northern Irish, and Sicilian, and French…

I don’t mind of course! But I would love to just have an accent that people can tell where I’m from… Then again, I guess that’s not so mysterious :-P.

Oh hey! I drew my first hand the other day! So I’m about to photocopy that in. It’s a ROCK ON (Yes, it deserves capital letters :-P) hand. Oh! I was looking through all of my poems because I was 100% sure that I’d written a new one, but couldn’t find it anywhere, then realised that it might still be in my cupboard. It was there, on a crumpled piece of paper, so about to write it up :-). I hope you guys enjoy it, it has a twist at the end :-). I just realised that I have more drawings that I’ve yet to put up!

************************************************
Shoot me in the head,
Knock me down once,
I’d never began living,
And now I’m gone,
My life never flashed,
As all of my systems crashed,
I lay there silently,
Feeling my heart pounding,
That warmth of the blood,
In my ears, from my mouth,
Rising higher and higher,
The pain came rushing,
I felt, I had hit the ground,
From being thrown out of a high-rise building,
Then all went silent, peaceful, black,
As I left, my body spasmed,
There was no place in this world,
For a manic depressant,
No! I was wrong,
Dear God, what on Earth, had I done?!

By Bianca Cassandra P.

************************************************

Okay, I’m going to go enjoy my Sunday in the sun now. Hoping to hear from you guys soon!

- Bianca

Saturday… which actually felt like Sunday because of going out on Friday, the Friday which felt like a Saturday…

Hey everyone!

Okay, so over the past three days I’ve actually been busy doing… okay well I wouldn’t say busy but I’ve been enjoying summer to it’s fullest!!

On Friday (Yes Friday, I know! Aren’t the holidays just the best :-P) Venetia and I met up in town with three of our French (I have to stop categorising them under “French”… what other type of Friends would I be going out with over here /: ) friends and we walked to a studio sort of place. Where we met a friend of Adelyne’s (Melanie the drummer), and there we “jammed”. It was so much fun!

Usually I’m extremely shy about my voice but this time, I just thought, Aww what the heck! And sang for a bit, of course I didn’t want to play the band’s music on my guitar… I haven’t really practised improvising… Can you practise improvisation /:-S? Anyhoo, yes I’ve never improvised, so decided to leave that to the other guitarist there :-P. Then we went back to town, and all in all it was great! Finally making friends here ^_^.

The following day, Saturday… which actually felt like Sunday because of going out on Friday, the Friday which felt like a Saturday… So on the “real” Saturday Venetia and I met up with a friend and went to the outdoor swimming pool! Extremely confusing, since I’ve never been to an outdoor public pool in my life.

It was quite fun actually, although I put my body through shock. See we went straight outside and jumped into that pool, I thought it was an alright temperature but half an hour to an hour later when we decided to head on inside, and I bombed into that pool, I was shocked by the temperature, I thought I was going to die of the heat! So was soon back outside again… which I soon regretted :-P… Everything felt so much colder than it had been before, because now my body had warmed up >.<. Even worse! The clouds had decided to just come over and smother the sunshine up! I decided to just brace myself for it though, I had lived in Ireland for most of my life anyway! What’s another few minutes of shivers and shakes? :-P

On Sunday, the Sunday which really should have been Monday, but wasn’t, we had a barbeque in the rain :-P. Living in South-West France and all, we had sort of just expected the weather to be top-notch like always… We’ve been taking the weather for granted recently! But the barbeque was so much fun and the lovely couple we know here, who we’d invited and who’d driven two hours to get to us, had seemed to have a great time, so all was good. It was brilliant to get to practise my French, without getting flustered. And I even learnt quite a few interesting phrases :-P. The weather hasn’t improved much, but by “Meteo France” it shall be 23 degrees in my little town tomorrow :-). Vive la France! Today I actually feel like doing a bit of work, so going to practice my guitar and “maybe”, emphasise on the maybe, learn more French words :-P. Hoping to hear from you guys soon!

- Bianca

“I-Have-No-Idea-What-You’re-Saying-To-Me-So-I’ll-Just-Smile-And-Nod"... Smiling and nodding doesn't actually work by the way...

Hey Everyone!

Okay, I know it’s been a while since I wrote but now I actually have news ^_^... New art and a poem! Last Saturday, was ”LA FETE DE LA MUSIQUE” (THE MUSIC FESTIVAL)... It deserves caps lock :-P. So in my little town, there were bands set up everywhere! So at half past eight, we all set down there, and it was absolutely brilliant!! Music, and people everywhere, even a French Tribute Band to AC/DC! Have to say that was my favourite set up, the loud grumbling music running through your veins, flashing lights, roaring crowd, lovely weather, can't get any better than that :-P... So yes, evidently I enjoyed it very much.

The next Music related thing happening in my little town is on the 13th of July, so will definitely be there. It’s more of a teenage thing, I think. Loud “tektonik” music, flashing lights again… DJ’s and everything! I’m not used to these sorts of things happening so it’s extremely exciting for me when they do :-P.

After being in France for a year, a month and 5 days, I think that I’m finally getting the jest of the language, honestly, the day before yesterday, my mom realised something was wrong with the car engine, and thought it may have been the oil. Then I had a whole, complex conversation, with a French person that we know, about it… In… would you believe it… FRENCH!! :-P

I even surprised myself about how much I could understand… of course there were still those moments of “I-Have-No-Idea-What-You’re-Saying-To-Me-So-I’ll-Just-Smile-And-Nod”… Smiling and nodding doesn’t actually work by the way… Well it never works for me anyway… it’s mainly because of the reason that my body won’t do these movements and prefers to get a rigid look of “Oh-Dear-Gods-Over-Load-Of-Confusion” and I end up with my eyebrows looking all sad and worried, my eyes the size of the moon (I love that song… although Venetia finds it creepy…), my teeth clenched, so the words “Je n’ai pas vraiment saisi ce point” (I didn’t quite catch that), never seem to pass through my lips… No matter how many times I practice it… or the person whom I’m speaking with will just go off speaking at a hundred miles an hour again, and then, I’ll realise, oh well, it couldn’t have been that important… Right? /:(

The absolute worst though, is when you really didn’t understand the person, and then they’ll ask you to translate… Or you happened to be daydreaming for those 5 minutes that you know you REALLY should have been listening, then they’ll look at you, as if expecting a reply, and everything goes silent… This is usually the time to smile and nod, and if that doesn’t work, find something to fixate on, and start talking about that… It usually works, especially if it’s a compliment to the person. **

**If it’s something about the person, try not to fixate too much on it… This will only lead to creeping people out.

Once you really get the hang of all that, it’s usually fine to say that you’re getting the jest of the language… Until once more, you’re asked to translate and you turn to the person closest (the one who’s awaiting the translation of course) and instead of translating you smile and nod and say “I have no idea”… and use your hands as if making some real point. Look back to the French-speaker and then look expectantly, as if, okay now I’m waiting for a response from you.

The best plan though, if you want to practice your French, is simply to tell the French person/ people “Je dois reviser mon Francais” (I must practice my French)… Then begin to ramble on in French, I’ve found that it doesn’t matter what you say, as long as you keep going without a break, for them to respond in French, then it feels like you’re really breezing along in the language.

Although the other day, we were promenading, and walked past one of the lovely neighbours on our street, and my dad said “Bonsoir!”, she beckoned us into her garden, down the back, squeezing past her car, and then to a cherry-filled tree, it had a much larger percentage of cherries on it than our tree did at the time, I’m guessing because my grandmother hadn’t been at that tree yet :-P.

Yes so she told my dad to put the ladder up under the cherry tree and then gave us two shopping bags, and told us to fill them. I thought that we were being extremely intrusive so I just stood there randomly, and then had a conversation with her, of which I decided to do the “I’ll-Be-The-Only-One-Talking” conversation… And so the rambling began… BIG mistake, without thinking I said “Je ne sais pas ce que je dois dire parce que je n’ai pas beaucoup à dire” (I don’t know what I must say because I don’t have very much to say). Afterwards I thought, Oh nooo, how could I say that!!?

So yes, perhaps the rambling French isn’t one of the best ideas… But she didn’t seem offended, and is very nice. I really HAVE to watch more French television, I have a problem with the listening of French, hence, I get overly flustered when people reply :-P.

So that was your “How To Speak French” lesson for today :-P. Now to the poetry!! When I write a poem, I’ll think about a short story, that I know will never be long enough to write as a book, and that I know, if I did make it long enough, I would be far too lazy to write it :-P. So here’s a poem that I wrote in 10 minutes last night.

************************************************
It was a thundering night,
You were quite a sight,
As the doors flew open,
And you made your way in,
You were wearing black and red,
Who knew you would leave so many dead,
You pulled out a gun,
Everyone threw up their hands, as if to a glaring sun,
But nothing we could say would change,
The happenings that had made you go insane,
You came for her, and only her,
As she curled up like a baby on the floor,
You whipped her up, and made her pay,
Who would have though it would be her final day,
Before you pulled the trigger, one last time,
You decided everyone must have done a crime,
The yells and the cries,
How could you have ruined all of those lives,
Finally you turned it on yourself,
You’d never had glory, or even wealth,
She was your life,
Suddenly a wayward wife,
Her fate was sealed,
When she started playing the field.

By Bianca Cassandra P.

************************************************
And another one I wrote a couple of weeks ago, it even has two whole words of French in it!! :-P. Usually I don’t name my poems, but this time I have, because it just goes :-P.

************************************************
Reserved
I’m keeping this place,
I’m keeping this table,
Keeping them for you,
You’ll have a spot,
Always in my heart,
No matter what you do,
Reserving this space,
Expecting your face,
To come smiling around that corner,
Sitting here on my own,
Just another late one?
It’s always what I wonder,
‘Cause you know that my heart is reserved,
Unnaturally curved,
I’ve been waiting so long,
My heart wants a new song,
But even so, still I’m here,
Waiting for you, mon cheri, my dear,
My soul scorns,
My heart burns,
I’ll continue reserving it for you,
Holding my phone,
Expecting you to come,
Every day, this is what I do,
Every day I wait,
Repeating “He’s just late”,
“No, this seat is taken, I’m sorry”,
I’m beginning to worry…
You don’t even know,
Maybe it’ll be easier just to let go
But no,
I’ll reserve this place,
I’ll wait here forever,
Although you’ll know this never.

By Bianca Cassandra P.

************************************************
A couple of weeks ago I drew this tiger, and he’s now one of my favourite art pieces, even if he did only take an hour and a half to draw :-P. And yesterday I also drew a picture of the “Me To You” bears for a friend of mine in Ireland :-), Kirsty!! I think it is the cutest picture ever :-P. Oh I’m so modest ;-).

If you’re new to the site, remember to scroll at the way down to the bottom and click “Older Posts” and keep doing this until you come to the very first “Kiss My Fishy” post. I just realised how long this post is, and that I should really get back to French. Shall post soon! Don’t forget to kiss the fish on your next fishing excursion… And get pictures!! And then send the pictures into me at kissmyfishy@gmail.com :-P.

Hope to hear from you guys soon!

- Bianca

P.S. If you have a short story (a paragraph or two) and want me to write a poem about it, just send it to my e-mail, and I'd be more than happy to :-).