All these things that I have done

Despite my constant gloomy "it's only a 50% probability on the weather forecast" nay sayings, we did actually get snow this week, and enough for a snow day off school at that. I think I have now had more snow days at new school than I had at old school in 8 years. I mean the head was very opposed to closing unless absolutely necessary (to the extent where we would stay open even if some of the further flung staff members couldn't make it) but also, it is just really much colder and snowier here this year than it's been for years. I do wonder what effect this will have on the climate change debate - not that it makes any difference to the science, but the very mild winters recently have contributed, I think, to a sense of climate change being present and happening now that's made it easier to persuade reluctant people and I really hope that tide doesn't recede but I fear it might. Anyway, the garden isn't looking like it was too horribly shocked by things - the blueberry bush is still budding like no-ones business. I am slightly worried that my lemon tree, currently living in the porch, won't have been very happy about it, but fingers crossed, I guess. Alex has been striking this week to try to stop the University from destroying his pension. Not the best of weathers to be on the picket line! I think they failed to have burning bins as well, so it was all shivering in the freezing temperatures.

The other notable thing that happened last week was that Harry managed to go missing for 48 hours :( Perils of owning outdoor cats, unfortunately. He's an absolute bugger for going through doors he shouldn't and is constantly getting stuck in the bathroom or my wardrobe so we think he just managed to get shut into someone's shed or something of that nature and he turned up none the worse for wear before it got really sub zero even in daytime, but still, we (including Clare) did a lot of fretting while he was gone. I kept checking places I'd already looked and ridiculous places like the drawers in the kitchen (even if he had managed to get in one, he would definitely have made some noise about it). All's well that ends well!

Suz came over yesterday and we spent a certain amount of time just sitting on the sofa doing work with Joan Osbourne playing. It was just like being students again, but with the addition of a reclining sofa :) It made me feel at the same time that that was the good old days and that these are still the good days, if you see what I mean, which is a pretty optimistic note to sign off for the week on!

Thank you for the lovely comments on my last entry. Sadly, things moved fast and Cassie continued to deteriorate and not eat over the weekend. She spent quite a bit of time curled up in my lap, sleeping and having strokes, which was good, but she was obviously in a very bad way. We took her into the vet on Monday, who told us that her kidneys were shutting down. They took her to cat hospital and put her on fluids to see how much remaining kidney function there was but when we checked in the next day, her blood work hadn't improved at all, meaning that her kidneys were basically completely non functional. There was nothing that they could really do for her so I went after school and sat with her for an hour or so giving her strokes and fuss before the vet put her on my lap and gave her an overdose of anaesthetic.

It's the first time that I've lost a pet in that way - we had goldfish, who used to get regularly pinched by herons, but that's nothing like the same. I cried a lot on Monday and Tuesday and was pretty fragile most of Wednesday and the rest of the week. Now I just get ambushed by odd rushes of sadness. Charlie has been doing her best to look after us by coming and sitting with me on the sofa and so on but I miss Cassie very much.

I have quite a few versions of this pic where she's sitting on my lap giving me a very definite *look*


And quite a few where she's curled up on the bed. My photo albums all together seem to suggest she spent quite a lot of time chilling out and relaxing, which is a good thought.




Rare photo with her eyes open <3

We have made it back to these fair shores in remarkably good order. In fact, we've had good transport mojo all the way through the trip, culminating in our flight arriving 20 minutes early and still being met on time by the taxi driver picking us up. Very pleasing all around. We have read and giggled at the reports of the cat sitters - thanks guys! Charlie has already forgiven us our absence, Cassie is still cross but I'm sure she'll come around.

Second round of photos to follow along with a round-up of the second half of the holiday experience when I have brought a bit of order to the bag strewn chaos that is the current state of the living room :)

Well, I came down this morning to find Cassie staring intently at the gap between the sofa and the wall and meowling for my attention - a pretty strong indicator that the mouse had migrated to the living room over night. I called Alex down and we got to work.

Sadly, I didn't get a photo of the funniest bit, which was when I moved the sofa out slightly in order to see if I could see the mouse and Cassie started to squeeze herself into the gap. I wish I had a picture of her front half stuffed into this small space and her back half spilling out because it was absolutely hilarious.

I let the cats stay while we cornered it as their infalible instinct for where it had gone to ground again was invaluable. Cassie did manage to grab it at one point (doing it no harm) but she dropped it and then lost interest, presumably feeling her work was done. Finally we managed to force it into tupperware and I dropped it into the neighbours garden, relying on the fact that it hadn't been naturally occuring in our house anyway but brought in by Cassie so hopefully it's unlikely to make it's way back inside. And even if it does, Cassie will waste no time pointing it out.

Oh, also, our opinion that Cassie is responsible for all the mice was reinforced by the fact that the mouse ran away from Cassie and circled round Charlie's paws while Charlie looked baffled and wondered where it had gone before moving to under the side table. Right under her paws, I swear. She'll never make a mouser :)

Since Alex fixed the roof of the conservatory I actually quite like sitting in here when it rains. The sound on the roof is really loud (because the roof is made of corrugated plastic, for those of you who haven't seen this) but I like that. I like the sense of being safe indoors while the elements rage. I guess the fact that it used to be so leaky exacerbates that even more. When we have the extension done, gone will be this simple pleasure, I guess, but to be replaced with a whole range of other pleasures :) We've asked the architect to make drawings and he's coming over tomorrow lunchtime to take measurements & photos of what's here already.

I'm just having a bit of a relax, having finished the mad hoover and clean-up of doom, for we have Alex's sister and her man staying over after Ben's gig this evening. And this requires a more than usually thorough job as Jo is allergic to cats (amongst lots of other things!) so I've been scouring the spare room (usually the province of Cassie) to within an inch of it's life. I suspect she's still going to need anti-histamines though.

Currently, both cats have joined me to watch me write. Cassie has bagged a spot that Charlie usually uses when I'm hanging out in here (the canvas bag that came with my OU opennings course - Charlie has a big thing for sitting on bags) and Charlie is wandering round sniffing at everything, trying to decide on a second choice for curling up.

So it was going to have been a really nice weekend. My parents arrived on Friday evening as planned, we headed into town and had a very pleasant dinner in the resturant at QI. We did fail to watch QI though as the TV didn't record it - did anyone watch it on BBC4, and if so, what was the topic as I'm assuming the machine thought it was a repeat. Then Saturday, we got down to it and started work on painting our bedroom in white (ceiling and down to picture rail) and lilac/purple below. Which looks very nice, despite Mum's initial reservations.

It also took much less time than we anticipated so we were able to make a fairly leisurly weekend of it. I introduced Dad to Dinnerladies (which I love to bits) and we got out my old I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again tapes. All jolly nice. On Sunday, I did roast chicken for the first time ever, which came out very nicely although I'm always worried about whether I carve enough meat for people. Still, all seemed to be enjoyed.

A pall, however, was cast over the weekend when I realised just as Mum and Dad were heading off that I hadn't seen Cassie at all on Sunday. That is very unlike her - normally she is very vocal and attentive for at least one meal per day, although she may turn up late for others and so to see not a sign was rather unnerving. I spent the rest of the evening trying not to worry and watching TV as well as checking all our cupboards, shed, other possible and impossible cat hiding places but still no sign, even this morning :( Hopefully she's just been minouing about out there and has perhaps managed to provide her own dinner with hunting prowess (she does at least have a track record of having caught things before, after all) but still I fuss because she is only little. Keep your fingers crossed for her turning up tonight...

Well, because know you're all gagging to know (!), I thought I'd better post to say that the window installation actually went sucessfully. The only issues were with openning handles in the wrong places which they spotted before me and offered to fix free of charge - so far so good. Of course now I have no curtains in the living room but I'll get to that tomorrow along with starting the windowsill painting.

I have such a huge backlog of photos waiting to go online, I really ought to get on with posting them. Of course, they're at work so I can say that without actually posting any now. Charlie looks very cute climbing the Christmas tree though :)

I suspect that I'm going to have a bad week next week - from the Friday afternoon phonecalls Damian was getting I think there's going to be a bit of crisis development going on next week. Sigh. Would people be up for pubmeet at a slightly later time - say 5:45/6ish? I should be able to escape by then. Also, note to self, if you start off on port you're bound to get very drunk, foolish girl! Also, take red wine next time.

As promised, new photos uploaded to flickr: Charlie and the fireplace

Yes indeed, minous will be coming my way soon :) The lady said I was out of the way of traffic enough and had a garden and plenty of space so I'd be fine. I explained that I might have a problem getting a catflap fitted and she seemed OK with that so we're go. Apparently, it will probably take a couple of weeks to a month to find some suitable ones for me. I can't wait!

To get Sky or not to get Sky? On the one hand it would be giving money to Rupert Murdoch which I object to and would cost a lot to have installed but on the other, it would allow me to watch TV and would give me loads more channels than NTL for the same price. Hmmm. The alternatives are to arrange to have an ordinary analogue aerial installed - I've no idea of how to do that or what it would cost - or to get a small standalone aerial which would probably give really crap reception. Any advice on the above would be welcomed.

I've left my details with the Cats Protection League to get in touch with me about having a cat (yay!) which they say they'll do over the next 3 days or so. I'm both excited and nervous about the idea because I have never had a cat before so I'm worrying about it a bit. Still, I can always ask Alex for help I suppose.

I discovered today that new cars can be obtained for 7000 pounds if you want which is a bit of a shock to the system - somehow I thought it was more expensive than that. I mean I could pay that off in a couple of years if I really had to. The question is, how does one choose a car? I don't even know the makes of the ones I like the shape of but I don't really fancy trekking around all the dealers in town especially as they're not easily accessible without a car! A puzzle for later...