THE MOVE AND THE LAST POST

J is doing exceptionally well at his new school in the UK.  I moved back to the UK at the end of October.  Saying goodbye to our animals, home, friends and family was impossibly hard, I think I created a bubble around me to deal with it all.

On my return to Mallorca in September Ruffa-Roo was visibly ill.  He'd lost weight in the 3 weeks I'd been away and he had lumps under his skin.  I took him to the vet and almost immediately had to have him put to sleep.  A biopsy taken, whilst I was away, showed he had very late stage cancer.  He was beginning to have problems with his breathing and I decided not to make him suffer anymore - chemo was not an option - I saw what it did to C.  No more suffering. 

With an unbelievably awful year behind us, both J and I are now trying to move on with our lives.  It is very hard to know what direction to go in at the moment, but I am sure that will come in time, hopefully sooner rather than later. 

We both miss Mallorca very much and our life there, but onwards and upwards is the only way to go.  

Thank you to all those that read this blog over the recent years.  It will still be left here for now and you never know, perhaps added to again in the future.

Goodbye and always believe anything is possible, even if it only lasts a little while. xx

KITTENS AND THE ORANGE BLOSSOM

Well last night proved to be rather eventful, for me anyway.  Two days ago we noticed that our female mummy cat Jess, was really bulging - we have known she was pregnant for quite a while now.  She was also rummaging about outside to find a suitable nest site and being over friendly with us all, she definitely didn't want to be outside and seemed to want to be near us all the time.  We helped her a couple of years ago with her first lot of kittens, she trusts us which is lovely.

Jess beginning labour.

Last night at about 10pm she went into labour.  Her nest is a basket tied to the end of on of our beds with blankets in.  We decided to bring her in this time as there are always many more complications when kittens are born outside!  When the kittens are a bit stronger they'll all go out again.  So, I placed food and water on a chair near the bed and her litter box I put in the room also, so that she didn't have to go to far for it.

Basket nest for Jess.

At 12.58AM the first kitten appeared.  A little black one, I haven't seen any white on it yet.  25 minutes later a tabby and white appeared.  Jess is a brilliant mum but she really wanted me near, she kept wanting to hold my finger and rub her face on my hand.  At about 2AM I managed to doze off finally but awoke again around 3AM to another being born, by 4AM the final one came and I snuggled down to sleep before having to get up at 7.30 this morning!

4 little bundles of fluff.  There is a tabby & white, grey stripey, dark grey & white and a little black one

Not so easy to see them but they are all there with mum somewhere.  Jess is a small adult cat and is very delicate when she walks about, but is a great mum.

I woke exhausted - I don't function well on very little sleep, so today I've felt like my head had been wrapped in cotton wool!  We raced to get J ready for school only to realise that he really wasn't well, so as I had an appointment with physio, we took him to the doc! turns out J has a chest infection.  As I've mentioned before, chest infections are extremely commonplace here usually due to the damp conditions of the island, but by the time May/June come around everyone is fine again!

So, we raced into town, picked up a prescription and then decided he should stay off school for today.  We then drove over to a friends finca, the other side of Sa Pobla, just to check on a few things for them.  When we got back in the car to go off food shopping, the car wouldn't start.   Not a peak, NO SOUND, NOTHING, NADA....... PANIC ran through me! Oh NO, I thought, please not on a day when I have so much to do and my brain is like candyfloss!  A Mallorquin farmer, doing his irrigation in the field next door, came up to the fence to ask what the problem was, I told him and he immediately said 'aaaaahhhh, es la batería'.  He was telling me the battery was kaput!  I hoped and prayed that he was right.  He said he'd be 10 minutes finishing his watering and he'd be over with a spare!  Blimey, I couldn't believe our luck, then the thought dawned on me that perhaps it wasn't the battery and that it was something a lot more serious! The car is on it's way out anyway.  The farmer came round with the battery on his moped and between him and C, fixed it in place.  FANTASTICO! It worked, he was right.  I could have grabbed hold of him and spun him round with delight, but I thought better of it,  as it would have been highly inappropriate.  So I just thanked him enormously and said we'd get it sorted this week and drop the battery back to him as soon as possible.  Talk about trust, you wouldn't get that sort of help even from a neighbour in the UK!

On the way back to the town to do the food shop, I felt calmer and less 'candyflossed' in the brain, the smell of orange blossoms around Sa Pobla is very strong at the moment.  Heaven.  At our finca, the scent is very heady but wonderful.  The vegetables are all growing, slowly but surely, and all is fine and dandy after a crazy day and night.