Foggi, Sticky & Furry Fred!

"Just for one night," I firmly told my teenaged children when one of them brought a wet & bedraggled, frightened, black kitten into the house, rescued from slashing rain outside. "Tomorrow it will have to go!"

Well I couldn't send it back outside in that storm, could I? But I definitely didn't want a cat. It had been a wonder that the frantic meowing had been heard above the storm, in the first place, when it cried outside the back door.

As we had no suitable cat food, we fed it small pieces of Cheddar cheese, that disappeared quickly down its ravenous throat.

In the end, Sam braved the storm and went to the nearest shop to buy a small tin of cat food, as it wasn't staying, I stressed. The hungry kitten devoured it quickly and it was obvious that it hadn't been fed for a long time.

Well this was the beginning of our love affair with cats. Debbie named him Furry, as his black coat had dried out to reveal his lovely sleek fur. However, Sam thought that was a soppy name and called him Fred. He soon learned to respond to either or both, so he was named Furry Fred!

Furry Fred was a bit of a wanderer and kept escaping from the back garden and liked to sit in the main road and was always weaving in & out of traffic. I tried to keep him indoors, but he was never happy and usually managed to escape.

He was forever being bitten by the local felines and must have been defending himself, as he certainly wasn't a bully by nature. This resulted in him having to have abscesses lanced at the vets. We had already had him neutered 

Four years later, my friend asked me if I'd go with her to help her choose a kitten! Well that was a silly thing for me to do and I came home with Foggi, a delightful  grey female kitten and she looked as if she was an expensive pedigree.

Furry Fred was not at all impressed with his new companion and hissed and stomped off, spending more time at Doreen's house over the road. Doreen was rather a lonely lady  who enticed him over with expensive tins of salmon, not realizing how dangerous it was becoming for him to dodge the traffic.

The lady who gave us Foggi, had one kitten left and as he was the runt of the litter was very small and not attractive in any way, having black, sticky fur that stuck out in all directions, he was going to be put to sleep if no one chose him by the end of the week, she had said.

Well, I couldn't let that happen to Foggi's brother, could I? So within a few days I went back to see if he was still there and he was. Nobody wanted this poor little mite.

Foggi was delighted to be reunited with her brother & she and Sticky were always close by one another and slept head to tail, snuggled up.

Because of his love of danger, and his salmon addiction, Furry Fred had several accidents in the road that resulted in him breaking a leg on two occasions and his jaw on another and together with his frequent trips to the vet for abscess lancing, Furry Fred was an expensive cat to keep!

In spite of his unfortunate start in life, he went on to live for 21 years, living a happy life, I think.

Sticky grew into a fine, handsome cat and lived a happy and uneventful life in the house and back garden to the age of 16.

Foggi was my absolute favourite and she & I were very close. She was pretty and affectionate and always sat on my knee while I twiddled with her ears and watched TV. She died at 14 years of age and I was truly heartbroken.

I have fought off the temptation to even look at another kitten, even though I've had many opportunities and offers! However I often think back to how our "cat era" began when I agreed to take in Furry Fred for just one night!

Go To Church And Lose A Brother?

Some of my early memories are quite vivid and every now and again I start to think of my childhood..........

We lived on the edge of a small town in the north of England and when I was five years old and my brother Godfrey was only half that age, my mum and dad tried to get us to go to church. I was, by then attending the local church school so I think they were both under pressure to attend the church, next door to it. During the services there was much sitting, kneeling and standing and Godfrey used to crawl along the pews at an amazing speed and my parents managed several times to rescue him from large ladies and gents who were about to squash him when they sat down.

It was decided, because of the difficulty of controlling Godfrey, that Mum would take me to church while Dad stayed at home and looked after my brother. There were no creches in those days.

"You will keep your eye on him, won't you?" Mum implored, as she knew only too well how absent minded my father was when he was absorbed in his music & reading and all his other hobbies that completely engrossed him.

"Of course I will," he said, closing the door behind us. I think I knew even at that age that there might be a bit of a problem looming up!

On our return home from church, Godfrey was nowhere to be seen. Dad said he could remember him playing in the garden only five minutes before we arrived home, so he couldn't be far away. Mum was very distraught and rapidly searched the house, garden and near friends and neighbours. However, he was not to be seen anywhere.

There was a duck pond down the lane and my mum thought Godfrey might have gone there on his own. We were used to going with her to feed the ducks, so he knew the way. A  local man had once told us that a horse and cart had galloped into the pond out of control and had disappeared into the water without trace, so we knew it was deep.

Mum grabbed me and together we rushed down the lane towards the pond as by now we had visions of him lying face down in the water. Thankfully, when we got to the pond, there was no trace of him, but we both remembered the story of the horse and cart that was never seen again.

I remember feeling really uncomfortable & despairing when my mum collapsed into a heap on the grass verge with her hands over her face, sobbing uncontrollably. I happened to look up the lane towards the main road and I saw an old lady holding Godfrey by the hand and she was knocking on the doors of houses along the road.  My mum dragged me and we raced as fast as my legs would carry me to the main road.

"What do you think you are doing with him?" she accused the old lady. 

The lady looked hurt and told Mum that she had found Godfrey by himself trying to cross the main road & she had been knocking on house doors trying to find out where he lived, without success. Mum caught him up in her arms. "I've been looking for him everywhere," she said "And you've been taking him further away from home."

Although I was only five years old, I can remember thinking how unfair my mum was being with the old lady, who had obviously been only trying to help Godfrey and I felt very embarrassed by her remark.

We turned towards home.

My dad was the centre of a major row and it was years before Mum and I ever went to Church together again.

British Gastropod Invasion

According to a recent newspaper article, last year slugs and snails were rated as Public Enemy Number One for Britain's gardeners.

Thanks to the wettest year on record, they well and truly multiplied and chomped their way through our flowers and plants at an alarming rate.

I didn't really need the papers to tell me that as I knew only too well that our garden had been full of the pests! The RHS says that the best way to get rid of them is to sink jars of beer into the earth and the gastropods die a wonderful death! However we think this is a waste of beer! Our garden ends with a high wall with plants and high shrubs growing up against it. Beyond this is a lane wide enough to take a single vehicle and the shops on the other side of the lane have access.

Even the youngest member of our family understands what de slugging is! We have a springy fly swatter that we keep outside our back door. The slugs and snails are then scooped up and catapulted over the back wall into the lane. They then have the chance of survival and if they do get run over by a van then that is tough! We usually catapult a few at a time so as not to arouse suspicion and the children enjoy collecting them in little heaps ready for take off!

A friend of mine says that they have a homing instinct and always make their way back. She told me she had read of an experiment where blobs of red paint were put on their shells before they were released some way off and many did make it back. I thought as much as I do seem to have a number of snails with cracked shells wandering about.

One of my neighbours gathers her snails into a bucket & gets her teenage lad to release them in the park, some distance away. Another takes a bucket of the pests to the nearest duck pond, where the ducks feed on them with relish! A rather cruel method was used by another friend with a pair of scissors! I at least give mine a chance!

One day after one of my snails flew over the wall, I heard a muffed scream as some one walked by and I crouched low behind the wall hoping that whoever had been scared of the flying missile would think a bird had dropped it!

Public Enemy Number Two was listed as the harlequin ladybird. This was branded the "most invasive ladybird on Earth!" by British scientists writing in the journal BioControl. Although the harlequins have been around for a while now, they are still not that common where we live and when I did eventually recognize one in the garden, Sam rushed to get his camera and took several pictures. In his haste he managed to knock the creature into a spiders web and although he tried to retrieve it, he managed to lose it. 

The photos turned out to be disappointing and the ladybird was only as big as a pinhead so couldn't be identified at all.

I wonder if these two pests will keep their place in the list of Public Enemies of Britain's Gardeners this year? Or will something even worse invade the sanctuary of our beloved havens of peace and tranquility, which is of course, the British garden. 

A Spiteful Sister!

Quite often when I sit down on a park bench or other place where I feel I will have a bit of peace and quiet, some one inevitably chooses my bench to sit on and starts to tell me all their family troubles!

Have I got a sign on my head that says HERE IS A GULLIBLE PERSON WHO YOU CAN UNLOAD ONTO?

If I'm in a hurry I make some excuse to go, but sometimes I feel obliged to listen, like the other day!

A lady of around my age sat  herself beside me and while I was eating my sandwiches, started telling me about a terrible thing that had happened to her husband.

Apparently, her very elderly mother in law had just died. There'd been a family split beforehand. Her husband and his eldest sister had been totally ostracized when their younger sister & husband "took over" their mother while she was frail and had persuaded her to sign everything over to them.

The youngest sister, husband and boys went to live in the house, which was now theirs and when the son or his eldest sister tried to visit their mother, they were not made welcome and sometimes not even permitted over the threshold.

On the occasions that they had managed to slip in secretly for a visit, their mother told them that she was not being treated very well, sometimes having no one to cook for her, and as she had poor eyesight she found things very difficult. She was left alone for hours at a time. She bitterly regretted what had happened.

Some time before she died, her son took her a birthday gift but was told by the family that he couldn't see her as she had the flu. The younger sister took the present and shut the door in his face. That was to be the last time he would ever visit the family house again.

Unknown to the son or his older sister, their mother had been put into a home, where she had died.

The older sister had received a phone call from a complete stranger, who told them about the death and which funeral directors to get into contact with.

However, not only did the younger sister take all the estate and keep the death a secret, she also prevented her siblings from seeing their mother before the cremation. Apparently, as executors of the Will she could do that.

The lady dabbed her eyes and told me her husband was now a broken man and not in the best of health himself.

I was quite overcome with this tale.

What a spiteful thing to do! Preventing them from seeing their mother and keeping the death a secret.

I was left wondering if this could ever happen to my family, when I get too old?

I walked away with indigestion!

Who Am I?

Five year old Amber seems to be having an identity crisis. 

To be fair, she was plucked out of a Japanese nursery school and a home where she had happily lived with parents and sister, Japanese auntie, and grandparents and almost immediately started an English Reception class, all less than a year ago and the family is now living temporarily with Harry and me. So there's no doubt that she is a very adaptable little girl and she is doing well at school and learning our culture very quickly.

However there is some mix up going on in her head and before she went on holiday she was looking long and hard at me when she eventually said, "You are not part of my family."

ME.  "Yes I am. I'm your Grandma."

A.      "No you are not Japanese."

ME.   "I'm part of your English family."

A .     "You don't speak Japanese so you can't be family."

ME.   "You have a Japanese family like Mummy & an English family like Daddy."

A.      "No, Daddy speaks Japanese!"

ME.   "He is English but he speaks Japanese."

A.       (Getting very annoyed) "He is Japanese, he is, he is!"

ME.    "He is my son."

A.       "No, no he is MY son!"

A little talk ensued about relationships. The difference between sons & daddies. I went on to explain that Auntie Debbie was my daughter, Daddy's sister. Rick and Dean were cousins. Thought I had better not mention the obvious racial differences as she had not even noticed them!

Amber replied, "They are family but you are not. Nor Grandad! You are very mean to talk like that!" she said, stamping her foot and flouncing off!

I gave up, feeling a little confused myself, but one thing I know is that she has a stubborn streak in her, just like I have!

The Ripples of Sadness

A stone thrown in water sends out ripples. 

Did you not realize, my sweet, tormented friend, all those years ago when you took your own life, that the ripples of sadness would still be affecting others?

The daughters you left behind are now around your age. The age you were when you met your sudden demise. But you are not forgotten, how could you be? You are part of the family memories. The happy times when our children played together, as well as the sad times when you became ill.

Why couldn't you have clung on to life? Recovery was surely just around the corner?

When we first realized what you had done, we felt horrified, angry, guilty, despairing and shocked. One sensation after another, but above all, we missed you and the girls needed you so badly.

Your grandchildren will never know you. Are you aware of them? Are you happy now, where you are? I need to think so and my faith urges me to believe that you live on.

Your birthday is near again. I never seem to forget it! For a long time I put the flowers near your photo, on the piano. That need is long gone and the photo is somewhere, but I do think of you sometimes when I least expect to, like today. But your children are still affected by what you did.

If you were alive today, you would be old and I cannot picture you like that. Would we still be as close as we were before, or would we have drifted apart, my sweet, tormented friend?

Silence is Golden, Isn't it?

Silence, so deep that you could almost cut it with a knife!

I can hear the clock ticking, the boiler firing into action as it heats the radiators and Harry turning the pages of his newspaper, but that is all.

Earlier this morning the house was a cacophony, heaving with all the family noises, shrieks of laughter, little squabbles and noisy games, breakfast sounds while eating in a rush. There were last minute checks .... passports, coach tickets and rummaging in the attic, as Sam and family got ready for their holiday. Debbie, our daughter, up early to say goodbye to them and Dean, her youngest son, managing to come down in time to join in with the farewells. Rick, the eleven year old, somehow managing to sleep through it all!

Now, they, too, have gone back to their own town, miles away and Harry & I are in complete silence!

Family reunions are a blessing which we enjoy, but how is it that when we are all together, the bustle of family life can seem too much? We are sometimes longing for peace, time, space and a quiet place to do a crossword puzzle or read a book without interruption.

Now, the silence does not seem perfect at all! It engulfs us in a threatening, lonely, even boring way.

Within a few days, Harry and I shall be quite used to it and by the end of the week, when the Japanese contingency arrives home from their holiday, it will be like a riot going on - a blast, shattering our peace!

Why does life have to be so extreme?