Pet Service at our Local Church

This afternoon we attended the Pet Service at our church. When it was being planned, my hubby said we must take Lily and Ruby but at first I was reluctant to agree to this, thinking the experience would be too frightening for them and I didn’t want to add stress to their happy little lives, but eventually he persuaded me, and as it turned out, they were pretty relaxed!

They have had lots of visits and are used to people, and are remarkably unfazed at the vet’s. Several people from the church have seen them, but for the others it was a lovely opportunity for them to meet our two girlies for the first time, and they were universally admired!

The service was short, and consisted of a hymn or two, a reading (which I did, from the Book of Genesis, the account of the creation of the animals and mankind on the same day, and how God saw that it was “very good”), some prayers, and a lovely talk by a representative from our local Animals in Distress charity.

Here are our two babies enjoying their first visit to church!

Amelia, who was responsible for inviting us all to the service, and who belongs to one of the churchwardens. We had heard so much about her, and it was lovely to meet her at last. I stroked her through the bars of her basket and she rubbed her ears against my hand and purred and purred!

Cats were outnumbered by dogs.

 

One very special dog was in attendance, helping her owner.

The lady from Animals in Distress giving her talk.

She told us all about the puppies who had been in the local news recently. Someone came to them with a cardboard box that they had found abandoned, containing six tiny puppies, clearly only about 24 hours old. The staff at Animals in Distress fed and cared for these tiny babies around the clock, bottle feeding them. All but one have survived, and they are all now going to their new forever homes. How can anyone be so cruel as to abandon these defenceless creatures in this way? All they had to do was to hand in the box to Animals in Distress or one of the other rescue centres – the staff receive all animals in a totally non-judgemental way, and all they would have asked was the whereabouts and welfare of the mother.

An offering was taken up for the work of this charity.

This young lady had lots of photos of the puppies which were handed around afterwards when we all gathered at the back of the church for tea and cakes.

This was such a lovely celebration of our beloved pets. As we often see when we go out, when dog walkers talk to each other and to other walkers – animals bring people together. Everyone there had such special relationships with their fur babies, and were proud to show them off and introduce them by name for a blessing. Such a happy afternoon!

Our two little darlings survived their first outing to somewhere other than the vet’s very well indeed, and they were very quiet and well-behaved throughout. I am sure it helped that they were both together, keeping each other company. We had a few tears in the car on the way home and they got a bit cold going to and from the car because there was a very cold wind today, but once they were home again, they soon snuggled up together and got nice and warm again before it was time for their supper. We were very proud of them for behaving so well!

Visit to the Aquarium

Today my hubby asked if I’d like to go out. I don’t get the opportunity to go out very often because I am either too tired, or too busy catching up with things I couldn’t do when I was too tired! By the time I was ready, it was nearly lunch time, and we ate out at a pub on the way, and then drove to Plymouth and visited the National Marine Aquarium. We haven’t been for quite a while, so it was lovely to go again.

Here is a selection of photos from today’s visit.

 

 

At the aquarium they have several domed glass tanks to enable better viewing. Here are some of them along a corridor which is also rather attractively decorated with timber cladding. I love the reflection of the illuminated domes on the floor.

I thought these domes made beautiful pictures with the lens distortion effect around the edges, and editing out the background and replacing it with black.

This is the huge tank which is the centrepiece of the Aquarium. It contains many native fish from Plymouth Sound, and it always amuses me to see the labels identifying cod, mackerel, pollock, etc. – fish that are more familiar on the fishmonger’s slab!

Every day they have a display where the divers go into the tank to feed the fish and clean the inside of the glass.

I love the jellyfish display. Normally one sees them as unsightly blobs of gelatinous goo on the beach where they’ve been washed up, but to see these delicate creatures gently undulating through the water with the light shining through them, is a beautiful sight.

The tanks are placed between two corridors so you can see right through the circular viewing windows. I love the shapes they make.

 

 

This picture of jellyfish looks like some otherworldly landscape with an alien moon in a starlit sky.

These jellies were tiny.

Here is a close-up.

A view through two jellyfish tanks, either side of a corridor..

Lots of art inspiration here, too!

Another dome containing seagrass. I love the painted surround on the wall, and the border of twisted rope.

 

The shark tank. There is a replica of something like a wrecked plane for the fish to swim around.

The sharks were quite shy. There were also lots of fish, photographed here, that looked like metallic silver. It was very hard to photograph them because they were moving so fast.

I love the “Blue Planet” room with all the tropical fish and corals.

A close-up of the brightly coloured little fish above.

Not sure what these extraordinary creatures were but they looked like great big leaves.

Lovely clown fish.

One of my favourite tanks with the dramatic black-spiked sea urchins and black seahorses.

In the same tank were my favourite Cardinal fish.

There’s a beautiful curved tank with sharks and rays in it. You can stand under the overhanging curved wall of the tank. The level was reduced because of maintenance work. There’s a waterfall on the far left.

 

My hubby looking at the curved tank.

There’s a fascinating projection on the floor with turtles.

 

Here is the harbour in the early evening as we left the Aquarium.

We had such a lovely afternoon wandering around and seeing everything again. I took these photos with my new camera. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the video to work properly on it – I need to get the book out to see what I was doing wrong – I’d love to have filmed the beautiful jellyfish with their gently pulsing undulations.

I find the life in the oceans endlessly fascinating. I think God let His imagination run wild when He created the sea creatures – endless variety and some of the most extraordinary creatures that you could never dream up! Aquariums like this help raise awareness, too, of the mess we are making of the oceans with our pollution, and they do great work in preserving the wonderful heritage of biodiversity we have in our oceans – the Aquarium in Plymouth is our national centre for marine biological research and they run a seahorse breeding programme and other significant projects. Our entrance fee helps to further this important work, as well as providing a thoroughly enjoyable day out. We are very fortunate to have it on our doorstep.

WOYWW 439

I’m sorry to have been AWOL recently, but my ME problems have been ongoing, and I’ve been alternating between busy days when I’ve kept going, and less busy days when I’ve crashed out unable to do much of anything! No change on the desk, just stuff still out for the ongoing project, the Infusions mini-album which I wonder if I’ll even get finished this year!

A week ago we had our regular cancer Cakeathon meeting, and I managed to do some baking for that, so here are some foodie photos to keep you going. I made an apple cinnamon twist loaf from a recipe I found on Pinterest and it was a huuuuge success – definitely one to make again! It went down very well.

Here is the loaf out of the oven with its dusting of icing sugar, ready to be cut, photographed on my grandmother’s lovely old bread board, together with her antique knife with its bone handle carved into a corn cob.

When it’s cut, you can see how the twists give a marbled effect.

The filling consists of a spread of apple butter and a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar. Deeeelicious!

Here’s a small tub of the remaining apple butter. I’ve never made this before, and it’s really easy to make, and very tasty.

I found several recipes online, most of which are stuffed with sugar and/or maple syrup, but I made mine from a sugar-free recipe – the apples off our tree are so sweet that the healthy option is fine. At final count, we got about 35 lb of apples this year! I’ve got several large bags of sliced apple in the freezer to use throughout the year.

Kittens

Can you believe that our kittens are now five months old? How quickly the time passes! They are getting so big now, and Lily especially is getting quite a grown-up look, although to my eyes, Ruby still has her baby face! Long may that continue… I simply adore that kitty! A few weeks ago, Lily suddenly developed a really soft fluffy coat which is absolutely fabulous. My hubby is thrilled because he really misses Beatrice’s fluffiness which was legendary – she never grew out of kitten fur! Lily has definitely adopted my hubby, and Ruby is my baby.

We have moved the big cat tree back into the flat. They behave so badly in our sitting room that for now they are banned unless under the strictest supervision, and so they were unable to use the cat tree while it was still in there. Now, it is in constant use. They love it because they can be high up (as all cats like to be), and it’s nice and soft, and they can sleep on it. It has lots of interesting platforms and little houses on it, as well as dangly mice to play with, so it’s been a huge success.

Here’s Lily in one of the little houses.

Ruby being queen of the castle, right on top.

The two of them.

This latest one, taken today. Not much room for both of them on one platform – Lily’s leg is hanging down, and just after this, Ruby nearly fell off! (Note the curtains still tied up – a preventative measure against kittens climbing them!!)

They get really warm when they’re snuggled up together like that.

The other day I found them acting like two naughty little bookends on the flat kitchen windowsill. They’ve just got to the stage when they can jump up onto the kitchen worktops so absolutely nothing is safe from them now!

They continue to be very affectionate and relaxed and happy. They have now had their booster inoculations, and sometime during this coming month they will have to be spayed, or as my hubby calls it, “having their squeaks removed” – for little boy kitties it’s “having their pockets picked” lol!

I was hoping to get some art done this week but again I have failed. Apart from not feeling well, I’ve been very busy preparing sessions for my Bible study group which meets weekly – this is something I can do from the comfort of the recliner and in addition to all the research, it does involve a certain amount of creativity in the form of the PowerPoint slides I prepare, which I try to make artistically.

Diet

I have now reached my target weight!!!!! Yaaaayyy!!!!! I shall continue with the 5:2 in order to maintain it from now on, which shouldn’t be hard, as it’s a way of life for me now. Since I started in the summer of 2014 (stopping for most of 2015 while I was being treated for my cancer) I have lost 4 1/2 stone (63 lb) and lost 10 inches around my waist. I hardly recognise myself these days. It’s so lovely being able to wear some of my old clothes again, that I could never bear to part with, and also have an excuse to buy some new ones! If I can do this, especially as I can’t take exercise to burn off excess weight so it’s been by diet alone, then anyone can do it!

Health Update

I’ve been experiencing some pain from my parastomal hernia which the recent CT scan showed had definitely returned, so I phoned the hospital yesterday. My surgeon’s secretary couldn’t tell me exactly when my appointment would be, as appointments are dealt with by a separate department, but she thought it should definitely be in November, and if I hadn’t heard anything in a week to ten days, to phone again. She said she would pass on the fact that I was getting some pain – when I last saw my surgeon, he told me to phone his secretary if this happened, or if I had any other concerns. She told me that of course, if I developed another blockage, I must go straight to A&E – I said I knew to do this, but it was something I wanted to avoid because I wanted my own surgeon to deal with it and not have anyone else messing around with it like at the beginning of the year. I am hoping that when I see him, he will finally agree to fix it properly and insert some mesh to reinforce it. I’m not happy being in this limbo state. I’ve also got an oncology appointment in November, which should mark my 2-year all-clear – all being well, this will mean that for the next 3 years she will only need to see me once a year instead of every six months, and after that I’ll be discharged! Obviously as far as the stoma is concerned, they will continue to keep an eye on things and be available if I have any problems – all last year I was fine, and thought that was it, but then everything went pear-shaped at the beginning of this year which just goes to show you can never anticipate what might happen! Life is never dull, that’s for sure.

A couple of funnies I found this week on Pinterest:

This one sums up my current brainfogged state: