The turning of the year

It transpires that when the family isn't here... nothing happens. Well, Christmas happened, and that was perfectly pleasant even with just Mr Life and me - or it was for most of the day. By the evening I was feeling rather unwell and spent the next day intermittently throwing up. I can't imagine that it was anything I ate - we had the same, except that when he had turkey and the trimmings, I had marinated tofu and a few of the previous day's baked beans. Yes, fine dining. I was just cooking the vegetables in the final run-up to dishing up his meal when it occurred to me that I hadn't done anything for myself, so I looked in the freezer and there were the marinated tofu pieces, which I microwaved with the beans. Should you ever come to a meal, please be assured that I'll try harder for you.  I'm not very interested in food; I mean, I quite like eating (as you can see when you look at me, alas) but never feel it a subject worth giving much thought to when it comes to my own food. People often ask vegetarians what they eat and I try to think of an interesting answer, when the truth is often an omelette. And lots of vegetables.

So possibly someone had sneezed on the tofu pieces in the factory - I threw out the rest of the packet, just in case - but I suspect it was just a bug, which I'm happy to say I didn't pass on to the old chap. Or not yet... .

We blame this for what happened last night. I sat down at the computer about 9.30 pm to write a letter to my aunt, glanced at the date on the screen and realised that it was our wedding anniversary. Oops. Forty-four years married and we both forgot (for the first time ever, I'd like to point out). To do him justice, Mr L was able to produce both a previously-written card and a wrapped little gift, whereas I ... um... I did look at cards a few weeks ago and none of them seemed right. Plenty of time, I thought. Sorry dear!

So we walked up town today and had a coffee to celebrate. He even had a brownie but I'm still feeling very slightly delicate.

We watched the passing throng, many of them wheeling suitcases, and wondered again why people come here in December. I mean, it was a nice day, if a trifle chilly. But June, people! Long, long days! The chance to take your jacket off! The opportunity to let the warm breeze riffle your hair, the sun kiss your upturned, unfrozen face! Just saying.

I'm writing to my aunt a lot because, sad to say, someone knocked her over with their shopping trolley in the supermarket at the end of November and broke her hip. This is the 93-year-old (or, she will be on January 1) who lives in Norfolk and who was up till that point in very good nick. Now, alas, though she's had a partial hip replacement, she can walk only a few steps, with considerable pain, and the painkillers are making her sick so that she's not keeping food down. We went to see her while we were at Daughter 2's before Christmas but Norfolk is a long way from Edinburgh. Fortunately my niece and my brother and sister-in-law are much nearer, and visit, and she has a very good friend who visits her more or less daily. But still, it's not at all good.

I've been uncheering myself up by going through my millions of photos and deleting many of them. Why did I take so many pictures of our beloved cats, most of them very similar? I've kept quite a few nice ones but no one needs hundreds of identical photos of much-mourned furry friends who died very young of genetic lung disease. Nor so many of my garden, which is still there, outside the house, should I need to look at it - though it's also somewhat depressing to see plants which mysteriously disappeared some years ago. And then there are pictures of my parents... can't delete any of them.

And I've still some years to go before I reach the birth of the first of the grandchildren, where I'll again find lots of more or less identical photos. However, I don't expect to find that so dejecting - just difficult to choose between them. So that'll be all right.

Anyway, I've also started cutting out a quilt for Biggest Granddaughter, which is more cheerful, isn't it? Lots of happy timewasting lies ahead of me while I do that. And we've passed the shortest day, so summer is on its way here - sorry, Australia and New Zealand. And the Edinburgh grandchildren come home on Saturday, hurray hurray, bringing their other, delightful, grandparents with them. So if we don't meet again this year, O bloggy friends, I hope you have a lovely New Year celebration and a wonderful 2018.

Life going on

Thank you, bloggy friends and commenters, for your kind sympathy for the loss of our furry friend. It is actually comforting - the kind words of people who don't know you but take the trouble to type some words of consolation. Similarly, lots of Facebook friends (some of whom I know only through blogs and some of whom are my actual friends) said nice things and that helped too. As did other friends. And Daughter 2 sent us some lovely flowers. 

We're trying to get used to Cassie's absence. It's working a bit. Daughter 2 came home at the weekend and invented several games for Grandson. I think she was being a cow here and he was riding on her. I can't quite remember why she was a cow rather than a horse. She's a very good auntie.

And on Saturday they all came to us, including Son and Daughter-in-Law, and we missed Cassie (and Sirius) collectively. Sigh. Granddaughter hasn't noticed her absence yet, or at least she hasn't said anything. Grandson has, but not at length. 

We did have a Sirius conversation in the car a few weeks ago, though, as I was negotiating the one-way system round Tollcross.

Grandson: Where did Sirius go?
Me [nervously - how do you explain death to a 3 year-old?]: Well, he died.
G: But where is he now?
Me: He isn't anywhere. There isn't a Sirius any more.
G: But who has him?
Me: No one. 
G: But I want him to come back.
Me: So do I. But I'm afraid he won't.
G: [without a pause]: But I wanted you to go down Grove Street.
Me: Oh, this way is just as good.

And that seemed to be the crisis over. Phew. I think. 

The bruise has almost gone.

Yesterday Mr Life and I went for a walk in Stockbridge. Life must go on. 

But we certainly miss the furry presence round the house.

Queen Fluff

I've been putting off writing this post because I'm so very sad and writing about it in my blog seems to make it true and permanent, which of course it is. Cassie, our pretty, fluffy little companion, is no more.

Bloggy friends will remember that her twin, Sirius, developed lung cancer and faded away over the course of nearly a year. He started by coughing and, over the months, starting breathing fast. Lung cancer, said the vet, is very rare in cats and extremely rare in young cats. He was six when we had to have him put to sleep. We were very upset indeed.

So when my husband heard Cassie cough, once, a week past Thursday, we were of course worried. But we thought we were being neurotic. It couldn't happen again. Could it? Then she coughed again, once, on the Sunday. I wasn't in the room either time. We were again worried but we thought, surely not? I looked at her and wondered if she was breathing slightly faster than usual but decided that it was my imagination. She seemed absolutely fine. She was eating, drinking, jumping up on things. We wondered whether to take her to the vet, but she hated - and fought - being put in her travelling box and of course we didn't want to believe that there was anything wrong.

Then last Thursday evening, she started breathing very fast - unmistakably. We were devastated. We took her to the vet at 11 on Friday morning. He was not optimistic. We had to leave her behind to be x-rayed. A younger vet phoned at 12.15. There were growths in her lungs and ... it must be something genetic and... . We never brought her home. She was only seven.

We loved them, foolishly, as people do love their pets, knowing that we were likely to outlive them; but planning our grief for much later. Cats, and I imagine dogs too, are such physical presences in a house. Cassie and Sirius sat on us a lot. They pushed their soft furry heads into our hands, snuggled into us, purred. They were our substitute children, some consolation for our empty nest.

They are a huge loss.

I know they were only cats, and much, much worse things happen to other people. But now we've cleared away the various cat beds and the throws on the sofas and the dishes, the house seems drearily tidy. We keep shutting doors to rooms that were out of bounds to the cats and then remembering that we don't have to do so. We look through the glass panels of the door to the smaller living room as we pass, to see what she's up to. We open the outside doors carefully at night to make sure she doesn't escape. It's not that we've really forgotten, but it comes as a reminder, every time we automatically do something like that, that she's not here any more.

The cat flap has its cover on, which makes the kitchen door seem all wrong.

Get a kitten, people say. So tempting, but no. Daughter 1, Son-in-Law 1, his mother and Grandson are all a bit allergic to cats; my brother is very allergic - which is why the cats were only allowed in certain rooms and we had washable throws on the sofas. And being doting cat-owners means that you have to import house-sitters when you go away.

But mainly we can't face the idea of going through this again.

Goodbye, lovely Queen Fluff and sweet-natured Velvet Ted.  Thank you for sharing our lives and making us, for all too short a time, cat people.

How to put in the week

It's been a very mild autumn so far and there's still colour in the garden, though mainly from tender plants which will die in the first sharp frost.

I'll rescue some of them and bring them inside - attempting not to import the various beasties lurking in the compost. Slug trails on the carpet: not good. But at the moment there are still flowers despite the lower light levels so I'll wait a few days.

This chrysanthemum is glorious. I love the colour - which is slightly redder and less cerise than it looks here.

I've been doing a bit of gardening. Cassie always likes to help.

I've also seen quite a lot of the grandbabies.

Grandson has been very unwell - when he gets a cold, he becomes alarmingly asthmatic. Yesterday he was very poorly but today, on a course of steroids, he was considerably better. The gloves are to protect his hands - he has eczema on them and on other parts of his body - poor little wheezy, itchy little chap.

I've now washed and ironed every bit of my fabric stash because Thimbleanna said I should. The pieces did fray a bit but now they're all trimmed and folded and tidy. I always do what Anna tells me.

Colour schemes

I got my stash of non-Christmas fabrics out of the cupboard in the spare room the other day and laid them on the bed. Some of them are spare bits of material from curtains that I've made through the years. I kept these bits because I was always a patchworker in my head... if not in fact. A few are left from the bundle that Thimbleanna kindly gave me a couple of years ago to encourage (...force...) me into getting started. Quite a lot of them are fabrics that I've liked in passing through John Lewis and bought half a metre of because I thought I'd do something with them some time. This may not have been very sensible.

I rather think that I'd better not buy any more till I actually need it. There seems to be a blue/yellow/aqua theme going on in the fabrics spread out on the bed so this is going to be the colour scheme of ... something. I think. I suppose I'd better wash them before doing anything with them. Do all you patchworkers do this?

As I was thinking this, I looked out of the window and saw Cassie the Cat surveying her street. We often wonder what she does when she goes out. By this evidence - sits and looks around. I don't think she knew she was observed. She contrasts nicely with the pink stones and grey tarmac: black goes with everything.

But I don't think it's going to figure in the next quilt, whatever that's going to be.

Off we go

We're off to York for a week, house-swapping. Whenever we go away, we have to organise people to come and live in our house and look after Cassie the Cat. I hope she appreciates it. Though I wouldn't like you to get the idea that we normally live in chaos and squalor, it's harder work to leave the house in a suitable state for strangers to live in (and potentially look in all your cupboards) than it is just to walk out of the door (though actually I do always bear in mind that we may experience a major event and never get home again).

As far as we can tell, Cassie is always perfectly happy to sprawl on strangers' laps as long as they are a source of heat and can administer the Dreamies.

Right. Better stop doing this and get back to giving the bathroom a final clean.

Offspring

Daughter 2 came home for a week and we variously: walked by the beach;

helped her to design hotel rooms;

stood in front of a huge rhododendron at the Botanics;

made our favourite joke about a waterfall ("Waterfall! Ouch!");

admired lots more spring blossom;

and slid down a slide with our little sister - not actually strangling her.

We've been telling Grandson about spring. Daughter 2 advised him not to walk on the bit of lawn which has been reseeded - because the seeds would grow into nice new grass. We watched a moorhen on the pond at the Botanics as it sat on a nest, and discussed how this would lead to lots of baby moorhens. I told him how things grow out of the ground, where they've been invisible all winter, and burst into bloom.

Later, we read a book about ducks in Boston who're trying to find a good place to nest. At last they find somewhere and the mummy duck lays her eggs. "And what'll come out of the eggs?" I asked.

He thought for a bit. Then  he said triumphantly, "Flowers!"

(It's a principle of teaching that I should know by now: test that the student has understood one concept before moving on to the next.)

The garden crew

 
After a week of dull and damp weather, today was sunny and mild and so we got stuck into the garden. Mr L cut one of the hedges (hurray for him) while I cut the grass and did some weeding.

My pots of pansies are looking good. No doubt the slugs are stretching, yawning and making their way towards them as I write.

Luckily slugs don't eat polyanthus.

Spring flowers - so bright and cheering.

Cassie Cat always likes company so she came to help.

She also likes sunshine.

She didn't do much weeding, though.

Thank you

We seem to have a lot of pictures like this: Sirius just cuddling in comfortably. He was an instant purrer - one touch and the rumbling began. Cassie is also keen on sitting on people - but on her terms. She likes to keep her dignity. Sirius would happily submit to being picked up, turned upside down and generally used as a teddy bear. And he had beautifully thick fur - not particularly long but very dense. Hence his nickname of Velvet Ted.

Thank you so much for your kind sympathy. One must, of course, try to get perspective. He wasn't a child. He was just a cat. But he was such an accommodating animal. You wouldn't always trust Cassie's claws as near your face as Sirius's were to Daughter 2's face in this photo.

It's a relief to know that he's not suffering any more. But we do miss him and mourn the shortness of his life: he had less than five years of good health. Cassie - it's hard to tell, but she hasn't gone outside much since he disappeared from her life. It's almost as if she were waiting for him to come back. But that's maybe us being fanciful; though it's easy to believe that at any moment we'll hear a jingle of his bell in the hall and he'll pad into the room, his old healthy self, and settle himself down. If only this could happen.

Meanwhile life goes on. Grandson and I were in the car at traffic lights the other day. He looked at a large clock at the junction. It had Roman numerals. "That clock's got funny numbers," he remarked. "They're all elevens."

Sirius Black

We had to have our lovely, tolerant, gentle cat Sirius put to sleep on Monday. The vet agreed that he had after all been suffering from lung cancer. Sirius had been much less active recently than a cat in his prime ought to be. He's been on steroids for a year. We've been very worried in case he was in pain and we've been wondering if we ought to bring his life to an end, but it's such a hard decision to take. Then in the middle of last week, his breathing got faster and he was clearly very tired.  He was also coughing more. Son and Daughter-in-Law, both doctors, were here at the weekend and said that if he'd been a human he would have been on morphine and oxygen.

The vet came to the house and Sirius died lying in the sunshine in our sitting room. We are very sad. We know that animals and indeed people die all the time but he was our lovely furry boy and we miss him very much.

He was nearly seven. Younger, in fact, than this blog, which featured lots of pictures of him and Cassie when they were tiny. He's the one on the right in the photos above and below.

One should not get so attached to pets. But one does. Goodbye, dear Velvet Ted. 

Zipped

When we were in the Isle of Man last year (as bloggy friends with long memories might recall) I bought a kit to make the front of a patchwork cushion cover. We then visited Daughter 2. She had some material which she cut into strips to do one for herself, and she and I made the cover fronts together, in a sociable sewing-bee sort of way. When she came home this weekend, she at last had time to put a back and a zip on it.

I made mine up some months ago. The kit actually had brown squares for the square patches, but I didn't like them much, so used some green fabric samples that Daughter 2 had. She used yellow fabric samples, as you can see. There were only two of each shade in each case. I didn't notice till months after I'd made the cushion that I had stupidly put both the slightly darker squares on one side and both lighter squares on the other, instead of putting them diagonally opposite each other. Am I enough of a perfectionist to take the thing apart? I am not.

Cassie enjoys the sunshine. You'd think she was a fluffy toy. You'd be wrong. She is a person of independent mind. She doesn't necessarily want you to stroke that tummy.

Sirius is a very gentle and good-natured cat*. He's not so pretty but he has a really sweet personality. He's still on steroid tablets for his presumed asthma. These are keeping him reasonably cough-free, but he's not the cat he was. He just lies around most of the time and when he moves, it's slowly, which is a shame for a chap in what should be his prime. We worry about him. However, he seems happy enough. I don't think he'll live to be an old cat, though.

Grandson's recent experiences of feeling that he's surrounded by idiots: Episode 2 

Daughter 1 was in a taxi the other day with the children. Grandson leaned over to press a button on the door. "No, no, don't do that," said Daughter 1. "I don't know what that button's for."

I wasn't there, but I can just imagine the expression on his face. You know that one - when your children start pitying you, in a caring sort of way, for your lack of technological expertise.

"It's for pressing,", he explained.

(Silly Mummy.)

* What a rubbish photographer I am. I don't think you're supposed to include your own shadow, holding the camera, in the photo.