Newton and the Fierce Apples

This will appear to be a very random post - well it is a very random post, but there is a reason.
I was reading this post on Wednesday from Fuzzy Tales, and was wondering if lovely Derry the cat was playing with a real or pretend banana (sorry this will only make sense if you look at it). Now this might seem like a ridiculous question to ask - what cat would wrestle with a real banana? Except cats can be a bit odd sometimes. It turns out Derry had a catnip toy banana which must have been great fun, but the reason I was entertaining the idea of it being real was this video I took last year of Newton who I happened upon while he was defending himself against these very dangerous Bramleys. So this is specially for Kim:



We'll see if Archie takes a liking to attacking any other kind of fruit.

Remembering Newton

Now it's getting a bit warmer I've been going out into the garden more and hanging the washing on the line - and that takes me right next to the place where we buried Newton.

I had such a terrible dilemma about what to do with him - cremation is now a very plausible option for a beloved pet, and we have an excellent crematorium nearby which came highly recommended by a friend. Of course the decision is an immensely personal one, and I think if there had just been me to consider I would have taken this option, because I didn't want to leave Newton behind if and when we ever move house and I felt I needed more time with him close by. But son no. 2 was particularly distressed at the thought of cremation, and we do have two of our other cats buried here. So as we were running out of time we took the decision to bury Newton too.
This we had to do in the dark and in the snow late one evening the week he died, as it needed to be a private family event and we had my in-laws coming to stay the next day. In fact the stillness of the evening and the blanket of snow made it perhaps a more special time. He is buried in his favourite outdoor place - he used to curl up and sleep there in the summer, flattening the long grass into a perfect circle in our wild-flower patch.

I had his name inscribed on a large pebble,

and this I found really helpful as it can stay on his grave for as long as we are here, but if we do move I can take the pebble with me as a memorial for him in our new home. I'm hoping to get similar ones inscribed for our previous cats too so we can do the same with theirs. It came from a place called Letterfest which I'd found a while ago, they found me a larger pebble specially.

This week I moved some of my snowdrops and crocuses to just around the pebble - the lovely clear bright white and purple catches the light, I can see them from the kitchen even though it's a long garden, and they'll come up every year. I'll try to find some other bulbs to plant too, perhaps something that flowers in the summer and autumn too. They'd need to be taller to be seen in the longer grass and be able to cope with being a bit dry - if any of you have any ideas of what might be suitable I'd be grateful to hear them!

A lovely gift

I must show you the beautiful gift Lyn has sent to me, which arrived today with a cat card too:

She is such a talented artist as you will see if you pop over to her 'art' blog, and has done this picture of Newton specially for me, this was a complete surprise gift, I had no idea she would be sending something so personal and special. It really does capture his character, not always easy when working from a photo, and will be a treasured memory of him and of her friendship, so thank you Lyn so much, I know I've already e-mailed you but am saying it publicly as well!

Following Newton's death I have been so grateful for the support of friends, and being so new to blogging I've been so touched by the messages I've had from those of you I've never actually met, some of you are a very long way away geographically but it has felt like you're just around the corner! My good friend Tammy really is round the corner, and has been fantastic too. We continually try and encourage each other in keeping on being creative and I'd be lost without our weekly (if we can manage it) coffee-and-inspiration meetings! She's another very talented painter as you can see from her website.

I have another thank you too, to my friend Annalisa who has given me my first blog award! I'll be posting properly on this when I've worked out how to do it!

Archie is getting on well and is becoming more confident by the day, he had his first innoculations today which he hated! He's managed to get into a few cupboards and being so small and black we lost him in the big kitchen one. He is trying to wash me as I type and has a damp leg as he's run right through his water bowl!

Trouble arrives.

Let me introduce you to the smallest and newest member of our family. We're still testing out names that fit him, so I'll have to let you know later what he is going to be called.

Part of me never wanted another cat again because I loved Newton SO much, each relationship we have with our pets is special because they are all so different, and I will always miss him very much. But the house was so very empty and we couldn't imagine being without a cat to love, so this week we began looking. My husband and I were both hoping for a little black boy, and I saw an advert for him and his siblings yesterday morning. After a long day waiting to get in touch with his owners we sped over last night to find he was the last one left of his litter - he had a black and white sister, tabby sister and brother, all playing madly together, and about to be collected by other people. I'd have definitely taken the whole lot of them if I could! We felt that he'd been very well looked after, they'd taken him to the vet to be checked over as well, which not everybody does.

He is nearly 9 weeks old, quite fluffy and not quite black - he has quite a brown head and faint tabby stripes in the daylight.

He is desperate to play all the time until he is too tired, and likes playing with the blind-cords best of all. He keeps forgetting that we are not really scary and runs away to hide under the cupboards often, before coming out for more games. He will sit on our laps for a cuddle only when he's run out of energy for anything else. As I type he has fallen asleep while under the cupboard, with son no.2 asleep on the floor next to him.

Oh, and he likes to climb, he's going to be BIG trouble. He's eyeing up routes to the top of everything.

So here we are, a new phase in our life beginning - at the moment he is still a stranger to us and us to him and it will be lovely getting to know him. As I knew it would, having a new life in the house has made me miss Newton even more because of the depth of the relationship that we had with him, but I'm sure in time we will build a unique relationship with this little one as well.

So I'll keep you informed of all his various new antics and hope you enjoy sharing our experience of him growing up!

A cold, sad day.

We lost Newton in the night.

He stopped purring yesterday evening so I knew it was time, and I'm very grateful that he died at home and didn't have to be taken to the vets.

We will miss him so much, but he brought us so much happiness while we had him and we have lots to be thankful for.

Newton helping with letters.

Newton was just about well enough yesterday to help me with my thank you notes when I got back from work, I'm supposed to have finished them today but haven't quite managed. They are really lovely ones from Paperchase that I was given as a present last year, with a beautiful pattern and such a great contrast of colours.

It's been a really worrying day today though as Newton was completely off his food, the vet said he'd lost a lot of weight when we took him last night, we can't get him to take his heart tablets at all, no matter what we bury them in (and we were trying tiny bits of cheese and ham from our own dinner!) he won't have them, which can't be good. Just half an hour ago he's been eating again after a special new appetite-increaser-pill from the vet, so we may be able to tempt him later with more deceitfully disguised drugs, but cats know when you're trying to give them medicine! He's happy to be stretched out in front of the stove again this evening where he belongs and is still purring at us, but is definitely deteriorating fast. It's a bit of an emotional roller-coaster, a good day followed by a bad day when I try somehow to prepare for being without him, then a better time when we cling onto the hope he might stabilise for just a bit longer.
I am grateful for friends who understand how devastating it is to face losing a much-loved pet.

Proper snow at last

While the rest of the country seems to have had many inches of snow, we've only had a pretty, but not deep, sprinkling. Until yesterday, when we had small but persistent flakes and the boys could go out into the field at the bottom of the garden after school and get extremely cold and wet making a snowman and sledging down the hill. Newton is not allowed out, the vet said so, but he really wanted to go too.

Getting darker but they were still out in the field.

Still out.
Everything had a pinky-orange glow because of the street lights.

The tree at the front looked lovely with snowy branches lit up with the Christmas lights:


And when the sun came out this morning it all looked beautiful:

Crochet Kitten

I'm not quite ready to get all my wool out and start felting just yet, I need to put all the decorations away first and catch up at the office tomorrow, but I did want to make something little while I still had a few moments spare.
Another good thing about the holidays is the lack of guilt I've felt in having a better look round for lovely blog sites, and in my travels I came across this beautiful one called Marmalade Rose.
Spying a crochet kitten pattern I went straight to it and found it was perfect for me to make out of a bit of spare yarn I had left over from doing a crochet penguin last year! Marmalade Rose has very generously shared it with everyone, for which I'd like to say thank you! I too had seen the original knitting pattern a while ago but I think the crochet one is much nicer!

It's taken me a while as black yarn is difficult to see in electric light and we don't seem to be getting much daylight at the moment (unless some of us are getting up early, which I'm not), but I finally finished sewing him up today. I have to say I was doing the tail last night and ended up going quite wrong as I kept losing sight of the tops of the stitches in the round below and ended up decreasing too much towards the end, but then kittens have very pointy tails so I thought it would be fine!

My own lovely cat is very weak and has started coughing, which is a bad sign as it means fluid is probably starting to build up in his lungs, I spend a lot of time checking to see if he's still breathing, which is not very relaxing.
He's searching out every bit of sunshine he can find.

Here he is snoozing on the window sill - he can't quite be bothered to fit all of himself behind one blind as he's so long, and you can just see his black nose in the gap underneath.

Post Christmas Recovery

In the end our Christmas day was a good one, although it could so easily have been extremely sad.

Newton came home on Christmas Eve (with a bill for over £1,000 - covered thankfully by our insurance) after three days at the vets being poked, shaved and tested. We didn't expect him to survive the night as he looked so very poorly and couldn't move, but we found him much brighter on Christmas day and he weakly joined in with some unwrapping. Here he is where he shouldn't be on the table after lunch with the racing santas and reindeer we had in our crackers.

According to the specialist who did an ultrasound, he has quite advanced heart failure - he's eight so we weren't prepared for him to be so very ill. Today he feels much better and is doing all the things he shouldn't be like jumping, playing and trying to escape into the garden. His heart tablets seem to be helping but you can see by the way his chest is moving how hard his poor heart is having to work and he's living on borrowed time a bit.

So we're trying to make the most of each day with him and he's getting spoiled with posh pouches of food that he would never normally be allowed!

Christmas decorations and a very ill cat

I was more organised than ever this year with my Christmas cleaning and decorating, and was so enjoying the bright sunny days and the light sprinkling of snow that we had here.

I love putting the decorations in their tried-and-tested places - here are just a few.Yesterday just as I was nearly finished and planning to settle down to some festive cooking, Newton decided that this was the perfect time to collapse with severe breathing problems and had to be rushed to the vets, where he is spending his second night tonight. We all miss him and it's been a really worrying time.
I'm ridiculously attached to him as he is my constant companion, so affectionate and full of character, so it's hard to be cheerful, but at least he is being well looked after - we went to see him today and he is in an incubator on oxygen. So we hope he can be home soon, it's not the same without him trying to walk all over the presents under the tree. But I'm thankful of course that it's not one of the boys who is seriously ill.

I hope all of you have a very Happy Christmas and are able to have a rest at some stage!

Newton Helping

Cats are great at helping wrap presents.
Newton is very hard to remove from a place he is comfortable as he tends to get a bit prickly with his claws, so we didn't try very hard. Every now and then he stretched out further and played with the roll bit of the paper so by the time he eventually moved it had quite a few puncture marks in it.

Cold Cat in a Circle.

Newton thinks it is too cold now and spends most of his time like this, how they get so round is a mystery to me - do they KNOW they're in a perfect circle?

When he is not asleep he is observing the world out of the front window while sitting on my basket of supplies.

Or observing me taking his picture before he swipes me with his paw to tell me to stop.

Happiness is....a woodburning stove and some cake

We are quite glad the weather has turned cooler as it means we have an excuse to light our lovely stove. Newton is the most grateful, stretching out as close as he can get to it, usually on the hearth. Here he is relaxing after the exertion of hunting down and demolishing a freshly baked cake in the kitchen while I wasn't looking.

Crochet Cat versus Real Cat

Now the weather is turning cooler, our cat Newton wants to be as warm as possible, which usually means climbing as high as he can and squeezing into a basket a couple of sizes too small. Here he is in the kitchen ontop of our tallest cupboard, just above the cat I made last year to almost match him.