Our Second Day In Southend-On-Sea,

the highlight of the week, a visit to a cat café and snow!

we booked out of our hotel,

and started down to the Beach Road,

but first a look at the pier,

and our hotel, it was bitterly cold, so much so that in the lift Diana put on an extra layer of clothing, I just wish I had an extra layer too!

down at sea level where the pier begins there are a few containers,

we started our walk along the front,

it was so windy,

although the day was clear,

a quick pose,

and a panorama,

looking along the coast,

"I see no ships!",

we were by now convinced it was not raining but snowing!

we passed one of the jetties which I guess is used at high tide,

a lonely crow looking for a meal, I had forgotten the peanuts,

one thing about the front here,

there are so many amusement arcades,

we looked in here for a refrigerator magnet,

but no luck, lots of magnets, but none with the pier on, still the balls and Diana added a nice touch of colour to what was a grey scene,

in the far distance the end of the pier,

and further out still some wind turbines, the sky really grey now,

as a strong wind started up,

we gave the cheese and LEGO blocks a miss,

it really was way too cold for a run,

through the dancing water feature,

in the distance the Kersaal,

it is a Grade II listed building in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England, which opened in 1901 as part of one of the world's first purpose-built amusement parks. The venue is noted for the main building with distinctive dome, designed by Campbell Sherrin, which as it happens featured on a Royal Mail special edition stamp, and if you look very carefully you can see the snow!

and here is a short video Diana made of it,

I was thinking of some cockles and whelks for breakfast, but we would soon be eating,

due to I guess the cold, wet, windy and snowy conditions we almost had the High Street to ourselves,

this is where we were heading Queen's Road,

no not to the LEGO shop with a full size Yoda outside,

or the pie and mash shop,

we were headed to this cat café,

the Kittea Cakes Cafe,

we had booked a place just before lunch,

as many of our friends and readers know we really do miss our cats we had when we lived in Thailand,

and today welcome to the cats,

we entered into a cat paradise,

we were soon greeted,

Diana straight away,

became the center of attention,

it was so tricky,

playing with the cats and videoing at the same time,

I just sat there,

enjoying watching Diana, the cats and sipping my coffee,

Diana really was in seventh heaven,

as so many of the cats joined in,

but not all of them,

two of them settled down beside me,

their attention focused on the pigeons outside,

breakfast, the café serves a number of snacks hot or cold,

time to stop playing and tuck in,

I had the attention of Candy,

whilst the others played,

or slept,

I realised that my choice of sandwich filling in a cat café,

of tuna might not have been the best choice, I was soon the star attraction!

the sign on the wall says it all,

we were really enjoying ourselves so much,

as were the cats, it was great to see them all so happy as were the staff that looked after us,

in fact what a purrrrfect job!

here are a couple of videos,

that Diana made,

and one I made on my camera, great fun was had by all!

and then we saw the Bengal,

he so much reminded us of ours, in case you do not know them here they are,

Cable,

Houge, 

and Mariana, although she was not a Bengal, she was having a sleep on one of the speakers,

and here they all are, looking at birds in the garden,

here are a few videos,

of them at play,

they had their own room, complete with a huge cat tower and pool with a fountain,

they all just loved playing in the water,

and going for walkies, if you want to see more of the cats just go to our home page and at the top in the search box type in Cable or Houge or Mariana, back to Southend, the café has its own web site and Facebook page if you want to pay a visit, I hope you do, we really enjoyed ours,

all to soon it was time to say goodbye to the cats as we made our way back to the station, shopping on the way,

naturally,

we were soon thundering towards London,

out of the train at Fenchurch Street,

and the walk to Tower Hill,

where it was time for a pose,

before taking the Underground to Victoria,

several stops later and we were walking into the park and home, after our evening meal I made a started on resizing the photographs and posting the blog, which I finally finished on Friday afternoon, back to the evening,

 we watched The Coldest Game, which was very enjoyable, the film centers around the Cuban crisis and a world chess championship game, with a few nice unexpected twists in the tale, one from New Tricks and we were off to bed,