Good news and bad news

The last couple of weeks have been a bit of an emotional roller coaster.  Absolute joy that Jennie's hip replacement is going ahead in early February and her suffering over the last year or two will shortly be at an end.   It will be fantastic to have her operating at full steam again.  It's being done at a private hospital and no mucking about these days - they have you up and walking the next day (with crutches) and generally send you home a couple of days later.  No riding for me in Feb whilst I'm taking care of her and doing the household duties but so good to have her out of pain.  It also means that our trip to China at the end of  May can now go ahead as planned.  For a while, it looked like we might lose the deposit with all the medical uncertainty.

This week has been a sad one as we said goodbye to our 17 year old part - Russian Blue cat Thomas.  We got him as a rescue kitten from the SPCA.  The photo below was taken on the day we brought him home.  He looked so sad as he had a weepy eye and maybe that was part of why he was chosen. Or did he choose us..... ?

A little waif in need of love....

He quickly attached himself to Jennie and became quite a character in the neighbourhood.  Thankfully, he was good mates with the cat next door but scrapped with any other felines in the neighbourhood and was quite happy to take on sizeable dogs too.  The local vet got a nice income stream from regularly patching him up!

Attacking the cat flap for some unknown reason

He loved his food and became pretty well-known in the neighbourhood for turning up at BBQ's up to a couple of streets away.  Ever-polite, he wouldn't scrounge - he'd simply sit and stare at someone until a bit of steak or sausage was forthcoming!

When we retired and moved to Coromandel, he loved the lifestyle and often walked to the beach behind our place and explored the rock pools.

Exploring the rock pools at the beach

Thomas was always into thinking big.  He couldn't be arsed to chase the local bird population but on numerous occasions, we'd wake in the morning to the sight of a rabbit hopping around the lounge which he'd dragged through the cat flap.  He never hurt them - just used to bring them home and watch them.  His crowning glory (so to speak) was dragging a very angry pheasant through the cat flap one day which proceeded to flap round the house and poop everywhere before we could get it outside.

After that, he settled for an easier life and recognised that neighbours flushing their outboard engines meant that they'd shortly be filleting their catch.  He'd saunter off and politely sit by their filleting benches waiting to receive trimmings.  Always a very dignified cat.  One near-neighbour used to place a fish scale on his head to signify that he'd been fed when he finally arrived home!

  Thomas inspecting and approving a neighbour's catch

Tussling for the TV remote with his personal servant

A few tears have been shed over the last few days.  As with all animal lovers, they're family and we grieve accordingly when we lose them.  It's one of the nicer traits of the human race when we can give unconditional love to another species.  RIP Old Fella.

Handsome chap

We've been out fishing regularly because of Jennie's upcoming enforced break and so far, it's been a scorchingly hot summer.  In fact, too hot to be on the water for long without good protection.  UV levels in NZ are pretty high and we share with Queensland (Australia) the dubious distinction of having the highest skin cancer levels in the world.   Time to fit a canopy to the boat so that was our slightly belated joint Christmas present to ourselves.

Spent the best part of a day this week assembling and fitting it.  Most of the time was spent in careful measurement and trial fitting before drilling holes.  Not a good look to have surplus holes on a boat.  Delighted to say that everything went well and it works perfectly.   Surprised to find that it was made in NZ, not China.  Great quality product with clear instructions.  Can't wait to try it out.

A shady canopy - pure bliss!

Ready for action

Oh, and in other good news, I've been given Executive Permission (official trade name) to replace the Suzuki this year.  Won't do anything for a few months but there will be some delicious test riding to be done.  Going for something lighter as a nod to my age but no sacrifice in performance.  Errr... I haven't actually mentioned the performance angle to Jennie as I'm trying to portray uncharacteristic maturity.

It will come as no surprise to regular readers that another Street Triple is one of my two front-runners.  This time, the 765 R or RS.  However, the other choice might raise a few eyebrows!  It's the KTM 790 Duke.  Despite (or because of my 71 years on the planet), maybe it's time to get an utterly mad wheelie monster of a machine that spells FUN in huge capital letters.  Not that I'd ever be caught behaving like that, oh dearie me no.

Watch this space......

Tugging at the heartstrings

I've always considered myself a fairly unemotional and controlled guy (picture Jennie nodding in agreement and rolling her eyes) but when it comes to animals, I'm a complete sook!  You may remember an addendum to a recent post about a tiny, gorgeous and very hungry stray kitten which turned up in our garden a few days before we headed to Thailand. We fed it and let it stay whilst we tried to track down the owners.  No success at all in finding a home and all the local cat rescue places were full, so what to do?

A neighbour was feeding our cats whilst we were away and she offered to feed the kitten too if we wanted to take the risk of leaving it with our two big males and we could sort out what to do when we got back.  We didn't have a lot of choice short of the unthinkable so we took her to the vet for a check-over and a vaccination just to be on the safe side.  The Vet pronounced it a "her" and said she was in superb condition and around 8 weeks old. (You can see where this is going, can't you?)

On getting home, our neighbour said that the kitten had taken complete control of our other two cats (including Jennie's alpha male, Thomas), and had been no trouble at all, even accompanying Thomas on his rounds visiting all the neighbours!  We'd studiously avoided discussing keeping it whilst on holiday, much less talking about names but after being greeted so enthusiastically at the front door, it was done and dusted in ohhhhh..... less than 2 minutes so I'd like to introduce Annie to the world:

Little Orphan Annie

(and her toy mouse)

Sooo cute!

We'd both forgtten how hard work kittens are - chewed book edges, hands with bite and scratch marks and Jennie's large Peace Lily in the lounge has been virtually destroyed!  Oh yeah, and she steals anything that can be carried from our bedroom dressing tables and they pop up all over the house.

On a more sober note, I thought that today was going to be a day when a lot of tears were shed.  On Wednesday evening, we got back from our weekly pub quiz and my cat, Henry, was walking oddly and it was clear that he was in a lot of pain.  Checked him over, couldn't see anything but it looked like his stomach was the problem.  Left him overnight and in the morning, we found he'd pooped runny stuff in our sun room.  We thought he'd either eaten something bad or maybe even poison. Yesterday, he just slept a lot but didn't seem in any discomfort.  This morning, he was in pain again so I rang the vet who doesn't come to Coromandel on a Friday so we legged it 50 km down the coast to Thames.  Henry and I have been great mates for nearly 12 years and I was anticipating the worst so you'll appreciate that I shed the odd tear on the way down.  Little buggers have a way of getting under your skin, don't they?  The vet examined him and almost a miracle - he had a blocked urethra and couldn't pee, apparently not uncommon on older male cats.  I'd be in pain too if I hadn't had a pee for 3 days!  We left him with the vet and got a call this afternoon that they'd fixed the problem and that we'll be able to pick him up in a couple of days when he is fully recovered.  Repair cost is going to be between $400-$700 but  what do you do with family?  Crikey, I should have trained as a vet to beat the economic outlook, but simply overjoyed to have him still with us.  Big, badass biker image in tatters!

Henry loves a wheelbarrow ride!

Addendum:  Sorry to say that Henry didn't make it (see comments below) despite the best efforts of the vet. Annie immediately adopted me and it really does make you wonder about Karma!

The non-human members of the family...

Following  Nicos' recent post about his soccer-averse moggie and Trobairitz'  photo of the majestic Squire Basil, plus seeing that it's close to Christmas, warm fuzzies and all; I thought I'd take the opportunity to introduce our non-motorcycling feline layabouts, Henry and Thomas.  For tenuous reasons, we have cats named after people from the literary world.  Pushkin was our 18 year old black Persian who passed away 11 years ago.  Henry (James) has just turned 11 and Thomas (Hardy) has just turned 9. Like cats everywhere, they're an integral part of the family and have very definite and diverse (psychotic?) personalities.

After Pushkin passed away, Jennie wanted another cat and spied a kitten at the local vets.  The vet nurse told her that blue-eyed white cats were invariably deaf but she was hooked anyway.  I was less happy because of the worry about it getting run over but was naturally over-ruled.  This is Henry a few days after collection from the vet:

Henry, the chocolate box cat in 1999

Henry promptly repaid Jennie's affection by completely ignoring her and attaching himself to me - he's been that way ever since!  For a deaf cat, he's remarkably talkative - how does that work????

After being ignored for a couple of years, Jennie lost patience and visited the local cat rescue, finding an abandoned Russian Blue cross kitten.  He had one bent ear and slightly runny eyes which triggered a typically  "aww...." response from my Chief Executive.  Now there were 2.....  Thomas immediately bonded utterly and completely with Jennie and it's been that way ever since, although he does acknowledge my presence when he's hungry.  This is Thomas on the day we picked him up:

 

A little waif with runny eyes and a bent ear tip - awwww....

Like most cats, they have their moments of insanity.  Here's Thomas, killing the cat flap:

Pure insanity!

Before we retired and moved permanently to our beach place, they used to come with us at the weekends and holidays, loving it there.  So much so that they developed a 6th sense for when it was time to go home and would promptly disappear into the undergrowth just before we were due to leave.  Thomas did a runner for 5 hours on one occasion and nearly had to fend for himself or scrounge off neighbours until the following weekend.

A few weeks after that incident, Henry got wind of imminent home-time and sprinted up a tree on a steep slope in the neighbour's garden.  I managed to coax him onto a lower branch then lunged.  At the same time as I grabbed his fur, my feet lost grip on the slope and we both rolled down the bank, flattening small shrubs and accumulating a lot of mud and debris in the process.  I couldn't let go of  Henry as we were ready to leave and he'd just bolt for hours.  Jennie witnessed the whole sorry affair and was in hysterics.  Mustering as much dignity as was possible covered in mud and leaves,  Henry got thrown in the car; followed by me. The cats and I had to endure muffled sniggers for the whole 2 1/2 hour drive home.  After that debacle, we resorted to shoving them in a bedroom before packing the car for the trip home and an uneasy truce existed until we moved full time.

Thomas also enjoys a walk on the beach just behind our place and spends ages investigating the rock pools.  He's an 8kg solid muscle Alpha Male and initiated an unprovoked attack on a neighbour's Weimaraner dog once - highly embarrassing having to apologise for that episode!!  A couple of years ago, he dragged a highly ticked-off live pheasant through the cat flap which then proceeded to poop and flap all over the house.  Nice of him to bring home fresh food though although it's pleasing that headless rabbits have now stopped appearing on the lounge carpet first thing in the morning.  His alias is "Zarg the Destroyer" as we're certain that's how he thinks of himself.

Zarg the Destroyer patrolling the beach

Henry's much more of a pretty boy with fewer bad habits, although he does enjoy regularly ambushing me out in the shrubbery and drawing blood, the bastard. Maybe as retribution for the tree incident.  He loves travelling in the car, grinning out at surprised pedestrians and following motorists.

.

Butter wouldn't melt.......

Whether it's us or any of the neighbours, the cats always know that boats being towed back up any of the driveways equates to a completed fishing trip and they're there as soon as filleting starts.  They don't scrounge, just sit there with big, soulful eyes - they really know how work a crowd!

Orderly queueing for scraps

Inspecting a neighbour's Snapper catch!

Now, I've already mentioned that Thomas is the alpha male of the district but there's one cat who has totally got his measure.  This is Minka, our neighbour's Tonkinese.  She's 13 or 14 years old and diminutive but has such authority and class that she can stroll in and eat Thomas' food when she feels like it with absolutely no repercussions.  She has that famous stare which all females instinctively posses (hereafter known as THE LOOK)  which of course is guaranteed to make any guy's eyes water!

Here is Minka:

Minka - Supreme Ruler of the Cat Universe

So there we are, indolent members of the household who don't do any housework, are suspect in terms of guarding the property, and don't do anything else particularly productive.  Hmmmm... sounds like our kids before they left home!

Currently, it's around 30 degrees C (90F) and Jennie and I have just been digging up and stacking about 30 sq meters of small block pavers in the garden ready for someone to come in and properly level the area.  Both overheated, dehydrated and stuffed.  A cold beer followed by a nana nap methinks!

It's my last post for the year so......

Wishing you all a wonderful Xmas with all that you would wish for yourselves.  May you also have a magnificent 2011!

Pohutukawa - the NZ Christmas tree