Malice, the two eyed cat!

She looks better even if she can’t look better! She’s had the sewn up eye unsewn today and although it is totally non-functional she does at least look symmetrical again and less like some sort of feline spectre. They had a look at the other eye while she was sedated and it is still too blood filled to see to the back so a complete recovery is very unlikely although she does appear to have some level of vision, albeit very limited. Her jaw is healing well apparently, they checked that too and it is aligned OK so the wire will be removed in about a month when it is completely healed. She has a ridge on her palate which suggests she had an upper jaw fracture too so it is unsurprising she is still struggling with eating and drinking but she is well on the mend and I think it is just a case of letting her find her own pace and learn her way round the house again without sight. She’s back next week for a check-up on the eye and then in a months time for the wire removal. All positive anyway – hard to believe two weeks ago tonight she was prancing about in and out of the house and garden and then never came back when it got dark. 🙁

She’s already managed to get onto the sofa by herself and tonight has negotiated her way on to the precarious perch of sitting on the arm where she always did, and very comfortable she looks there too. So I guess although there’s a way to go and some adjustments to get used to she’s going to be OK :-).

Scarlett came with me to the vets while Ady and Davies stayed home and played Zoombinis. Then Ady loaded the car up with some rubble from our taken down coal bunker and I made a picnic and we set off for the downs via the tip and the church I mentioned yesterday.

We wondered round the graveyard for a while, reading the headstones and talking about the people who were buried there. Chris, we did indeed read pretty much every name just like SB would have had you do. 😆 I explained the difference between burial and cremation when we reached a large headstone to remember people who’s ashes had been scattered and we debated which of our dead relatives had chosen each method. Ady and I both said we’d want to be cremated and the children both said they would rather cremation too. At the graveyard where Ady’s Dad is buried there is a huge section for babies and children which is tremendously sad and always just has me crying so I was quite glad there was no such area in this churchyard as it would have been far harder to explain. Of course the children know that children die but there is something so powerful about row upon row of childrens’ graves. I felt similar when we visited Ypres on a school trip years ago and saw the 100s of war graves lined up in perfect rows. At least most of the graves today were of old people, with lives fully lived and children and grandchildren to have handed their memories down to.

I wasn’t expecting the church to be open but it was so we were able to go inside and look around. I dug around in my memories of GCSE Religious Education and was surprised to recall as much as I did of the names of all the pieces of furniture. We looked at the beautiful stained glass windows, I showed them where a bride and groom would stand to marry, where a baby would be christened, where a reading would be given from and we peeped at the organ, they both had a kneel on a prayer cushion and a sit in a pew and just enjoyed the peace, cool and calm that exists within a church even without the slightest belief in anything spiritual.

We left there and drove over the downs in a big circle enjoying the views (all golds, yellows and browns at this time of year with crops of maize, wheat etc – a contrast to the vibrant yellow of the rape a few weeks ago) then came back and parked in the road opposite my parents to go for a walk over the downs and a golf course. We found the white flowers (don’t know their real names) that pop out when you pinch the base of them – I remember as clear as yesterday my Mum showing me them in a car park when I was about Davies’ age and telling me the rhyme ‘Old Mother Reilly jumped out of bed’ while pinching and popping them. I showed the children how to do that and they were picking them every few steps. Scarlett got the hang of it before Davies did and I said ‘oh you’ve got the knack’ to which Davies imediately said ‘I want a knack, where did she get the knack from, why did you give Tarly a knack and not me???’ which made us laugh lots.

We sat and had lunch looking out over a view of Worthing, the sea and the block of flats on the seafront Ady and I first lived in for the first six months we were together pointing out landmarks to the children. Honestly, I’ve told that many stories to the children about ‘before you were born’ this week I am suspecting I have achieved Grown Up Status somewhere along the line without realising or having a proper graduation ceremony! 😆

We walked back to the car and dropped Ady and Davies home so Tarly and I could go and collect Malice from the vets. Once home and settled I had to go and get a few food shopping bits and Tarly wanted to come with me. We actually went to two supermarkets – the small local Somerfield to get some of the special offers they had advertised in a leaflet with the local paper (half price raspberries, BOGOF extra virgin olive oil etc) and then to Sainsburys for some basics items. I love being out with just one child and Tarly is very entertaining when she has centre stage. She has a non-stop dialogue which leaps from topic to topic but makes me laugh so much. She also looked so kissable today in a lovely flowy skirt, a vest top with butterflies on it, her hair all tangled and her face all covered in grime – gorgeous, grubby little girl! 🙂

We did early baths and bed for the children tonight as they have both been late to sleep all week and Davies particularly has been showing signs of tiredness which coupled with having Ady home has been showing in testing behaviour with me. I love having Ady off work – it does the children and him the world of good to spend more time together, I enjoy a bit of a rest from full on hands on full time parenting and of course I like the time just the four of us as a family but because we all know it is limited period only style life there are inevitable casualties to the temporary shift in dynamics – this time it is me and Davies. We patched it up again and I read them bedtime stories in the bath so they could stay in it longer at their request. It was a children’s Bible I borrowed from the library and I was actually quite disappointed in it. One of the things I like most about the Bible is the language so it have it made ‘child friendly’ just turns the stories into fairy story style tales – which don’t actually scan very well anyway. We don’t actually have a Bible in the house so we really must remedy that and I can just read the original text (well you know what I mean 😉 ) cos I really wanted the full drama of the creation story rather than the diluted ‘and he spread the sky all about like a tent round the world’ stuff they got today. 🙄

Ady’s got an (free) upgraded mobile phone handset arriving in the morning which he is very excited about and the children and I are holding out for PYO fruit picking tomorrow too so we’ll have to see what happens.