Bye Bye Jodie

Not a great week for us - they say things happen in threes.  On Sunday / Monday - someone bashed one of our car doors, then the dish washer packed in and then on Monday we had to take Jodie to see the vet for the last time.  Let's hope our luck picks up!

So, back to the weekend, on Saturday we went to Chester to visit the Watsons.  They have 3 girls: Maggie - 7, Tamsin - 5 and Jenny - 21 months.  Tamsin seems to really like Tom, and before too long the two of them were playing as if they were best buddies (Tom took his snake with him, which became a great game - Tamsin holding the front and running, tugging Tom behind her who was holding on to the tail).  This meant that I got the afternoon off, so enjoyed putting my feet up on the sofa and watching them play. They played long and hard, meaning that at bed time, Tom went to sleep easily (after a talking to by his Dad) and we could relax (although poor Cameron was suffering quite badly from jetlag)

Oh - on the way up to Chester, I heard a little voice say 'Baa baa black sheep'.  Typical, every night for months I have sung Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Wind the Bobbin Up and The Wheels on the Bus and he comes up with Baa Baa Black Sheep.  Oh well, never mind, it is progress.  Oh and we now have some colours: black, white, yellow, blue and purple.  No red and green yet - but we are working on them.

Jodie has been going down hill for a number of weeks now.  The last week she refused to eat (apart from some duck giblets) and her back legs were getting weaker and weaker.  When we came back from Chester, she could hardly get up and down the stairs and was walking sideways.  Her time had come.  We knew it and she knew it.  We tried to make her last night as comfortable as possible and spent some quality time with her in order to say our goodbyes, including Tom, he spent some nice time with her, stroking her and being gentle with her which was lovely.

On Monday morning, Matt made the dreaded phone call and we all walked over to the vets.  We were all with her when she passed away - she didn't fight at all - the only time in her life when she hasn't shown any malice to the vet - another sure sign she was ready to go.  We left her behind on the table and walked home.  Tom wasn't happy with us - pointing to the vets and shouting 'cat' which was very hard to deal with. 

The house isn't the same without her, we keep looking round to see where she is so we don't trip over her, picking things up so she won't soil them, thinking we are hearing her.  It is very strange and a little eerie.  She was almost 21 so had a good innings, a wonderful friend and pseudo mum to Tom - she was as gentle as anything to him, allowed him to thump her when he was a baby and never retaliated - we think he prolonged her life - she certainly showed more interest in life once he arrived.  Not much of a hunter - think she caught a dead leaf once, a bit cheeky (she climbed into my parents car the first time she met them - much to my mum's surprise) and a good lap cat and purrer.  We will remember her fondly.

As luck would have it, I had arranged to meet up with a friend from twitter on Monday afternoon, so rather than moping around the house, we went to Burntwood to meet up with her.  I call her Kathryn Biker Cake - she has a motorbike and runs her own home based cake business so we have a lot in common.  As it turns out, she is also a really good talker and very welcoming.  She has a 9 year old boy, so got a box of cars for Tom to play with - which he did and we talked and talked and talked.  We then went to a local pub and talked and talked and talked, went back to her place and talked and talked and talked.  We talked until she had to collect her kids and we went home.  Tom was such an angel, hardly needed any interaction - just played by himself the whole day, couldn't have asked for better behavior.