the pot rescue march! used to do this every october with my mum, we'd have so many pots in the kitchen you couldn't boil a kettle. the fuchsia sulking in the sunbeam is peak drama, ginger's gonna hold a grudge till spring :D

soil crumbs on the floorboards is gonna be a thing till april. tip: get a boot tray or an old baking sheet for the pots, saves you chasing dirt with the hoover every week. the torch on the carpet though, that's a tripping hazard waiting to happen

the baking sheet idea is actually genius, i've been meaning to do something about the trail of dirt but every time i look at the floor the fuchsia has drooped further and i forget. marmalade has now moved to sit directly on top of the rosemary pot and i don't have the heart to move him

ginger is going to stage a protest, mark my words. cats and their sunbeams! we had a cat growing up who'd sit in the exact same square of light every afternoon and if you moved the chair he'd just sit where it had been looking offended

ginger is already doing the slow blink of a cat planning something. she's sat on the duvet staring at the fuchsia like it personally wronged her.

marmalade on the rosemary is staying put though, i went to check and he's got his eyes closed looking extremely pleased with himself. the soil situation is dire, i've found it in my slippers.

slippers is the tell, once it's in the slippers you've lost. tray works but an old doormat does the same job and you can shake it out over the bin. i've got one in the garage under the pots and the floor's stayed halfway decent. ginger's gonna test the wobbliest pot eventually, they always go for the tippy one first

my mum's fuchsia used to come in every single year and sit on the airing cupboard shelf sulking till about march, same face as the one in your photo :D it never forgave her for the move. by feb she'd bring it back out for one week of sunshine and back in it went

long time lurker, first post. my flat is basically a jungle by november too. does the soil just travel? i find crumbs in places that make no physical sense, like the inside of the kettle cupboard. i keep a dustpan and brush by the door now like a tiny plant butler

ginger would never physically touch anything, she's all psychological warfare - the slow blink, the staring, the sitting where the sunbeam used to be with her back to everyone. marmalade though has already flattened the thyme twice so the wobbly pot testing is being handled by him

soil in the kettle cupboard is classic, it gets picked up on paws and then they sit on the worktop and it just falls off. marmalade sitting on the rosemary like a little green throne is the best thing ive read all week :D

took the pots in and out at the crew house once a year on the crossing, same routine... you learn which pots are top heavy and which ones arent. a tray saves your back more than anything else, bending down after soil every day gets old fast...

> soil in the kettle cupboard

that's not soil travelling, that's evidence of transport. the question is who, and ginger's alibi of 'psychological warfare only' is doing a lot of heavy lifting

ginger's alibi is doing a lot of heavy lifting because it's TRUE. she has never touched a pot in her life, she just watches you move them and judges. marmalade on the other hand is the prime suspect in every crime that happens in this flat and he knows it, he does that face when he's knocked something off the shelf and you can't even be annoyed

> like border control

ginger passes because she never leaves the duvet. marmalade is the sole suspect with means, opportunity and a documented history of flattening the thyme. case is basically closed, fern just doesn't want to prosecute

i am NOT prosecuting my own cat. the thyme was already leaning, that's his defence and he's sticking to it. he's on the rosemary again now, purring like he owns the place, and honestly with the heating on and the fuchsia sulking in the corner it does feel like the whole flat has gone slightly feral for winter

marmalade on the rosemary, ginger on the duvet, fern with soil in her slippers - that's the full winter cast right there :D my nan's cat used to do the face too, knock a tin off the windowsill, look at you like YOU dropped it, then walk away. they know exactly what they've done

if marmalade's on the rosemary full time by december that plant's not making it to spring. i'd move the top heavy ones to a shelf he can't get at and leave him the thyme as a sacrificial offering. also fern, pick the torch up off the carpet before you step on it in the dark at 2am, i've seen what a torch underfoot does to a knee

the thyme as a sacrificial offering is genuinely what's happening already, it's basically a cat toy with a herb attached. i've moved the torch onto the windowsill above the pots so now it's a lighting rig for the fuchsia. ginger hasn't blinked once, she's still staring. i think she's keeping a list

welcome back to indoor season everyone. the doormat tip is good, i've been using an old baking tray like gearhead said and it works but it looks like a prisoner transfer for plants. anyone else's rosemary smell amazing and then you notice it's because the cat's been sat in it

she's keeping a list, i'm sure of it. i moved the rosemary two inches left last night and she tracked the whole thing with her eyes then went back to staring at the fuchsia. the fuchsia hasn't moved a leaf in three days, it's just sulking in the corner like it's been personally exiled. marmalade is currently asleep in the thyme and the thyme is flat again. i've accepted my fate.

> fern (No.14885): i think she's keeping a list

a list is a log. ginger has a log. i have a log. the difference is mine has timestamps. i'll add a column for 'fuchsia gaze duration' if anyone wants to compare.

we used to do the same with the crew house pots once a year, in and out with the seasons... never met a fuchsia that took the move well, they sulk something chronic. my advice is a couple of bricks under the heavy ones so they're not sat dead level on the boards, saves a lot of scrambling after terracotta at midnight...

my nan's rubber plant used to lean toward whoever was talking to it, so ginger tracking every move of the fuchsia tracks perfectly :D that poor plant never stood a chance either, she'd have it leaning by christmas just from the sheer force of the stare

> i've accepted my fate.

fern has entered the accomplice phase of the investigation. also, a list without timestamps is just a stare. i'll hold ginger to the same standard i hold everyone else here, and that standard is: document or it didn't happen

a brick under each heavy pot, one per corner if they're wide... we did it at the crew house so the pots sat up off the boards and you could get your fingers under them for a lift... keeps the terracotta from going green on the underside too... and it stops the cat rocking it quite so easy, an off-level pot is a wobbly pot and cats lose interest in those quick...

the torch turned into a lighting rig for the fuchsia is my favourite bit of this whole thread :D i've got a couple of old torches on the gadget shelf by the front door, one of them still has the yellowed plastic from the 90s and the beam is about as strong as a candle but you can't bring yourself to bin it. tell marmalade the thyme sacrifice is accepted and the case is closed