New Year

 I'm not the only one I know who had a difficult 2012. 

Let's hope this year is good for us all.

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I love the LOL Cats! 
I think you either love or hate them. 
I did read on someone's Facebook page that they hate the language applied to them, as it didn't reflect a cat's intelligence. I know what she means, I don't doubt how intelligent cats are. There was always a deep wisdom in Scooter's eyes. But there was often a wee bit of cheekiness, too.

I've no doubt that, just as I don't feel my 45 years on the inside, neither did he feel his 19, or whatever it was in cat years. On the inside there was still a trace of mischievous kitten. I think that's the same for all cats. So that's why I can imagine them using LOL Cat English. Just as Bob T Bear (esq) uses Bear English, after all.

I think there are pictures around of LOL Dogs, but I don't think it works. It works with cats because we all have a hunch that they are up to something.

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 Platforms at an old disused railway station at Clare, Suffolk. 

You can walk along where the tracks used to go, through woodland, under bridges.....

To all the very well-meaning friends who have urged me to take in another cat- I can't, I can't even move his bed. 

Or even the pillow on the windowsill- the pillow and its fluffy cover, which he slept on during his last night and day, is still where it was that day. I haven't moved it at all. I can't. I haven't even picked it up and put it back. I've just let it be. Sometimes I sit on the sofa beneath the window, with one hand up on the pillow, and imagine that last night when I sat there, hand stroking him.... so how could I have another cat here?

I still hear him sometimes, though it has got less.

Recently he meowed at the foot of the stairs. It woke me up, it cut through the night air so clearly. I think it was because Luvbug was sleeping downstairs on the sofa. His bad cough was keeping him awake, and he was worried it would wake me, so he moved downstairs while I was asleep. That meow waking me was the first I realised Luvbug had moved. I think Scooter was worried to see his daddy there and was asking me if he was ok, or was everything all right. I told him, it's ok, but daddy isn't well, so you go and snuggle up to him. Luvbug settled down and slept after that.

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We all have a nasty virus infection here. Luvbug has had it since the start of December. I caught it in time for Christmas. Mum caught it last week.  

It features a bad, chesty cough, tiredness and aches, hot and cold shivers and goose-bumps, headache. Mum's is mainly a bad throat; she has almost lost her voice. Luvbug's is mostly a bad cough. Mine includes a bad tummy. I've also been coughing up blood in the morning.

We've had anti-biotics and I seem to have gone downhill again since I finished the course, so I may have to return for more. The doc gave me a form to take to the hospital Outpatients and get a chest x-ray. I haven't bothered to do this so far because she said it will take at least 10-12 days for the results, pos. more because of the holiday. Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous? I may go to Accident & Emergency instead, not mention the form, and see if I can get one done there. At least then I'll get the results straight away.

I keep being tempted by the boxes of treats that Luvbug received as gifts from the children at school at the end of term. Now and then I think I'll have a chocolate. I'm soon regretting it, and running off to the smallest room in the house again :(

I bet the bug was a gift from one of the kids, too! Little snotty germ factories.... 

I hope you have managed to avoid this virus, which apparently has affected at least a million of us in the UK this winter so far. If not, I hope you are well on the way to recovery. 

The way it drags on and on is getting very boring!

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Love, tea & cake,  
Helena