Phoebe and Beatrice RIP

 

Beatrice and Phoebe, February 2006

We are feeling very sad at the moment. In the space of three short weeks, we have lost both our beloved kitties.

On 23rd May, Phoebe, the younger of the two, had to be put to sleep.

Phoebe, March 2004, 9 months old

She had been suffering from bowel cancer for a while, and we’d been keeping a close eye on her. She had been doing pretty well, and managing to eat, with occasional episodes of vomiting. For the final few days, however, she was not eating at all, and was very subdued and obviously not herself, and we knew that the time had come. My hubby took her on that Tuesday afternoon and brought her little body back and buried it at the top of the garden. She was a month short of 14.

She had been very well for most of her life, but after we moved here 3 years ago, she developed epilepsy and had numerous severe grand mal seizures until the vet finally managed to stabilise her, and in the past year she had only two, about 4 months apart. She took her medication readily, a few drops on her food twice a day, and she was under regular observation at the vet for liver and kidney function, and was pretty well, until she started to vomit. The vet examined her and found a mass which she determined to be a cancerous growth in her bowel.

Beatrice, our older cat, had not been enjoying good health for a long time. For many years she had suffered from various food intolerances, being sick if she ate regular cat food, so since that time she had been having Hill’s Prescription Diet food which we bought online for her – latterly the variety was changed from the one for delicate gastro-intestinal systems to one designed also to protect her bladder health. She was getting recurrent UTIs, necessitating  repeated doses of antibiotics, until the vet said that in view of her age, it wouldn’t do her any harm to be maintained permanently on a low dose antibiotic, and this certainly did the trick. The vet told us that eventually this would cease to be effective and that damage would occur to her kidneys, but in the end the treatment gave her several more years of happy and full life.

Beatrice on my hot water bottle, November 2003

She was a sensitive little soul and was easily upset by changes to her life and routine. When I first came out of hospital after my cancer surgery, she wouldn’t come near me and was obviously distressed. All we could think was that somehow I smelt different to her, with an ileostomy bag. Gradually she got used to it and was back to normal by the time I started my chemo a couple of months later, at which point she freaked out again and gave me a wide berth. At this time she began losing the fur from her hindquarters, and the vet said since there was no evidence of skin disease or allergy, this was over-grooming due to stress, and asked my hubby if anything had changed at home. He told her that his wife had just started her chemotherapy, and the vet said that this was the cause. We tried Feliway plug-ins (a cat-like synthetic pheromone which calms nervous cats) but to no avail. It was months after I finished my chemo that the fur started to grow back.

In recent weeks, Beatrice’s back legs started to get really wobbly and she would fall over, and be unable to jump up (using my poor hubby’s legs like tree trunks, climbing up onto his lap, with claws!) and the vet said she thought she had a compressed disc in her spine which was causing some nerve problems. There was some associated incontinence with this too. One Sunday morning I was due to sing in church and had left my stuff out overnight in order to have a final practice before setting out, and she had peed in my guitar case! My hubby told me she had led him to it when he first got up, as if to say, “Sorry – I had an accident!”

Both kitties being on different medications, and eating different foods, they had to be fed separately, with Beatrice being shut in the downstairs loo – and sometimes getting forgotten for several hours, poor little thing! – however, she never bore a grudge but was just happy and grateful to be released. Life was complicated as they got older and started eating little and often, and there was no way we could go away and leave them in the care of even the most sympathetic and caring neighbour (they had never been in a cattery) because you can’t expect them to hang around all day!

Just after we moved here we got both of them MOT’d by the vet, who discovered a lump on the back of Beatrice’s neck, which she said should be removed, and it might be cancerous. It was quite a major operation for her, leaving a wound several inches long, and she’d had to cut deep to remove it all, but it proved to be benign, much to our relief. The vet told my hubby to get her a T-shirt to wear, to stop her scratching it, but she was a very small cat and everything was going to be too big. Eventually he went to Mothercare and the assistant told him they often get requests like this, and she produced a babygro for a premature baby girl which fitted perfectly. It also had a little frilly skirt on it, and she looked so cute in it! She was as good as gold and never tried to pull it off. When she was getting better, she looked so funny climbing up the apple tree and onto the roof of the summerhouse, like a little tomboy in a frilly dress.

Beatrice in her frilly dress, February 2014

The two kitties were never that close. They were not related. We got Beatrice and her sister Bella in 2000, and before Bella’s second birthday she was killed on the road outside our house, and I broke my heart over that – she was the sweetest kitty and I loved her to bits. Beatrice went into mourning and sat by the cat flap for two days waiting for her to come in, which broke me up even more. Eventually she became accustomed to her absence, but it was hard. They were very close, and would snuggle up together and Bella used to wash her sister – Beatrice has always been the Alpha Cat in the family!

Beatrice and Bella, September 2000, aged about 8 weeks old – little balls of fluff

Bella and Beatrice, Autumn 2000 – two loving sisters

To keep her company after Bella’s death, we got two new kittens, Phoebe and Chloe, born in 2013. Not a success to begin with – Beatrice hated them!

Phoebe and Chloe, December 2013, about 6 months old

Eventually, after about a year, she accepted them and they all got on fine. A few years down the line, Chloe, who was the most beautiful cat we had ever had, was also killed on the road, so we were left with the two, unrelated, three years apart in age.

Chloe relaxing on the bed, August 2005 – Modesty? What’s that?

My favourite photo of Phoebe and Chloe, July 2004

When Phoebe died, we were surprised at the depth of Beatrice’s grief over her because they were not so close. She sat for days by the back door, looking out, wondering where Phoebe was. There was a place in the corner of the lawn under the little hedge, where Phoebe always liked to sleep, and Beatrice never went there, but after Phoebe’s death, she spent most of her days there, and at night, on the patch on the landing carpet that had also been a favourite sleeping place of Phoebe’s. It was almost as if she was deliberately invading Phoebe’s special places, in the hope that Phoebe would come back to claim them.

During this time Beatrice was very subdued and quite unlike her usual self. She was unsettled, refused cuddles a lot of the time, and started not eating. My hubby took her to the vet and she gave her some liquid medicine that smelt like marmite, to build her up and ease the constipation she was suffering, but she refused it, and then eventually, last weekend, refused food altogether. By Wednesday she was painfully thin and weak, and in a bad way. It was as if she had given up the will to live. My hubby took her to the vet and again brought back a little body to be buried beside Phoebe at the top of the garden. She spent her last day lying on the warm path in the sun, just as Phoebe did on her last day.

Beatrice’s last day, 14th June 2017

Since then the house has felt empty and dead. We are missing them dreadfully. We knew we would probably lose them both this year, given their age and general state of health, but had no idea they would both be gone in the space of three weeks.

My hubby has been particularly affected by the loss of Beatrice as those two were joined at the heart. When we went to collect Beatrice and Bella from the place where they were born, we went through the cottage to the French doors at the back which led to the walled garden where the kittens were outside playing, and as we crossed the room, this little fluffy grey bumble bee waddled across the floor and straight into my hubby’s arms, and into his heart, and neither of them ever looked back. All through her life, if she was sitting on my lap and he came in, she’d be straight off me and onto him! I could have been jealous, but one look at the two of them, and how could I be?

Joined at the heart, May 2010

Phoebe loved him too, and often he would sit with two kitties on him, and I would have none!

Daddy always the favourite, September 2014

Beatrice was the most intelligent cat we have ever had. She was very communicative, and always had to be at the centre of the action. If anyone came, she had to be there, centre of attention, and would engage in attention-seeking behaviour if she thought we were too involved in conversation with each other and not with her! She had the most winsome ways and even non-cat people loved Beatrice. Where we used to live, when a neighbour started feeding them when we went away, she left a note to say “little blue-collar has stolen my heart.” She had this effect on people. The vets all loved her too.

She was always into things, and the most nosey of all the kitties we have had. She was banned from my studio because she always had to rummage through everything, and pull things out, and she could be quite destructive! When she was younger and had her full set of teeth, she was always doing what we called “chewdling” – she chewed cardboard, important correspondence of my hubby’s, cables (discouraged in the strongest possible terms!) and a series of collars – even the so-called “indestructible” ones! She was a great hunter in her youth and her favourite was bunnies. We had a lot of bunnies where we used to live, in the country, and we were treated to a succession of gory half-eaten corpses with the guts hanging out and then, because she couldn’t restrain herself and would attempt to eat her weight in bunny flesh, heaps of sicked up bunny too… and she generally did it when we had visitors. (Sorry, probably TMI!)

She was also the Computer Queen of the family. She was always on one or other of our laptops.

She was very computer-literate and came up with stuff like this:

Attempting to log on, January 2011 – what was her password, I wonder?

Helping me with my Bible study group preparation, February 2011

Running programmes, April 2013

File sharing, January 2011 – she could do this before I learnt how to do it!

Adjusting my settings, May 2011

We never knew what we’d find when we came back and she’d been having a session on the computer. I would find music or videos playing, word documents full of what looked like gobbledegook to me but were probably quite sensible kitty-language stuff… My greatest fear was that she would discover my Paypal password and run up huge bills, buying expensive stuff for herself and Phoebe on Ebay…

Phoebe, by contrast, was a simple little soul and she had no interest in computers, despite Beatrice’s efforts to teach her (she also wanted to start some online computer courses for cats but I drew the line at that). We used to call Phoebe our little Devon Dumpling in her chubby years – there is a pub we go to in Torquay called the Devon Dumpling and we always call it Phoebe’s Pub!

Devon Dumpling, July 2010

Phoebe’s name means “radiant brightness” but unfortunately she didn’t live up to it. She was slow to learn the cat flap and it took her quite a long time to relate to us and build a relationship with us. She was the runt of the litter and lagged behind Chloe in everything, and was extremely timid and never spoke, all the time we had Chloe, but after that she started to blossom. Prior to moving here, if anyone visited, she would disappear upstairs, but after she got used to Mum in the house, she  realised that other people apart from my hubby and me were OK, and she became very friendly and relaxed with everyone. She also found her voice and would communicate with us quite a bit, with a sweet, high-pitched attempt at a miaow. She was adorable with her affectionate little ways, and the fact that she remained like a little child, and for most of her life, she would bury her face under my hubby’s arm, looking for milk, and would suck a finger if you offered it.

Beatrice’s name means “Blessed” and it was often used in the context of “That blessed cat!!” when she had done something particularly naughty!

We have 14 and 17 years of happy memories, respectively, of two beautiful, happy, affectionate and loving kitties who gave us endless entertainment value and joy, and for this we shall be endlessly thankful. Once the sharpness of their loss has passed, this is what we will remember.

We are now busy looking for two new baby sisters to lavish our love on. So far, no joy – we are trawling the Internet and putting out feelers to everyone we know. We are hoping for grey, or silver tabbies; we love these pretty cats who also have lovely temperaments. They will have a good life with us.

WOYWW 419

My desk after I’d finished the latest session on my Infusions Mini-Album. Please see previous post for details. The pages of Book 3 are all laid out so that various ones can dry, and if I don’t lay them out, I shall get them out of order. On the craft sheet is an experiment – I’ve stuck down some cling film with transparent gel medium – this may or may not work! Beside it is the open box of my pens. You can also see the pages of Books 1 and 2 stacked up and secured with rubber bands, and the little pile of rejects/spare pieces which I am glad to say I am managing to use up for title pages.

Last week I also completed a spur-of-the moment project, my “Second Wind” mini-album. I had great fun with my first attempt at a Coptic binding.

Beatrice

(Photo taken in 2010.) We are getting very concerned about Beatrice. She has been grieving for Phoebe and over the past few days we’ve had a job to get her to eat anything at all. My hubby is taking her back to the vet again tomorrow – he took her a few days ago and she gave her some medicine that smells like Marmite, to keep things moving – she was producing very small hard little poos – and to give her some extra nutrition. She hates having anything put into her mouth (giving her pills has always been a complete nightmare!!) so doesn’t relish this being squirted in with a syringe and shakes her head and spits it all out, and since she’s not really eating, it’s hard to get it into her on her food. We think her time may be rapidly approaching now, only three weeks after Phoebe, but we’ll see what the vet has to say tomorrow. We thought we would probably lose both of them this year but I didn’t think it would be so close together.

Walk-in Pantry

The plaster is now all completely dried out, since the above photo was taken.

If the carpenter is able to stick to his schedule, he should begin work on my pantry on Monday, and I am so looking forward to this. I’ve coped very well in Mum’s little kitchen but can’t wait to spread my wings a bit and be able to do some more adventurous cooking again. At the moment if I do more than the basics, I am walking to and fro all the time between the two because what I want is always in the other one! I am very much looking forward to bringing the food back into the main kitchen and organising my new pantry, and I’m keen to know what the carpenter has planned for the door and one or two other details. Discussing it with my hubby the other day, I’ve decided to bring the small fridge through from Mum’s kitchen and ask the carpenter to allow space for this underneath the stone slab. After Mum moved here, my old fridge, which exactly filled the space under her counter, decided to give up the ghost (probably didn’t like moving house!) so we got her a new one, but it’s too small for the space really. If we need to equip the little kitchen fully in the future, we can always get another one, and in the meantime, I might as well have the use of it in a more convenient location. It’s very useful as an overflow, especially now the summer is coming, and I have never had anywhere to put it in my kitchen.

Garden

For my birthday, my hubby gave me a water feature for the centre of the lawn. Several months ago we’d looked at them and found that the ones that were big enough to make any impact were too expensive. Unbeknownst to me, he decided to make me one – from an upturned plastic plant tub from B&Q, a zinc tray from Ebay, and some rocks from the garden centre, and a fountain unit given to us!

It’s a huge success. The water flows down over the sides of the pot (which of course doesn’t show up properly on the photo). The other day we went to the garden centre and got the little wooden edging (which looks like sponge fingers lol!) and some extra rocks, and the plants. They should grow and spread, and fill the circular bed. Isn’t he clever?

The climbing rose is now in full bloom. It looks better this year than ever before.

We have got our first sweet pea out!

Diet

Red Letter Day yesterday! Tuesday is my normal day to weigh myself, and yesterday I had reached the grand total of exactly 4 stone lost since I started the 5:2 diet 3 years ago, at the end of June, just after we returned from our holiday! Only a few more pounds to lose and I’ll reach my target weight, after which it will just be a question of maintenance. I am feeling extremely chuffed with myself, not to mention feeling better physically for having shed all that awful excess weight, and enjoying wearing some of my favourite old clothes that I can now get into again after many a long year! It’s like having a new wardrobe.

Have a great week, everybody.

Various Updates

Kitties

Since losing Phoebe on Wednesday, Beatrice has been very subdued and is obviously missing her. She spent the first day looking for her in the garden and wouldn’t come in, and since then, she’s been sleeping in Phoebe’s favourite place under the hedge in the corner of the lawn, somewhere she never went before. It’s as if she’s hoping she’ll come back to claim it. Today she seems a bit better and has accepted cuddles from us, but she wasn’t so keen yesterday. We are trying to give her as much love, attention and reassurance as we can at the moment, until she gets used to the idea that Phoebe has gone and isn’t coming back. Seeing her obviously grieving is quite distressing – we are both missing her so much, too.

Oncology Appointment

On Thursday morning I had my six-monthly oncology check-up appointment. I saw a different consultant this time, who said she was helping my regular one at the moment – she was called Dr. Medley and she was very charming and pleasant. My bloods are good, with no cancer markers. I asked her if they had the results of my recent CT scan yet, and she said they did, and that it didn’t reveal a hernia as such, but that there was a little gap and some fat had come through (nice!) but no gut. She will be setting up another appointment for me to see Mr. Pullan, my surgeon, so that we can discuss pros and cons, and risks involved in either having further surgery or not. Now I have got the support garments, he may feel it would be better just to leave it. I certainly don’t want another obstruction, and I’d rather have planned surgery rather than another emergency operation.

She also said that the recent CT scan showed no cancer, but of course it was only of my abdomen, and they would have preferred it to be of my whole trunk, because metastases from bowel cancer are usually in the liver or lung, so she is going to book me in for another scan, which will probably take place in a couple of months’ time.

I have got to go back in 6 months, and the appointment is on 30th November, exactly 2 years on from when I was given the all clear. After this, all continuing to be well, they won’t want to see me for a year. I really do believe they got it all out, and the chemo put paid to anything else that might have been lurking around.

Diet

It is now nearly 3 years since I started my 5:2 diet, also known as the Fast Diet. This diet has really worked for me, because for most of the time you eat normally, and only restrict your intake to a maximum of 500 calories on 2 days of the week. This means that it is easy to stick to, because anyone can cope with 2 days – it’s the diets where you are constantly restricting yourself and never having any treats, that you get bored with and give up, and the weight piles back on again. With a little help from 2 major operations and hospital stays, and despite being stuffed with mammoth portions by my hubby while he was looking after me (haha!), during that time I have lost nearly 4 stone. I need to lose just over half a stone more, in order to reach my target weight, and after that I shall continue monitoring it, and having a fast day maybe once or twice a week as necessary in order to maintain a constant weight.

People are now constantly noticing that I’ve lost weight. I am now able to get into clothes that I haven’t worn for years, which I couldn’t bear to part with because I liked them! It’s like having a new wardrobe again. I feel very much better for having lost the weight, not just physically, but emotionally too – having a sense of achievement is a very positive thing.

This is me, taken in the summer of 2013. I think I probably gained some more weight after this, and after our holiday in 2014 I was shocked how much I weighed, which is when I started the diet.

Latest selfie.

A definite improvement I think! Unfortunately I shall probably never have a flat stomach again – after three major abdominal operations over the past 20 years (2 in the last 2 years) the muscle tone is pretty much gone! Having the support garments to prevent the return of my parastomal hernia probably help, though.

Kitchen

The carpenter came round on Wednesday evening as arranged, and had a good look, and saw my sketch, and got a good idea of what I wanted. He was pleased that I still had the original Howden’s computer designs for the kitchen on my computer, and I was able to tell him the name of the design, which they have unfortunately discontinued from their catalogue, but he said he could probably source some old stock to make up the doors for my new pantry. If not, we agreed that it would be better to use something completely different rather than something similar but not exactly the same. After all, the original cupboard had white panelled doors, and we could do likewise with the new ones.

He said it would be no problem at all to get a bit more of the laminate flooring, which is still in Howden’s catalogue, and that he would be able to fit that. He will also add a new skirting board inside the cupboard, to match the rest of the kitchen.

He isn’t quite certain how to deal with the top part yet but he will be giving it some thought.

When I suggested adjustable height shelves, he said there wasn’t often much point, because one never adjusted them! However, he took the point that until I start using the pantry, I shan’t know exactly how high I want them, and it would be frustrating if I couldn’t get certain things in where I wanted them. I said that if they were only adjusted once, it was still worth it! I said that I wanted a stone slab, and this, and the shelf level with it to the side, would obviously have to be fixed in order to support the weight, but the others could be mounted on tracks with brackets and it wouldn’t be a problem. He suggested making each back shelf and its corresponding side shelf as one, so that it would be easier to adjust them together, and it would also make them stronger.

Regarding the doors, he agreed that the wall-mounted unit on the wall to the right is a bit of a problem, and I said I definitely didn’t want to lose that, as it held the glasses and all my recipe books. He thought that rather than having bi-fold doors, it might be better to have a single door, slightly narrower than the opening, and have a narrow panel to the right, behind the wall-mounted cupboard. He said he could install small shelves on the inside of this which would give me a bit more storage space, too. He thought that mounting my spice rack and other compact things on the right-hand wall inside the pantry was a good idea. The shelves at the back of the pantry, above and below the stone slab, will be deeper than the ones at the side, but they won’t be as deep as they were in the original cupboard, which was hopeless because I could never get at the stuff at the back.

It is all coming together now, and I think I am going to end up with a brilliant space which is going to be usable, convenient, and fun. Bringing the front up to the level of the front of the oven is going to give me double the depth I had before, but with narrow shelves along the left-hand wall from top to bottom, as well as better shelves at the back, will give me more storage space than I had before, which will also be a lot more accessible. As it was, the space in front of the old cupboard was dead space, and this is now going to be used.

Consulting his diary, he thought he should be able to start in the middle of next month, which is only about 3 weeks away, which is very good news. I thought I might have to wait for months until he was free! He’s got a kitchen to fit after that, but doesn’t think my job will take more than a few days (worst case scenario a week, but he thinks that is highly unlikely) – he says it’s a fairly fiddly job but it certainly shouldn’t take too long. So hopefully it will be in before the end of June!

I am really looking forward to moving all my stuff back from the flat kitchen, and sorting my new pantry, and organising the storage of the food. Once this is done, I will be able to start using my lovely kitchen again. The flat kitchen is fine, but it is very small, so I can’t do anything very ambitious in there. We are very grateful for it, though, because most people whose kitchens are out of order have to resort to camping stoves, and washing up in the bath!!

WOYWW 415

An extremely busy week and I’ve been out all day today, so only had time to snap a photo of my desk and get it on the computer, but I think 11.30 p.m. still qualifies to enter a Wednesday blog hop! Unfortunately I’m not going to have time to visit any desks, and it may be a while before any visitors to my blog get a reply, but I’ll do my best!

It’s not a very interesting desk this week, I’m afraid. On the left are the info sheets about the Infusions Mini-Album page order. Details here. To the right are the three bundles of pages which are now in order to make three separate books, which will be bound together into one cover. There’s still quite a bit to do on them as I have to make title pages for each section, and the tags to go into the loo roll centres. There are some reject pages on the far left of the picture – some of these are failures and others are ones I decided to omit from the album, which will go in my stash to be used for other projects.

Talking of which, a couple of days ago I used one to make a birthday card for my hubby, as it’s his birthday on Friday. Full details here.

Busy busy busy this week with something on all day most days! Yesterday and today I attended a Christian conference which ran all day, with evening sessions too. Quite brilliant and my head is still buzzing with it all. Plenty of new material to incorporate into my teaching sessions, and a lot to think about. Dashing home at tea time and getting a simple meal on, and then dashing out again!

Tomorrow we are off to the Devon County Show, which is one of my favourite days out in the whole year. It will be another long day, with a meal out at the end of it. We are more or less celebrating my hubby’s birthday tomorrow because I’m busy again on Friday with the Cancer Cakeathon meeting in the afternoon – our regular monthly get-together of friends who have met through our cancer. We sit about and chat and laugh and eat a lot of cake! I am quite relieved that my Bible study group has been cancelled in the evening because by then I shall need a long rest, I think! However, it’s not to be, because I’m singing at church this coming Sunday and the next, so have practising to do – having been busy with a lot of other things recently, my guitar playing needs brushing up a bit.

Health Update

On Sunday we went to the private hospital in Torquay which takes NHS overflow, for my CT scan to see if my hernia has returned. Details here. It was in the mobile scanning unit, which I’ve never been in before – I’ve had MRI scans in the past in the mobile unit but not a CT scan. It went smoothly and I was in and out pretty quickly – a lot more quickly than previous scans at Torbay Hospital where you are sitting around for hours! Not sure when I shall get the result but soon, I hope. It will confirm whether or not I require further surgery to do a more permanent repair on the hernia, to prevent any further obstructions.

On Monday we had to go to the GP’s surgery for a blood test in advance of my oncology appointment next week. Having had the cannula in the vein in my arm the day before, she went in slightly above, and because I’m on rivaroxaban (an anticoagulant) I’m a terrible little bleeder and I’ve now got a lovely red wheal on my arm! Pretty.

In the middle of all this busyness I was not best pleased when my hubby came home with a cold. I tried to keep away from him, but unfortunately I have caught it. Fortunately it’s not too bad and I’ve managed to keep going, but it’s inconvenient and a huge bore.

Kitty Health Update

Phoebe still up and down. She had a very subdued day a couple of days ago and didn’t eat, and was very clingy, but the next day she was better again and eating well. We continue to keep a close eye on her.

Same with Beatrice really – some days she walks as if drunk, and then the next day she’s rushing about like a crazy kitten! She’s no good at jumping up on things any more as she seems to have lost the spring in her back legs, and she falls off things. If she was a person, she’d probably have a granny frame by now.

They both seem contented enough and neither seems to be in pain, so we will keep them going as long as we can, our two old ladies!

Have a great week, everyone, and I’ll try and catch up with you later.

Infusions Mini-Album Organisation and Other Matters

I’ve got a very busy schedule this week, as I’m out all day today and tomorrow at a Christian gathering (not sure how else to describe it because I’ve no idea what’s going to happen and all I’ve been told is that it is going to be quite unlike anything I’ve attended before!), and we are off to the County Show on Thursday. Friday is always a pretty busy day for me, and this week we’ve got our monthly Cancer Cakeathon at the cancer support centre – this is an informal get-together where we sit around for a couple of hours chatting, laughing a lot, and eating loads of cake!! Can’t be bad. I am relieved that the Bible Study group on Friday night has had to be cancelled because by that time I expect I shall be fit for nothing!! It’s my hubby’s birthday on Friday but he’s not going to see much of me, I’m afraid. We’ll have to celebrate on another day. Also, yesterday we had to go to the GP’s surgery for me to have a blood test in advance of my oncology appointment on 25th May, and I had my CT scan on Sunday, too. Phew… I shall need a rest next week!

Anyway I thought I’d just post about the latest on the Infusions Mini-Album. I was getting completely bogged down with my scrappy notes on organising the pages and writing down what I did on each sample. This is how it ended up looking.

The night before last I put it all on the computer in tabulated form, and this should be a lot easier to follow.

I’ve got room to make amendments if I need to. By the time I’ve finished, I expect this list will be ink-spattered and covered with glue and who knows what!

The pages are now all in order, and separated into the three books, and held together with elastic bands.

I’ve still got to decide what extra pages to do for Book 2 which isn’t as thick as the others, but I shall do the title pages for each section and the tags first, so that I get a realistic idea of how thick everything is going to be.

I haven’t been able to do any more work on the album because yesterday I had to work on my hubby’ birthday card, if he was going to end up with anything on his birthday on Friday! Fortunately I had plenty of bits in my stash to assemble together. I think it’s a good idea when making anything, to make extra bits while you are doing it, and save them for projects like this – you never know when you’ve got to come up with something in a hurry. I’ve got quite a few card toppers now, and I should be able to rustle up something fairly quickly if it’s just a case of making a card base and adding a sentiment. My new stamp platform is going to make a big difference too.

I’m really keen to get the Infusions album finished quickly now, because my new Distress Oxide inks have been sitting on my desk for several weeks, still unopened! I am dying to play with those.

Kitties

Beatrice has on and off days with her legs. Today she’s been quite wobbly again, but on other days she rushes about with her tail in the air like a kitten. She’s not good at jumping up and usually fails in the attempt, resorting to climbing up with the aid of her claws as if our legs are tree trunks. Ouch. She will be 17 at the end of next month.

Phoebe is not doing so well now. Over the past couple of weeks she’s seemed OK, and has been very hungry, but still very thin. We think that she is unable to absorb much nourishment from what she’s eating. She has been looking after herself and her fur is soft and healthy, and she spends quite a bit of time (weather permitting) in the garden, coming in smelling of fresh air, and when it’s not so warm, lying in the sun indoors. Yesterday, however, she didn’t eat and seemed very listless. She is also quite clingy and wants to be with us as much as possible, and seems pretty subdued. We are keeping a very close eye on her and know that the day looms ever nearer when we are going to have to take her to the vet for the last time.

Pantry

I’m still waiting for the kitchen fitter and the carpenter to come and see me to discuss what I want, and how they are going to do it. They were supposed to come last Thursday but the kitchen fitter had forgotten all about it… I managed to get through to him today and he’s been trying to get in touch with the carpenter. I told him I’d be out all this week except Friday and asked if he could arrange to come then. I really want to get this work started because they will both be continuing to get booked up weeks ahead. I am coping OK in the tiny kitchen in the flat, but I can’t do any serious cooking because there’s so little space to put anything – it’s like being in a caravan or a boat! Still, I am very grateful that we’ve got that. I could move back into my big kitchen but there’s nowhere to store the food at the moment, and it would mean going between the kitchen and the flat all the time. Also, I can’t find half my stuff at the moment, and it’s very irritating when you’re at a critical moment, not to be able to lay your hand on something when you need it! I wasted about 10 minutes the other day in the middle of cooking a meal, because I couldn’t find the soy sauce. I am so looking forward to having my new pantry, and bringing all the stuff back in, and getting organised again. It will be like having a new kitchen all over again! In the meantime, I am very, very relieved and happy that the dry rot problem has been dealt with, at any rate.

I shall try and upload a WOYWW post on Wednesday but probably won’t be able to visit many desks.

How time marches on. All the primroses have finished in the garden, and the Clematis montana is losing its flowers fast. The spring seems such a short season. I don’t know where this year is going – we’re nearly half-way through already. I can’t believe it is two years ago this month that I started my chemo.

Infusions Mini-Album–Working on the Pages and WOYWW 412

Having finished making my Infusions samples, I have sorted the order of them and decided how to assemble the album, with some of them being stuck to flattened toilet rolls to contain explanatory tags, and some stuck back to back. This is not a part of the project that I enjoy as it’s messy and tedious, and I find it hard to get the order correct for nice double-page spreads, and not muddling up left and right hand pages, and making sure the binding will be on the correct end for each one!

The ones I did yesterday have been flattened under heavy books overnight and I am glad to see that the toilet rolls are now nice and flat. The toilet rolls are open at both ends (one end for the hidden binding, and the other to take the tag) and the sample sheets glued together back-to-back are left unglued at the binding end, so that I can slot in the hidden binding pieces when I’ve made them.

My desk is a shambles with all this activity!

Embroidery

In a few idle moments, I’ve finished the latest piece for our half-tester. I’m quite pleased with its bold primary colours against the plain blue background.

Kitties

I am glad to report that both our elderly girlies seem to be a bit better now. After a day of staggering around as if drunk, with very wobbly back legs, Beatrice seems to have got much better and has been running around and having the occasional mad fit when she rushes around the house for no apparent reason! Phoebe is fairly subdued and has lost weight again, but she is eating, and seems to be enjoying the small, appetising pouches my hubby bought for her, and they both need feeding little and often. They have been enjoying the sunshine. We continue to keep a close eye on them. Here they are with my hubby, taken about 18 months ago.

Dry Rot

The work is all complete as far as the dry rot is concerned – the new floorboards are down and the alcove where the old cupboard was has been plastered, and we are now waiting for the kitchen fitter to call round for a chat about how I want my walk-in pantry to be. Apparently he has a carpenter lined up to do the work, as he himself is fully booked till July, but he may do the doors for us, to match our existing kitchen, and one or other of them will need to complete the laminate floor so that it extends into the alcove. We are still managing fine in the small kitchen in the flat and I am quite used to it now.

Spring Cleaning

I have given most of our kitchen a thorough cleaning now, taking advantage of the absence of all the stuff that used to be out on the tops. I have started moving a few things back in, that are not in constant use, because I don’t think the work on the pantry will create much dust. I can’t do a lot at once, but it’s amazing how quickly things get done, doing a little at a time.

It will be nice to be back in again! It’s all looking so bare.

Health Update

I’ve got an appointment tomorrow with my surgeon, three months on from my recent emergency operation to repair my parastomal hernia. He wants me to have further surgery to do a more permanent repair as they weren’t able to do more than a temporary job before, because I was too poorly. I have a nasty sneaky suspicion that the hernia has already come back, but maybe I’m being paranoid!

My next oncology appointment is in May, which I hope won’t coincide with the upcoming operation but I expect everything will work out OK. I am not worried about seeing her because I am quite sure everything is fine in that direction.

This afternoon the lady from the support garments firm is coming round yet again to try and sort out the problem I am having – I have one pair of support pants that fits perfectly, but they seem incapable of making up further identical ones for me – the third lot still don’t fit. I’m beginning to get a bit desperate to say the least – I’ve been waiting months for this. The lady who comes to see me is brilliant and it’s certainly not her fault, and she is doing her best for me. I hope this will be the final time and that this time they will actually produce something that is going to fit, and do the job it is supposed to do!

Spring Cleaning, Embroidery and Kitties

Spring Cleaning

Today I started cleaning the kitchen, while there’s nothing out on the tops since the dry rot work began. I came to the conclusion that the chippie isn’t going to make much mess constructing our walk-in pantry, and I’d better get on with the cleaning while the going was good, especially as I can’t do too much without completely exhausting myself! Today I climbed up onto the worktop by the window and cleaned the huge window, the windowsill, the picture rail and worktop around the corner and behind the microwave, as far as the hob. I also cleaned the curved glass of the extractor fan over the hob. I’m not sure it’s ever been so clean!!

After that, enough was enough, and I came down, made a cup of tea and sat down with my hubby to watch TV.

Embroidery

While doing that, I did a bit of embroidery, and completed another piece for the over-bed tester decorations.

Kitties

Better news on the kitty front today. Phoebe is better than yesterday and has eaten a bit more. My hubby bought some small pouches of especially tempting kitty nosh and she enjoyed one of those for her tea. Beatrice is much less wobbly today – weird how both kitties’ symptoms seem to come and go a bit! We continue to keep a close eye on both of them, and they are getting lots of love and attention as always. We are enjoying the time left that we have with them and want to give them as much comfort and love as possible.

Here they are in their younger days.

My goodness, they both look so fat and furry and young in that photo – taken back in 2004! Beatrice (on the left) was 4, and Phoebe was 18 months old.

More Infusions, Garden and Kitties

Infusions

Today I have been back in the studio for the first time for ages – what with the work being done on the kitchen and other activities, I have been very busy, and in between too tired to do anything, but I was determined to continue with my Infusions experiments today.

I am nearly at the end of the samples that I am going to create, and today I spent most of the time working with Infusions combined with white fluid acrylic paint and gesso.

Here are the materials I used for creating a marbled effect using white Pebeo fluid acrylic paint and Infusions – Sleight Blue and In the Navy from set 2.

I painted some of the acrylic paint onto the large acrylic block and sprinkled on the Infusions in both colours, and then spritzed it with water to activate the Infusions. I pressed the card down onto this and made sure good contact had been made all over, and then pulled it off, and these are the results.

Top left: the first impression. Top right, a second impression after spritzing the block with more water. Bottom left, third impression, ditto, and middle right, fourth impression, ditto. By bottom right, fifth impression, much of the interest had gone because the Infusions had blended too much into the somewhat watered down paint that remained on the block. I had to press the card repeatedly onto the block for this one, to ensure complete coverage. However, to get five impressions from one block is pretty good! The first two are pretty similar, but on close examination you can see a bit more texture from the paint on the first one. They get more muted and subtle with each impression. You could do this technique equally well directly onto a non-stick craft sheet or a gelli plate, I should think.

Next, I did the direct-to-paper method of marbling with acrylic paint.

In this case, I painted a layer of the white fluid acrylic onto two pieces of card and sprinkled the Infusions in the same two colours on top. Spritzing with water activated the Infusions and they started to flow. For the first one, after spritzing, I blotted it very lightly and then left it to stand for a few minutes, and then dried it with the heat gun.

For the second one, I alternated heating with the heat gun and further spritzing, and added a bit more of the Infusions half way through, which gave a slightly stronger effect.

I think on balance I prefer the more subtle effect created by the printing method.

I then moved on to some further experiments with gesso, beginning with spreading gesso through a stencil (my own honeycomb stencil which I cut myself). For these pieces, I used Terracotta Infusions from set 2.

I spread the gesso through the stencil using a palette knife, being careful not to be too careful with it! By this I mean I wanted a fairly distressed, incomplete look.

After doing this, I immediately turned the stencil over and blotted off the excess gesso onto another piece of card, to get a fainter, reverse stencil effect. I dried the gesso on both samples, using my heat gun, and then sprinkled on the Infusions and spritzed them with water.

The gesso acted as a resist. I spritzed and added a bit more Infusions and tilted the card around to get the Infusions to flow between the raised gesso. I particularly like the subtle effect of the second sample, with the reverse stencil effect.

I then remembered a technique I used ages ago which I really liked – boiled gesso! I spread some gesso onto a piece of card with a palette knife, deliberately keeping it pretty rough with different thicknesses of gesso across the card, and then, before it had a chance to dry, immediately heated it with my old, high-powered heat gun held pretty close so that the gesso boiled and bubbled up. Once it was dry, I fanned it to cool it, and then used my fingers to squash the bubbles down onto the card to stop the tops of them flaking off. You get a gorgeous texture this way.

Adding some of the Terracotta Infusions from set 2 and spritzing it with water, this is the result I got. Pretty good!

Here’s a detail shot where I tried to show the texture a bit better. Hard to see in the photo but I love it! This would look good with a touch of gilding wax on some of the raised parts, I think.

My final samples today were done with cling film.

I cut a piece of cling film larger than two pieces of card and spread it out but not too flat. I sprinkled on two colours of Infusions – Violetta and In the Navy, both from set 2, and spritzed them well with water.

I then took the two pieces of card and placed them down on top of the spritzed Infusions.

They immediately started to curl up, but it didn’t matter. I flattened them down with my fingers, and carefully lifted the whole thing up, gathering the cling film a little at the sides so that the Infusions wouldn’t run off too much, and turned it over. Using my fingers, I scrunched up the clingfilm to create a nice texture across the two pieces of card and walked away and left it – how hard is that!! – with this technique you can’t peel off the clingfilm until the paint is dry. Patience…

Later…

The Infusions had dried by bed time and I gently peeled off the clingfilm, and this is the result.

I think these came out really cool! Definitely a technique to repeat.

I discovered most of these these techniques online, but I’m afraid I can’t remember who did what, so I give a general thanks to everyone for blazing the trail before me.

Our Garden

The Clematis montana growing on the end of the garage is now in full bloom! It is so pretty. This picture was taken from my hubby’s study window upstairs.

In a few years, this prolific plant will have grown to cover the end of the garage. Next year my hubby will extend the range of the two trellises by adding wires along to right and left, and over the top of the window. It’s going to be glorious.

Taken from the same vantage point, the Forsythia is now in full bloom as well, and looking very pretty beside the steps to the upper garden. Beyond it, you can just make out the blossom on the apple tree. A few weeks ago my hubby’s brother came over and helped him prune the apple tree, and it’s a nice shape now, and hopefully we’ll get a good crop again come the autumn. The apples it produces are delicious.

Finally, another shot from the study window, looking down onto the water feature/rock garden outside the kitchen window. It’s looking quite pretty now.

Eventually the aubretia plants we put in will cascade over the wall, making a pretty display.

Kitties

The news isn’t good for either of our two old ladies now. Today Phoebe was unwell again, very listless and not interested in food, and she was sick a little bit, and produced some very small pellets of poo. The vet said that eventually the cancer would cause a blockage. However, we didn’t take her to the vet today, because when she was unwell before, she suddenly rallied and started eating again, and since then she’s been very well. She did eat a little bit at lunch time, and a bit more at tea time, and she seems a bit better now. We are keeping a close eye on her and are both realistic enough to know that eventually we are going to have to take her to the vet and have her put down…

As for Beatrice, for some time now, her balance hasn’t been that good when clambering into her hammock, and she’s been quite wobbly especially in her back legs. Today she seems a lot worse and even just walking along, she appears drunk. If she shakes herself while on her feet, she tends to fall over. She is eating well and is very communicative and purrs a lot, as usual, and is taking her usual interest in things, and her fur is in good condition. Again, we are keeping a close eye on her and my hubby thinks it’s just old age – if she was a human she’d probably be using a granny frame by now! She hasn’t had a stroke, we are sure, because it seems to be mostly both back legs that are affected and there’s no sign of hemiplegia. We don’t think it’s arthritis either, because she doesn’t seem to be in any pain. If it gets any worse we’ll take her to the vet but my hubby is sure it’s just old age. She is nearly 17.