It's been 11 days since we lost our beautiful, loving, pussycat, "Peeps". And 10 days since we got the results of our veterinary surgeon's post mortem report.
When our vet phoned me with the report of how poor little Peeps died - (little? He must've weighed 14lbs / 7kg at least!) - anyway, when she phoned me with the result, the day after he died, it was really quite 'liberating', as I'd been kicking myself for 24 hours that "if only I hadn't let him out into the front garden and left him there...". She informed me that he died of 'Sudden Death Syndrome' - the same condition that has claimed the lives of some very fit, energetic, sportsmen in recent years. He also had an enlarged heart, and the heart attack which killed him might have occurred at any time - even as he scampered round our living room... It was a real comfort to me, to know it wasn't "my fault".
When we left Peeps at the vets that Thursday evening (13th March), we'd also instructed them that after the 'PM' to send his remains for cremation and return them in a wooden casket, with his name on a brass plaque, as we've done with all our other pets... And each one now rests on the floor of the summerhouse, where we can continue to see and remember them; and their individual characters.
We got Peeps 'back' today. I phoned the vets and went and collected him this afternoon. The crematorium which our veterinary practice uses has been the same throughout the years we've owned pets, and finally had to say goodbye to them, and so the caskets are identical in design and construction - a fine, light, hardwood - and when returned from the crematorium there is always a condolence card contained in the package - a really nice touch, and *so* helpful to a grieving pet owner.
So that closes that chapter of our lives, but, like the memories of "Jen", (my wonderful German Shepherd dog, who I had before I met and married Ann), "Whisky", (the cat that came with our bungalow when we bought it, back in '86), "Lynx", the most soft, loving, pussycat, who stayed as small as a kitten all his life), "Peer", a big, bruiser of a cat who finally softened and loved being cuddled by the time he passed away, and lastly "Peeps", the biggest, most colourful - ginger & white - most adoring of his "Mummy" pussycat who's short life with us was, at least, the happiest 6 months of his two and a half years... ...
Will we have another pussycat? Watch this space!
Monday 24 March 2014
Friday 14 March 2014
A Short, Intensely Powerful, Era, Has Come To An End
I really cannot take it in just now. Our handsome, nay, beautiful, ginger pussycat, "Peeps"; so loving, so adoring of Ann, my wife, so much a scamp, so fun to watch playing with his toy mouse, or a newspaper on the floor... has died, suddenly - cause currently unknown - yesterday afternoon.
It was a lovely, sunny, mild day, and I'd let Peeps out into the front garden for a 'change'. Peeps rarely went out the front, preferring just our back garden, and which we, only once, ever saw him jump up onto the back fence as if to go 'exploring' elsewhere, but he never did. In fact, even when the back gate was opened to take the wheelie-bin and recycling bags round to the front of our property, ready for the "Bin Men", Peeps would never venture past the gateway! I don't think he was a 'wuss', as they say these days, I think he was just too unsure of the big, bullying, cat from two-doors up, to want to venture out.
But yesterday, I thought I'd let him out into the front garden - he wanted to come with me while I replenished the bird food in the feeders and bird table - and, as it was daylight, I figured I'd see how he arrived back inside our bungalow through the back door? Did he come over the roof? Did he go down the side alleyway and then over the back fence? Considering he never ever jumped over the back fences, just *how* did he get back indoors when he went out the front? All previous times for this, was night time - because we only got him last October, so this Spring we were *really* looking forward to seeing how he liked the south-facing (so *very* sunny) back garden. Now we'll never know.
After an hour of him being out the front and not returning - highly unusual for Peeps - I went to find out where he'd got to. And found him just inside our next door neighbour's front gate, very recently dead.
I couldn't believe my eyes! "Peeps!" I cried, and looked around for meanings... There were no visible signs of poisoned foodstuff, or saucers of antifreeze (a common poison used by cat-haters); nor a sign of a scuffle with another cat. No visible wounds, broken bones from a car hitting him - and the driver then moving him off-road into our neighbour's garden - nothing to tell me how he'd expired so suddenly, at hardly three years old, and apparently still as fit as a kitten...
We've taken him to our veterinary practice for a post mortem, and they say the results - such as they will be - they'll communicate to us this afternoon.
Actually, I don't think I can write anymore, I'm getting choked up...
It was a lovely, sunny, mild day, and I'd let Peeps out into the front garden for a 'change'. Peeps rarely went out the front, preferring just our back garden, and which we, only once, ever saw him jump up onto the back fence as if to go 'exploring' elsewhere, but he never did. In fact, even when the back gate was opened to take the wheelie-bin and recycling bags round to the front of our property, ready for the "Bin Men", Peeps would never venture past the gateway! I don't think he was a 'wuss', as they say these days, I think he was just too unsure of the big, bullying, cat from two-doors up, to want to venture out.
But yesterday, I thought I'd let him out into the front garden - he wanted to come with me while I replenished the bird food in the feeders and bird table - and, as it was daylight, I figured I'd see how he arrived back inside our bungalow through the back door? Did he come over the roof? Did he go down the side alleyway and then over the back fence? Considering he never ever jumped over the back fences, just *how* did he get back indoors when he went out the front? All previous times for this, was night time - because we only got him last October, so this Spring we were *really* looking forward to seeing how he liked the south-facing (so *very* sunny) back garden. Now we'll never know.
After an hour of him being out the front and not returning - highly unusual for Peeps - I went to find out where he'd got to. And found him just inside our next door neighbour's front gate, very recently dead.
I couldn't believe my eyes! "Peeps!" I cried, and looked around for meanings... There were no visible signs of poisoned foodstuff, or saucers of antifreeze (a common poison used by cat-haters); nor a sign of a scuffle with another cat. No visible wounds, broken bones from a car hitting him - and the driver then moving him off-road into our neighbour's garden - nothing to tell me how he'd expired so suddenly, at hardly three years old, and apparently still as fit as a kitten...
We've taken him to our veterinary practice for a post mortem, and they say the results - such as they will be - they'll communicate to us this afternoon.
Actually, I don't think I can write anymore, I'm getting choked up...
Sunday 9 March 2014
The Summerhouse is Finally Online!
Wa-hey! After nearly two years, and having tried 'home-plugs', a network booster, and Ethernet cabling... the summerhouse has finally got Wi-Fi! Thanks to a rather expensive - but wholly worth it - Wi-Fi Home Plug (made by Devolo), which I bought at Christmas and which has provided Wi-Fi throughout our bungalow for the first time ever, now I've found out the signal will reach to inside my wonderful summerhouse!
This afternoon, the summerhouse has been opened up and sat in for the first time this year, and here I am, finally able to *truly* write this blog as "A View From The Summerhouse", cos at last I've got a Wi-Fi signal in here. No more writing my thoughts down in MS Word, then transferring them to the blog when I go indoors. Now the blog can properly be its title!
So here I sit, the sun was beautifully warm, all afternoon, and the day was bright with it, but now it's dropped below the (western) garden fence, heading for sunset. As we drove back from our morning church service, the car temperature gauge read 20 degrees, in March!!
What a great day! Spring has sprung, the mini-daffodils nodded in the warm breeze, and our resident female frog lazed in the pond, awaiting her suitors, no doubt! Only Blue Tits and Great Tits were visiting the bird feeders, but with all of them in their finest Spring plumage, I reckon they're nesting already - and maybe that's why we haven't seen either the Collared Doves, Woodpigeons or Starlings... praps they're all building nests and too busy to feed?!
Just a short 'View from the Summerhouse' this time.
This afternoon, the summerhouse has been opened up and sat in for the first time this year, and here I am, finally able to *truly* write this blog as "A View From The Summerhouse", cos at last I've got a Wi-Fi signal in here. No more writing my thoughts down in MS Word, then transferring them to the blog when I go indoors. Now the blog can properly be its title!
So here I sit, the sun was beautifully warm, all afternoon, and the day was bright with it, but now it's dropped below the (western) garden fence, heading for sunset. As we drove back from our morning church service, the car temperature gauge read 20 degrees, in March!!
What a great day! Spring has sprung, the mini-daffodils nodded in the warm breeze, and our resident female frog lazed in the pond, awaiting her suitors, no doubt! Only Blue Tits and Great Tits were visiting the bird feeders, but with all of them in their finest Spring plumage, I reckon they're nesting already - and maybe that's why we haven't seen either the Collared Doves, Woodpigeons or Starlings... praps they're all building nests and too busy to feed?!
Just a short 'View from the Summerhouse' this time.
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