Enjoying London's Cat Cafe

Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium opened up earlier this year and we have finally been to visit - if you're a cat lover you will adore this place, if you're not, then this may be your worst nightmare.  It's not far from Shoreditch Overground Station, and about a 20 minute walk (fast walking) from Liverpool Street Station.  When you approach the front of the café you are greeted by at least one cat asleep in the window, which straight away makes you realise that these cats are very contented as there is nothing more lovely than a sleeping cat.

 

When you enter the cat emporium you are shown into a holding area, and everyone has to wash their hands before they enter in order to protect the cats from outside germs.  All the inhabitants are rescue cats - there are 11 in total, and I hope you'll see from the photos that they are very happy in their world which us humans enter for a while to absorb some of their feline contentment.

 All throughout the cafe there are lots of hiding spots for the cats and lots of high up places for them to survey their measly servants from.  I would love to have a home where I could put cat shelves up for our two brats.

The furniture is really eclectic and you're welcome to move around whilst you're there so as to say hello to the kitties.  Rules of the establishment are that you can't pick up the cats, and not to wake them if they're sleeping, which again shows that they're well looked after.

The food was lovely, and a bit like the furniture the crockery was vintage and gorgeous.  We had bagels to eat and then my beloved indulged in a piece of red velvet cake - without asking the waitress brought us two forks, so I had to help him eat it.

All throughout the emporium there are lots of things for the cats to play with, and lots of places for them to hide.  I would have loved to see one of them on the giant wheel whilst there, but maybe another time.  Notice that the chair has a tail coming out the back of it - it does amuse me how cats if they can't see you think that we can't see them.

These two are brothers and were having the sort of standoff that our two have - must be a sibling thing.

I would really recommend a visit to the cat emporium, it's really lovely and it's quite amusing seeing lots of grown adults waving string and cat toys around to try and grab some attention from the regal pussy cats.

The entrance to the cats hidely holes have frames around them which leads to great pictures


We spent two hours with the cats and then we took a leisurely walk back to Liverpool Street Station, taking in all the sights of the area that you see at 9pm in London.  The area around Shoreditch High Street Staion is a really happening place and there were people everywhere.

Group performing in the street

One thing about the area that we loved is all the street art - we will definitely have to go back in the daylight hours to check more of it out.

As we walked towards the station we had a great view of the Gherkin lit up in the London skyline.

This is a lovely statue in the station to commemorate the Kindertransport - when Jewish children were evacuated from Europe to Britain

London is such a great city and you can never get bored - there is always something new to see and do.  We hope that you've enjoyed seeing the cat café, and if you're ever in the area make sure that you try and visit.

Reflected selfie on the tube home

Until next time, be good, keep smiling, and do something nice for another person.

Pamela & Ken
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P.S: Photo that Ken took of Princess Cookie sleeping on Bertie Boo's bed with his toys.

Farewell to our Bertie Boo

This is the blog post I really didn't want to write, hence the lack of posts over the last two weeks, but it is time to share.

Last Saturday we said goodbye to our gorgeous Bertie - for those of you who may not have read any other posts, Bertie was our beautiful Springer Spaniel who was twelve and a half.  This post is to tell you about an amazing little dog and to say farewell.

Bertie came into our lives in January 2004 when he became Ken's MOD Police search dog - and then became part of our family.

I'd never had a dog before so was a little bit nervous when Ken brought him home, and lets just say considering our cats are confined to the flat they managed to hide for 24 hours.  I needn't have had any concerns, as Bertie turned out to be a gentle soul that could make anyone fall in love with dogs.  He never once annoyed the cats, even though they occasionally boxed him on the nose to remind him that they were in charge.

Bertie was a great work colleague to my beloved, working as an explosives sniffer dog until he was nine years old.  He then retired and became our dog officially, which was a very happy day.  We've been on lots of holidays as a threesome and Bertie got to swim in lots of different areas of the UK.

Cornwall

Whitstable

Yorkshire

He was a lovely cuddly dog and such an important part of the last 10 years of our lives so I wanted to share a few of our favourite shots of Bertie Boo.

Eating a pigs ear which was one of his favourite treats

Our lovely vet Reena came to the flat last Saturday to help Bertie with the assistance of nurse Anna - there wasn't a dry eye in the room as he left us.  Ken stroked him whilst I held his paw - it was as lovely as the death of a loved one could be.

We miss him dreadfully and will for a very long time - the flat feels very empty and the cats aren't quite sure what's going on.

So farewell our Bertie Boo - we love you and we will miss you always.

Pamela & Ken

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