A cat that disappeared in 1997 has now been reunited with her owner ten years after she went missing. Lynx turned up at an animal sanctuary 60 miles away from her home. The animal sanctuary was able to track down her owner because Lynx had been micro chipped.

This chicken is raising three ducklings as her own after the eggs were abandoned by their natural mother. The duck who laid the eggs gave up incubating them after 21 days and the hen took over. She is now busy teaching them how to be chickens including how to scratch around for food.

This odd looking fruit is a Rambutan. I came across it in Tesco the other day and thought I would try it. From Thailand it’s a rather difficult fruit to get into but once you have peeled off the spiky outer skin it’s much the same as a lychee only bigger and perhaps a little sweeter.

Tesco have announced its latest step in their move towards world domination, not content with being the biggest supermarket in the UK, they have now decided to move into the property market. Their property sales service will let sellers list their homes on a Tesco website for a fee of £200. Sellers will also get a Tesco branded for sale sign to put outside their house. The idea is that the website will be for private sellers and Tesco say it will save them money and is a real alternative to instructing an agent. It will be interesting to see if there are any hidden fees when its launched.

This little guy is called Eclyse. He gets his interesting colour because his father is a zebra and his mother a horse. His mother apparantly took a shine to a male zebra whilst on vacation and this is the result. What amazing markings.

I came across this article which looks at how cats became domesticated. It suggests that cats actually domesticated themselves because being near people they were never short on food. The association between people and cats appears to stem from the fact that cats fed on the rodents that fed on the grain stored by people. Eventually some cats became tolerant of human contact and these cats found that rewards such a bowl of milk or a dry place to sleep came as a result of being close to people. These cats then began to breed in larger numbers because more kittens survived. The article makes for interesting reading. So basically the conclusion is my cats love me because I feed them, tell me something I didn't know.

A man at a Premier Travel Inn in Tonbridge made sure he got a good breakfast for his money. He paid for the "all you can eat" breakfast which costs £7.50. After managing to eat 15 fried breakfasts, thats an amazing 30 sausages, 20 rashers of bacon, 15 fried eggs and three tins of beans, he still found room to eat six bowls of cereal.

A librarian in Cheshire had a shock when she found a Black Widow in a bunch of grapes. The grapes had been purchased at a Tesco Express store which later called in the exterminators to check the premises. A Tesco representative said that finding one of these spiders is "a rare occurrence".

If you read my husband's blog you will know that our wheelie bin was stolen a few months ago. Bearing this in mind I found this article interesting. A wheelie bin which belongs to Peterborough City Council apparently turned up 1,200 miles away in Bulgaria. The bin was spotted by a council employee whilst she was on holiday. She was surprised to see the council's logo clearly in place. It makes me wonder where my bin ended up. Perhaps it is also sunning itself on a beach 1000 miles away.

I read this article about five kittens that were left to die in a bin. Due to the heavy rain the bin had filled with water and the poor things were left struggling to survive as the water got higher. The weakest of the kittens had lost their fight for survival and died before anyone found them; the other three were found desperately trying to stay afloat.

It always makes me so angry to read an article like this, in my opinion if you are responsible pet owner and you don’t want any kittens, you get your cat neutered. There should be no excuse for unwanted kittens. It strikes me that some people in today’s society need may need further education before they should be allowed to own an animal. Just as there is no excuse for having unwanted kittens, there is also no excuse for treating an animal like a piece of rubbish. Kittens never stay at animal shelters for long and I’m sure the three surviving kittens will soon find a loving home, its just a shame that a callous person caused the death of their siblings with needless cruelty. 

The three surviving kittens.

Its getting to that time of year when cat owners like myself need to start thinking about flea control. Fleas can be a real nuisance especially in a multi-cat household. With four cats if one cat gets fleas, then soon the whole house is infested. I usually find that prevention is better than cure, if at all possible. I am careful to change my cats flea collars every few months and so far we have been flea free for nearly two years, fingers crossed.

However, with pets it’s inevitable you will have to deal with fleas at some point. I found this useful website called fleascontrol.com that has a flea control guide to help you get rid of annoying fleas. The website has useful tips on what remedies work such as flea collars for prevention and flea shampoo and powder for tackling the problem. It also has useful information for removing fleas from the home to try and prevent further outbreaks.

An army of rubber ducks, blue turtles and green frogs is on its way to Britain. The 29,000 plastic toys broke free from a cargo ship 15 years ago and since then have been floating around Australia, Indonesia and South America. Now they are heading here and are expected to turn up in Cornwall.

I read this article about Aldo who is a pygmy hippo. He has just been born at a zoo in Paris and is one of only a few dozen pygmy hippos in Europe. Aldo was born as a result of a breeding program to try and increase numbers of the pygmy hippo in Europe.

A group of researchers are going on an expedition to try and find Bigfoot. They will visit Michigan and meet local people who claim to have seen Bigfoot with the aim of finding out whether he does, in fact exist.

I read this story about a kitten that got trapped in a toilet after it crawled inside to explore. Fire Fighters had to remove the toilet to rescue the kitten from inside the U-bend. We are always very careful to put all the toilet seats down in our house, mainly because Oscar likes to stick his paws in water and could easily fall in and get stuck. This little kitten was very lucky; I hope he learnt that toilets are not good hiding places.

I came across this article about a new hospital in Omagh. A public consultation is being held to discuss whether the hospital will be built on a graveyard. If plans go ahead then hundreds of bodies will need to be exhumed. Don't these people watch horror movies? The first rule is never build your hospital or new house on a graveyard.

Rory still has tooth ache, so is still on a diet of soup. I made a surprisingly good batch of carrot and orange soup. Basically you just boil some carrots and onions with some chicken stock, until they are soft. Then put in the blender with some freshly squeezed orange juice and blend it until it’s smooth. Lastly just reheat it. 

It’s our first wedding anniversary today and we had planned to go out for a meal tonight to celebrate. Unfortunately my husband has tooth ache and can only eat soup so it looks like we will have to postpone it to another day. He did, however, surprise me this morning with an iPod nano, which being my first iPod, I am having a great deal of fun playing with.

My cat Oscar has always suffered from runny eyes ever since we got him form the rescue centre nearly three years ago. Unfortunately the vet has said Oscar will always have the problem and there is nothing they can do to correct it. Oscar is such a happy cat, he is always pouncing on things and he is very affectionate, despite his eye problem. He does, however, get very moody when his eyes need cleaning. As you can see from the picture Oscar has runny eyes and is feeling very sorry for himself. A simple wipe of his eyes with the soothing eye wipes from the pet store or a clean tissue and Oscar is his usual happy self and back to pouncing.

I read this interesting story about a lake in Southern Chile which has suddenly disappeared. The lake was about the size of 10 football pitches and the area where it used to be is now completely dry. One theory is that an earth tremor caused the lake to drain away.

I came across this website for the World's Ugliest Dog contest. You can vote online for who you think should win. This little guy is called Elwood and he sure is ugly.