Losing another cat

We've been married for over forty years, and in that time we have adopted and loved ten different cats. Two of them were, sadly, very short-lived, and four of them disappeared, leaving no trace.  Two died of old age (one at 15, one at over 18).  And we're still feeling shocked and sad after losing the ninth.

Alex was the largest of his litter, born early April 2014. He and his two sisters lived with their mother and our friends until they were three months old. Our son, who lived in a flat about a kilometre away adopted Lady Jane, and we adopted the other two: Alexander the Great and Joan of Arc. We didn't use their full names, of course, unless they were in trouble... 

We had both Cleo, our longest-lived cat, and her daughter Sophia at the time. It took a while for Alex and Joan to be accepted, and they were never close friends with our older cats. But gradually they learned to live alongside each other. I wrote a long post about our newly adopted kittens in September 2014, with some photos. 

Then, just a couple of months after that post, Sophia disappeared. I wrote a post about that, too. And Joan of Arc vanished just before Christmas 2015. She and Alex had only been going outside for six months and mostly played together when, one evening, he returned and she didn't. We thought at first that they must have caught a feline bug as he wasn't well for a few days afterwards, but then realised his tail was injured. He was also terrified when he heard cars, for a while. So perhaps she was hit by a car and he just escaped. We'll never know. 

In the summer of 2016 we adopted Lady Jane, when our son moved back to the UK. And in January 2017, Cleo died after a very brief period of being obviously unwell. She had seemed frail for a while, but had been eating and washing normally until just a week or so before she died, aged around eighteen and a half. We were sad but not devastated, although Cleo's passing felt like the end of an era. She had been with us for almost all our time in Cyprus. 

So then we just had Alex and Jane. They were never as close as Alex and Joan had been, but still good companions. 

Jane remained very kitten-like, scampering about the house, jumping on my shoulder, leaping onto bookcases, chasing bits of string or other 'toys' she discovered around the house. Alex slowed down somewhat, however. Of all our cats, he's the one who had the most medical issues. I think we took him to the vet more than all the others put together. 

It started with his tail injury (well, other than having him neutered at a young age).  Then he had a couple of strange incidents, where he seemed to be short of breath, and crying as if he were very scared. The vet examined him thoroughly each time but couldn't find anything wrong - and, by the time we got him to the vet, he was often getting over whatever the problem was, anyway. 

Alex used to catch birds sometimes, on the roof, so it's not surprising that we had to buy worming tablets for him regularly. We got to know the symptoms (a lot of coughing and retching) so we could just buy tablets rather than taking him to the vet and paying an extra fee for doing so. And we were increasingly concerned that he would drink a lot of water, far more than is normal for a cat. 

One of our visitors was a vet, and she said it was likely he had kidney problems. But she said that it would be uncomfortable for him (and expensive for us) to have tests to confirm this - and that medication, if available in Cyprus (which was doubtful) wouldn't significantly improve or prolong his life. She said he was obviously an active, much loved and contented cat, but we should be aware that the time would probably come when he would have to be put to sleep by the vet. She said we would know when that time was: it could be within a year or two, it could be longer. 

In the event, he died at home, unexpectedly on 19th March this year. He had another crying and breathless episode which lasted a bit longer than usual, then he seemed to recover. Then he had a kind of fit, and within a few minutes, was gone.  It was just a few weeks before his 10th birthday.

I don't think we've ever been so sad and shocked at losing a cat. Alex was more of a companion than a pet - he followed us around (particularly Richard) and kept us in line: he was quite demanding sometimes, but always very loving. 

In retrospect we wonder if there was a problem with his heart, as well as his kidneys. He had slowed down so much, more so than other cats of his age. Admittedly Jane is unusually active and lively, but he had started plodding rather than running, and was less and less inclined to jump more than a short distance. 

Alex had a good life, even if it was cut short. And we're both thankful that we didn't have to make that final decision for him. But still, it has been very difficult to get used to him being gone. Jane is now an 'only' cat: even if she would permit another feline inhabitant of the house, we're not planning on having any more cats. 

I started writing this post a day or two afterwards, but I couldn't bring myself to finish it until now. 

Rest in peace, Alexander the Great. 

Lady Jane, Cat Grass and Birds...

Lady Jane Grey, our smaller cat, has lived with us for over four years now. She moved into our household when our younger son Tim moved back to the UK, and although it took her a few weeks to adjust - and maybe a year to be fully integrated, she and Alexander the Great are now good buddies - typical siblings, in fact. Sometimes getting alone well, sometimes looking out for each other, sometimes play-fighting and scampering all over the house.

But despite being originally from the same litter, they are very different in personality. Alex is placid, on the whole, quite demanding when he wants attention, and generally interested in people. Alex goes outside when he wants to during the daytime, although we keep him in at night. But, as with most cats, he spends a lot of his time asleep, oblivious to his surroundings. 

Jane is a lot more skittish. She's around half Alex's weight, and an excellent jumper. She is quite picky about who she gives her affection to; it's taken her four years to accept Richard properly, although she does now settle on him sometimes. She's nervous of visitors, other than those she has known for years, and she's terrified of workmen of any kind.  She sleeps, but usually remains very alert. 

Jane doesn't go out at all; two years living in a flat, with nowhere to go outside, means that she hasn't developed any road sense. And the few times she has managed to get out, she's been terrified; so much so that she's mostly entirely happy to stay inside. 

However, that means that her diet is limited to the cat food we give her: wet food at lunchtime, dry food available all day. The first time we wondered whether she needed something extra was three-and-a-half years ago, when she started nibbling bits out of a bouquet I had been given. We don't often have flowers, but the same thing has happened any time I'm given any - she sniffs around carefully, then finds something which takes her fancy, and starts chewing.

Around the time this happened in the summer, I discovered that it was possible to buy grass seeds specially intended for cats. The grass grows quickly, and provides a few extra vitamins and minerals.  I discovered some on Amazon, and since I was ordering something else anyway, I added a pack of seeds to the order. 

I planted some of them in a little pot, as directed, and within about five days they had grown to a height of around five or six centimetres.  I put them on the table in the living room, wondering if - as is typical for cats - she would entirely ignore them. 

But she was immediately drawn to them: 

She was so enthusiastic that I wondered if she was going to eat the entire pot's worth of grass. But instead she just gently nibbled the ends, until each stem was at a length of about 2cm:

They grew a bit more overnight, and the following morning she repeated the process.  After a couple of days I planted another pot, and when those seeds had grown to a reasonable amount, I started alternating them indoors, so that they had more of a chance to grow. When I open the kitchen doors in the morning, Jane goes and checks her grass, and usually has a quick munch. Then she takes no notice of them for the rest of the day.

Alexander, meanwhile, doesn't even seem to have noticed that they are there. But he's never been interested in bouquets, either. 

I don't know if Jane is now feeling fitter and healthier, or if she feels the need of more protein in her diet, to balance the green stuff, but she's started another new habit within the last few months. And we really don't like this one at all.

The one place where she can get outside into the sunshine is a biggish balcony area outside our bedroom, where Richard sits in the morning to eat his breakfast. Tbe cats usually join him, and about six months ago we used an old dust sheet with a ladder that's up there to make them a kind of den or playhouse. And they did play in it, batting each other through the cloth, for the first few weeks. 

But it grew hotter, and Alex mostly just flopped when he was outside, rather than joining in with anything. Jane, who likes the weather to be very hot (she refuses to stay in a room with air conditioning on) stayed indoors during most of the summer months, as it was cooler outside on the balcony, first thing. 

However, in the past few weeks, she has taken to hiding under this den. When cats can't see out, they assume they cannot be seen.  Nobody would guess there was a grey-and-white cat sitting under that dustsheet (which was a curtain originally), after all: 

It took us a while to realise that she wasn't just meditating, or needing time to herself when she sits up there, sometimes for hours. Instead, she was waiting for a bird to land on the balcony. There seem to be birds nesting in part of our roof, and they often fly overhead.  Alex has occasionally caught one, and brought it into the house fluttering around, much to my horror.  Jane, until this summer, had rarely caught anything bigger than a lizard. 

But she is more subtle than her brother. She seems to know that we don't want her chasing birds around the house. And it all happens when we're not there, so it's still speculation, though it's not at all Alex's style. The first time I found a little pile of feathers at the end of the ladder, I was a bit surprised, but swept them up (not an easy thing to do!) and thought no more about it.

Until it happened a second time.  And a third time:

It's not entirely obvious from the photo, but there are yet more tiny feathers in a pile at the end of the ladder. Jane, at six years old, has turned into a hunter. It doesn't seem to have done her any harm; indeed she's looking healthier than ever, and also a bit fatter.  I thought at first that she was fluffing her fur out to keep warm, in this chilly (to her) 25 degree temperature we now have in the house.  But I wonder if the combination of cat grass and fresh birds is giving her the nutrition she actually needs.

Short of keeping her inside the house all the time, not allowing her even on the balcony (which would be very stressful for her), I don't see any way of stopping it.  At least she's not bringing them into the house. 

Continued Cat Chronicles

At the end of my previous post about life in Cyprus, I mentioned that our cats Alexander the Great and Lady Jane Grey are getting along well these days. Life, we thought, had calmed down, and they were in a pleasant routine. Cats are usually fairly low maintenance, in our experience, and so long as I remembered to feed them and put them to bed at the times Jane considers appropriate, all was well.

I also mentioned in that post that I was given an unexpected and gorgeous bouquet on Mothering Sunday. It lasted almost perfectly for its first week, and thankfully the cats ignored it.

After about eight days, I removed a few of the bigger blooms which were well past their best, and trimmed the stems slightly, and it did very well for another week. Last Sunday, I removed the rest of the bigger flowers and the supporting foliage, which was going brown. But there were several of the carnations which had emerged from buds and were still looking fresh. Impressive after two weeks, I thought. So I trimmed them some more, and put them in a smaller vase, back on the table in our living room.

However, the cats suddenly noticed them. First Alex knocked the whole thing over so he could drink some of the water.

Then Jane decided that the flowers should be destroyed:

I kept removing her, and she kept returning.  She was determined to bite off as many of the flower heads as she could. Cats usually know what they can and can't eat, so I wasn't too worried about her, but it was rather sad from the point of view of my flowers:

Half an hour later, she brought up a hairball, accompanied by what was evidently several pieces of carnation stem. And we both realised that whereas outdoor cats will eat grass to help them throw up, when they have to, Jane - being an indoor cat - doesn't get that opportunity.  I'm not sure what they would normally do, but she evidently seized her chance and it worked.

Two days later, Jane decided to escape. She hasn't shown much interest in going outside, though she'll sit and chatter at birds for hours, and loves being on our upstairs balcony.  Alex pops in and out but she's shown no inclination to follow him. Until Wednesday, when she darted through my legs as I was letting Alex in by my study door, and then - followed by Alex - down our outside stairs and into the street.

This was at about 6.30am and there wasn't much traffic about, but I didn't want her escaping, nor Alex showing her around the neighbourhood. So I waited for her to come out from under our van... and missed, as she raced across the patio and under a neighbour's car. She's a quick mover. Alex kept trying to persuade her to take off down the street, but she's quite a nervous cat and didn't look as if she were enjoying her adventure much.

It probably took about fifteen minutes before I finally managed to grab her and get her back indoors again. Since then she's pushed at the cat flaps a few times (we keep them on the inwards-only setting) but hasn't tried to escape. Perhaps she's biding her time.

The two aren't nearly as close as Alex was to his other sister, but they spent some time snuggling on the beanbag this week:

Then on Friday we had another scare.  Jane had been hassling me for wet food for about half an hour, so I got up to feed them, only to find Alex lying on his side on the floor, breathing rapidly, and panting. He got up and walked a few steps and collapsed again.  He looked and sounded very miserable, and seemed unable to get up, so we phoned the vet, who said to bring him in at once.

We were both afraid we might lose him on the way there; he was lethargic, still panting, and not complaining at all about being in the car. However, to our astonishment, as we carried him into the vet's, he appeared to recover.  By the time she examined him, there didn't seem to be anything wrong. His temperature was a little low, and I thought his tongue looked rather blue, but she said his heart rate and eyes and everything else were fine.

Since he'd also had some apparent digestive upset, she gave us some gastro-intestinal food for a few days, and said to keep him indoors until after the long Easter weekend. She told us to call her mobile number if it happened again; she said she could have done blood tests, but she didn't think it worthwhile. Most of the possible ailments connected with his symptoms were those of much older cats, and she thought it unlikely that he'd had a sudden asthma attack when we said that we don't smoke, don't use scented candles, don't have indoor gas heaters, and don't use air fresheners!

It was much later in the day, with Alex pretty much recovered, when we discovered that some visitors had been giving Alex milk to drink.  We don't use dairy products; Richard is somewhat intolerant, and I don't much like them.  We already knew that Jane's digestion cannot cope even with yogurt, and that their mother is also intolerant of milk, so it's not something Alex had ever had.

We'll probably never know for certain, but milk is a common trigger for asthma. And Alex does, from time to time, cough without bringing anything up. It doesn't distress him and doesn't last long, but having now done some research, it's exactly the way that asthmatic cats cough.

He's been absolutely fine since returning from the vet, and not too upset at our not letting him go out. His favourite sleeping place is on our bed, pretending to be a throw cushion:

Back in Cyprus, Lady Jane and the gradual end of Summer

When our son Tim moved back to the UK early in August, his cat Lady Jane Grey moved to our house, at least for now. Tim's new job is temporary and his accommodation not appropriate for a cat. Lady Jane is Alexander the Great's sister. Yes, historical chronology is a little skewed. Their other sister, no longer with us as long-term readers might recall, was Joan of Arc. And our elderly, eighteen-year-old cat is Cleopatra... 

However, Lady Jane had lived in Tim's flat for two years as an only cat, and had apparently forgotten that other felines exist. The first stage in her adoption into our house was to bring her to our guest flat, where Tim stayed for about three weeks after moving out of his flat, before flying to the UK.

That in itself wasn't too traumatic, although when she arrived she didn't want to emerge from the cat carrier for quite some time.  When she eventually did, she hid on some bookshelves:

After a few days of very tentative exploration, she became rather more at home in the guest flat. Unfortunately her initial introduction to Alex was extremely stressful. We let them 'meet' through a gap in a sliding door, and Alex wanted to play. Jane saw this as a terrible threat; she growled and spat.

Then Alex managed to get into the flat - twice - when the door was briefly open. He saw a new playmate. Jane saw an enemy.  There was a great deal of noise and she refused to look at any human who was involved in the trauma, for quite some time.

But before Tim flew back, we knew we had to move Jane up to our part of the house. Tim's old bedroom became her 'safe haven', as advised on several websites, and we put some of his furniture there. She spent a lot of time sitting on her cat tree looking out of the windows:

We tried letting Alex and Jane see each other through narrow doorways, but it wasn't encouraging. He lay down, evidently wanting to wait. She growled and hissed and spat, apparently terrified.

At the suggestion of a Facebook friend, we acquired some of the plug-in artificial pheromone Felliway to use in Jane's room and the living room for a month. She did seem a little calmer after a couple of days, but perhaps that was a coincidence.

When I went away to the UK for three weeks, we were still keeping her shut in her room most of the time. She didn't seem to mind, but did like exploring a little further when Alex and Cleo were shut downstairs.

Richard reported progress over the three weeks that I was away. She and Alex got a little closer. She didn't growl quite so much. She didn't seem to understand how to play, but he was very patient. He started letting them be loose in the house when he was home. Jane started having food in the living room...

By the time I got home, she was a lot more amicable than she had been. Was the Felliway responsible or would it have happened anyway? We have no idea. But we like to think it probably helped.

A day or two after I got back, Jane was in the kitchen asking for 'wet food' at lunchtime, so I put hers on the boot tray that we use for cat food dishes... and for the first time all three cats ate together:

Since then, she and Alex have been very friendly, chasing each other, batting each other in a play-fighting way, and even rubbing noses sometimes. Jane still doesn't like Cleo and spits at her whenever she sees her, but we suspect that she's trying to establish dominance and doesn't understand that an elderly matriarch is de facto the queen of the feline household.

Meanwhile September's weather has, far too slowly for my liking, been cooling down, and the humidity reducing. So much so that a week ago I resumed my thrice-weekly early morning walks with my friend Sheila, along part of the Salt Lake trail.

The Salt Lake is entirely dried up this year:

My break in the UK resulted in a great deal more energy than I had before I left, so, combined with the not-quite-so-hot weather, I've been doing more in the kitchen again. I have been using our latest Lakeland acquisition, a three-pot slow-cooker, so much more useful than the one large one which we were using (and which I still have, and will no doubt put into use again when cooking for large numbers).

I still haven't quite adjusted to cooking for just two of us, and last Sunday put together a casserole that wouldn't fit into just one of the pots, but it simmered nicely in two of them. A few days earlier I stewed a couple of large and rather soft apples, which was much easier than doing them in a pan that might boil dry.

I expect to use this more as Autumn progresses, so I can make two different curries or soups at the same time, either for entertaining, or for us with plenty to freeze for future meals.

We had the first real rain this week, during Tuesday night. It hasn't made any noticeable difference to the Salt Lake itself, but the overall temperatures feel much more pleasant. It was almost chilly this morning when Sheila and I set out on our walk, and watched the sun rise behind some of the palm trees:

We wondered whether the new looking greenery in the park could have resulted so quickly from the first rain.

I was pleased to note that in the coming week temperatures are set to be between 28 and 30 degrees C at the most, which is very encouraging after being 30-33 in the past couple of weeks. Today I only used my study air conditioning for a couple of hours; the rest of the time the ceiling fan was sufficient. 

Another Adventure for Alexander....

For his first year living with us, our cat Alexander kept his own blog. With a little help, of course. As our two-year-old grandson realised today, while having a conversation with me on Facetime, cats don't have hands. That makes it remarkably difficult for them to type.

Around the time he was a year old, Alex discovered how to get out of the house from our utility balcony (where the cat litter is kept), leaping over a metal roof and down. There was no longer any way of keeping him in, and we decided to install another cat flap over our spiral staircase, so that the other cats could get in and out relatively easily.

With Alex's increased explorations of the neighbourhood, I had far less idea of what he was doing and his blogging ceased. It had been fun, but - we thought - he was turning into a more sensible cat who was less likely to do anything silly.

Then just before Christmas his sister Joan disappeared, and Alex - we assume - was in some kind of accident. We weren't sure he was going to survive, at first, but with a lot of TLC, and some pain relief from the vet, he pulled through and by the end of January was back to his normal self, going out and about, trying to follow us when we walked places, and generally being a likeable, if sometimes demanding cat.

We had an incident in February, when our damp proof course was installed, and Alex got stuck up a tall pine tree. He made a great deal of noise but resisted all attempts to tempt him down, and struggled to get out of Richard's arms when he put a long ladder rather precariously up the tree in order to rescue him.

Then he was sensible for a while, lulling us into a sense of false security.

When I woke this morning, around 5.30am I realised that Alex had not been in the room all night. My toes had not been bitten, and I had not been woken by any scrabbling at the door. With the much warmer weather, he's been sleeping all day and going out at night, so I wasn't too worried at first. I got up, went to feed Cleo, and texted my friend Sheila to say that I was about ready to go for our usual early morning walk.

I didn't have a reply at first, so I thought perhaps she was still sleeping, and decided to see if I could find Alex.  As I went down the stairs I heard his mew, loudly and clearly.

I looked all round, and it took me a few moments to locate him... on the upstairs balcony of one of the neighbouring houses:

I assumed he could get down, since he had evidently got up there, and walked along the front of the house, calling to him. At one place there's a gap before another balcony, and there's a ledge below which is quite wide enough for Alex. It's less of a jump than he makes regularly to get out from our utility balcony.

But he wouldn't do it. He jumped to the other balcony and back again, mewing the whole time. I began to wonder if the neighbours had gone away, as nobody was appearing from the house. This is Kataklysmos weekend - the Eastern and Orthodox Pentecost - and Monday will be a major public holiday, so I wouldn't have been surprised.

I wondered if he would do better if I stopped watching him but when I went back into our house for a minute, he stopped mewing and started howling. I was worried he might wake the entire street! So I went back outside.

At that point Sheila appeared and we discussed what to do. I'm not at all good in a crisis of any kind; I was prepared to keep walking up and down and encouraging Alex to try and jump down, but Sheila is better at taking action.  She went to try and get a ladder that we keep at the back of the house, but realised that it was impossible to get at currently.

So I went to ask Richard where our step-ladder was, and then found it in our guest flat. It wasn't really high enough but Sheila went into the neighbours' front yard and climbed to the top, then reached up... and Alex pulled away from her grasp. As when he was in the tree, it appeared that he didn't want to be rescued, or didn't trust his rescuer.

Sheila then managed to climb onto the ledge itself. I was holding the ladder, which was wobbling precariously, so couldn't take any more photos...

Then a door on the other balcony opened, and a tousled head looked out. Sheila spoke to someone in Greek - there are new tenants in that part of the house, whom we don't know - and they opened another door for Alex to go in, and let him out of the front door. We thanked her profusely and she said it was nothing; that she had heard the mews but had not realised it was so close!

Alex was rather subdued, and we didn't go on our walk; perhaps just as well as there's been a major heatwave today with shade temperatures up to almost 40C. We are very glad that the air conditioners were cleaned a few weeks ago, and started using them, when needed, yesterday.

The Bathroom Renovation....

It's almost three weeks since I wrote about our proposed bathroom renovation, with the reasons for going ahead, and what we were planning. I was very pleased to be flying to the UK the following day... or so I thought. In the event, my flight for March 29th was cancelled - apparently one of the airline staff was ill - and rescheduled for the following evening.

I could have gone to a very nice hotel for 24 hours along with most of the other passengers, but decided I'd rather come home. It was useful in that I was able to pay some bills and catch up with a few things I'd neglected. But it was VERY noisy.

I had assumed, in my ignorance, that on the Wednesday, when work finally began (after a two-day delay) that the builders would first of all work on our guest flat shower, taking out the old one and installing the new one.

Wrong.

The guy who came was the demolition expert. So he did take out the guest flat old and tatty shower, and left it pretty tidy, but he then got straight to work starting to demolish our bathroom.  I didn't want to look at first, but after some hours I took a look:

Since the tiling had been done thoroughly, and expertly, over the entire bathroom, it wasn't an easy task to remove them. And the noise was horrendous.

Had my flight been cancelled again, I would have taken up the option on a hotel rather than returning to the house for another day of destruction!

Happily my flight went ahead on the Wednesday evening; I arrived in Liverpool about 1am UK time, and I spent the night in the nearest airport hotel; Richard had re-booked everything for me after the cancellation, and I was very pleased indeed to have somewhere to crash out for a night:

On the Thursday morning, the last day of March, I caught various coaches that took me up to Carlisle, and a wonderful reunion with my son, daughter-in-law and toddler grandson.

I had little thought to spare for the continued destruction of the bathroom, but Richard took photos such as this one, after more of the tiles were removed:

And this one, after the builders discovered that the entire bath was sitting on a slurry of concrete:

And this one, at the end of the day, after they had tidied up and removed the bath.  Alex was quite disturbed by it all, but determined to investigate:

Friday April 1st was a public holiday in Cyprus, and Richard had arranged to go sailing. So work was halted for a long weekend. And they still didn't install the guest flat shower. Thankfully we do have another loo; we also have another shower - in a sort of cupboard in my study. We use it for keeping heaters and/or fans (depending on the season) and our beach equipment. So he took everything out of it, and used the shower there for the duration.

Meanwhile, I was having fun with my grandson in the UK, where it was a bit grey and showery. But the only noise was that of a cheerful toddler, and the bathroom was functional!

On Monday April 4th, the work resumed. I had really hoped they'd have started installing the new bathroom by then, but no... there was yet more preparation work to be done, uncovering and moving piles, drilling more holes and doing some initial cementing:

And here's how it looked by the end of April 5th - not much different, but by now there were new channels dug into the floor and more concreting done:

Meanwhile in the UK, my grandson wasn't too well during the day, but enjoyed tucking into some curry and naan bread in the evening: 

Wednesday April 6th was both sad and happy for me: I had to say goodbye to my family in Carlisle, but the train took me south to stay with my father and his wife in the Midlands. It was very good to see them and to catch up with my siblings and their spouses too, at the weekend.

Back in Cyprus, there was some progress, in that the walls received their first cement 'skim':

But a day later, although it had dried out, it didn't look much different and I was beginning to wonder if we'd ever have a bathroom back again. I think Richard was getting a bit concerned too...

Then on Friday 8th - the day when it should all have been complete - construction began, and the tiles were put on two walls:

The builders realised that there was an imminent deadline: Richard was leaving the country on Tuesday 12th, so they worked through the weekend, grouting the tiles, laying the floor, and doing the electrics and lighting.

We had chosen some light orange paint for the other two walls - not wanting the entire thing tiled again - so that was the next task. By the end of Sunday 10th April, there was a shell with plumbing complete, lights installed, and tiling and painting done. It still looked a bit depressing.

And then it all started to come together on the Monday, more so on the Tuesday morning. By the time Richard departed for the airport, he was able to take this remarkably different picture:

I had to say another set of sad goodbyes, and travelled down by coach to meet Richard at Gatwick. We were able to spend a day and a half with his mother, and to my surprise the thermometer rose and the sun came out. Tuesday, when we went out for the day, was apparently the warmest of the year so far:

On Thursday we were back at Gatwick. I flew back to Cyprus in the evening, and about an hour later Richard flew in a different direction to some work-related meetings.

I felt a bit bad that Richard had put up with all the noise and chaos, yet I was the first one actually to use the new bathroom. It felt a bit strange at first, and the bath surface was so slippery that I went out and bought a non-slip mat as a temporary measure. When he's back we're going to put up some hooks, and pictures, and buy some new towels... but it's a very pleasant bathroom which looks amazing, and - due to an efficient extractor fan - should no longer attract mould.

Update on Alexander the Great

Meanwhile, for those who follow the antics of our cats, poor Alex hasn't been doing doing well. His sister Joan of Arc never did come back after disappearing before Christmas; we can only assume, now, that she was run over.

We thought he was grieving at first, when he went very quiet and didn't purr, but then realised that his tail was painful and that he was walking very slowly.

We took him to the vet, who thought he might have an infection and prescribed antibiotics and pain relief; he did much better for a while, then got worse again so we took him for a second visit. She thinks he probably has an injury to his pelvis which will be slow to heal, so he's on more pain relief currently.

He's definitely better than he was, but his tail droops (the vet doesn't think it's broken) and he's still not racing around. He spends most of his time sleeping on a beanbag:

He has another vet's appointment tomorrow. He's really very good about getting into the basket, although he hates car journeys. The vet says he's one of the most co-operative cats she has ever met.

Christmas Eve 2015

It seems to have become another tradition that I write a blog post on Christmas Eve, including - as the first image - a picture of this year's cake. Not that it differs much from last year's or the year before's... I make it from the classic Delia recipe, cover (usually) with shop-bought marzipan a day or two before I want to ice it, then make royal icing for the top layer.

This year I decided to use aquafaba rather than egg white for my icing, and it ended up slightly runnier than usual, but perhaps I didn't beat it enough; or perhaps I didn't add sufficient icing sugar. In any case, with my standard decorations and some glacé cherries, it seems to have turned out all right:

Tim has made some peppermint creams using aquafaba too. It has the advantage that one can use just one tablespoonful to make a smaller quantity than an egg white would. Besides, even with the availability of free-range eggs, we were never entirely happy about raw egg white, and we never knew what to do with the leftover yolks at this time of year.

But I should back-track a little.

For the first few days of Daniel, Becky and David's stay, we (or they) went out for walks each morning, so David could get a chance to run around. Then we had three days of almost continual rain. And when it rains here, it really rains. We were going a little stir-crazy, so last Thursday I texted the organiser of the Community Church Tots group and asked if we could join their last event of the year. We were warmly welcomed, and David enjoyed running around... and also eating a large amount of the snacks, long past the time when the other children had returned to playing:

On Thursday evening, during the course of playing a game with friends, Richard and I both started feeling as if we had very bad colds: sore throats, blocked noses, headaches and exhaustion. There's a nasty flu-like cold going around, which comes on very quickly and lasts several days. A week later and we're still not fully over it, although we've kept going, and are certainly better than we were a few days ago. Mine had quite a setback when I got caught in pouring rain early Saturday afternoon, after popping to the local fruit shop in what I thought was a break in the rain...

It felt as if Christmas started properly later on Saturday, when we went to see a performance of 'The Snowman' by the Little Muse Theatre company. Everyone was supposed to dress in white: David was wearing an entire snowman suit for the occasion:

He's a lively little boy, into everything, and doesn't sit still very often. So we expected to have to run around after him during a 45-minute production:

But he sat on Daniel and, for the majority, was absolutely mesmerised:

On Sunday, the rain gave way to sunshine, so after the morning church service, we wandered down to the sea-front, where David paddled in the sea for a while:

Becky went barefoot in the water with him; she said it was a bit cold at first but soon felt quite pleasant. David didn't seem to notice the chilliness at all.

After that the six of us had lunch at Alexander's:

We never set out to create traditions, but eating at Alexander's on the Sunday before Christmas has become a regular event for us, and I very much like not having to think about food for one day in this busy time of year.

Monday was a good day, too. In the evening, I took photos of the younger cats, thinking this one of Alex would make a nice Christmas photo for next year:

Joan looked cute under a pile of cushions too:

It's only as I look at this photo with hindsight that I realise she doesn't look all that well.

On Tuesday, she didn't appear all day. Our thoughts were mainly with a relative in the UK who was having quite serious surgery that day, but when Joan still hadn't appeared by lunch-time I began to be concerned. I've been worried about her several times and gone looking for her, and she always appeared in the end, so I tried not to worry... however, by the evening, we began to fear that she was gone for good.

We've lost three cats unexpectedly over the past ten years or so. We have no idea what happened to any of them. We made several guesses: that our cat-disliking neighbour had captured her, that someone had 'stolen' her to sell, that she'd been run over. I felt quite tearful; I had determined not to get too attached to Alex and Joan, but she had certainly got under my skin.

We also became quite worried about Alex by Tuesday evening, when he was very lethargic and off his food. Checking online, we thought that perhaps he was stressed or even grieving for Joan, if he had seen whatever happened to her. We brought him to sleep on our bed (something we don't usually allow) and he seemed happy, then slept all night.

On Wednesday, he ate more but seemed to be uncomfortable, walking awkwardly, sleeping most of the time, not wanting us near. We took him to our room again last night, and today he's seemed rather better, much more alert and purring when we stroke him. We would have consulted a vet if we could have done but they were closed already for the Christmas break.

So we now think that perhaps they both caught some kind of feline bug - apparently there is one going around - and that Joan, who has never been as strong as Alex, succumbed. I miss her, and he's going to miss her too, but we're relieved that he's more like himself today:

If you've come on this post by chance and are interested in knowing more about our family, here's the link to this year's Christmas newsletter - written a couple of weeks ago, before Joan disappeared.

And as if all that weren't enough, yesterday Becky managed to break a shoe and fall down our outside stairs when carrying David down, although automatic parent instinct took over and he was fine; Becky has a nasty graze.

On a more cheerful note, David seems to enjoy most new experiences, including riding in a special toddler shopping trolley when we did our big grocery shop at Metro yesterday:

He's been teething, and keeping his parents awake at night, so with everything that's been going on we're all quite tired. But we hope everything is mostly organised for tomorrow... and I may even go to this year's carol service this evening.

Merry Christmas to anyone who reads this.