I did forget someone!

We have five cats, still. We adopted Mitzi and her son, Felix, at the end of March. Felix ran off about six and a half weeks later, which was very upsetting as he was the more affectionate of the two.

Mitzi is fifteen, Felix was fourteen. He has tattooed ears, but no one has ever contacted me to say they've found him. I hope he is safe and well somewhere, but I fear the worst. He'd been going out for about three days when he disappeared, so he may have become disorientated and lost his way. Poor wee man...

Mitzi has taken a long time to settle in. She is a very individual old lady, still pretty spry. Very pretty little face. She doesn't like to be petted too much, but she does like it until she remembers she's meant to be a mean old baggage. You have to read the signs to know when to stop, or she will scratch and try to bite. I lost count of the scratches I received in the first six to ten weeks or so. Things are much better now, but she is still a solitary individual. We discovered in mid-May that her kidneys aren't working too well, so she is on the renal diet food.

Wanda is now, too. She also had to have her thyroid gland removed, both halves of it were hugely enlarged, and now the poor wee soul has to have thyroxine! Trust her to be different; usually there's enough thyroid tissue elsewhere in the body that they don't need any help. The enlarged gland went unnoticed for a couple of years or more because instead of being in her throat, it was deeper in the chest and couldn't be felt on an external exam, so our vet assumed her weight loss and poor coat condition was just one of those things. We do have a fabulous vet, though, he and his wife are both excellent.

She's also having a few neurological problems, but seems to be doing a bit better now. Nowadays she sleeps most of the time, waking to eat and that's about it. While she is still happy and enjoying life, we will do our best to make sure that that continues. The vet is at a loss as to what has happened. Further investigation would be expensive, and pointless as there is nothing they could do to help her. The thyroxine has made quite a difference, though.

A busy seven months

Wow...I really must update my Blog a little more frequently!

Let me see, what's happened since the last time? Let's start with the sad news first of all. On July 9th, in the early hours of the morning, I went out looking for Loki and Kit as they'd not yet come in. Loki had gone out quite late, around 10.30 pm, and usually would have been back in to go up to bed with us much earlier. D asked me where he was after we went up just after midnight; the first time I looked, I couldn't see him anywhere. I went out again half an hour later, and found his body in front of our neighbour's fence...to say that I was hysterical would not be an exaggeration. My precious, beautiful ginger bear boy had been hit by a car and must have died instantly.

A couple of weekends ago, we went to the Eifel to a camping ground that one of D's friends goes to most weekends during the season. When we returned home, we found that Tigger, our 18 and a half year old Wiener kitty, had died in her sleep. The strange thing about that was that on Sunday night, without saying anything to each other, we both felt very strongly that something was wrong at home with one of the cats and that we should leave. We both dismissed it. There was nothing that we could have done had we been there, she was very old and very sick. I'd said on the way up that I wanted to take her to the vet the next week. I'm sad that she is gone, but glad that she didn't suffer and that she was able to die curled up on her dad's chair in her favourite spot (or one of them) and went peacefully.

And now for some good news! I received my exam results for course B1 about a week after the last update. I got a grade 2, scoring 86% overall. 83% for the reading, writing and listening comprehension part of the exam and 97% (!!!) for the spoken exam. Woot! All thanks to my classmate Nicole, who was my partner for the spoken exam and has fantastically good German. She got 96% overall, and I reckon had it not been for the orchestral accompaniment during the grammar part of the exam she would have aced it totally.

After losing Loki, we'd decided within a couple of days that we needed another ginger bear of a Norwegian Forest Cat. After much scouring of the internet, we found two possibilities, one about 90 minutes away and one almost three hours away. There was a mix-up over the first possible, so I got in touch with the second lady who had not one, not two, but three ginger boys! One was already adopted, so we went to meet Roxy and Quin in mid-July. We couldn't choose, so D put the money from the sale of the classic Mercedes towards both kittens, and I chipped in with the rest. They're four months old this week (Roxy is four days younger, but is Quin's uncle as well as his half-brother; Quin's mum is the daughter of Roxy's mother.) They are two mad bundles of fluffy energy, on the go every second they are awake. They are already about the size of our old lady cats in length, but still recognisably kittens. They're going to be big boys when they finish growing around the age of five! We are madly in love with them both.

My gorgeous nephew turned one on August 10. He is almost walking; he decided not to bother with crawling and is still shuffling everywhere on his bum!

Towards the end of May - the 21st, if you want me to be exact - I decided I had to do something about my weight. It's been up and down so many times over the last few years and I was frankly sick of being in pain and feeling semi-disabled by the state of my knees. I had a hard time getting up off the sofa, and last year during the walk in Diekirch I couldn't get off a low bench for a good five minutes because my knees just did not want to lift my huge weight off the seat. The heaviest that I know I reached is 21 stone 8 pounds, but that was the August of 2008. When I joined WeightWatchers online for the umpteenth time (sixth or seventh, I think), I had been weighed at the doctor's here and came in at 135 kg or 21 stone. As of yesterday morning, I was 116 kilos or 18 stone on the nose.

It's a jolly good job that I did embark on a diet, because three weeks ago, D proposed! We're getting married next February in Inverness. Today I am going to try on some wedding dresses with the help of Nicole, to get an idea as to what suits me and how my body shape might look in five months' time. Not sure what will look best, which is the reason for going to try on frocks. I can say right now I don't want a strapless dress (too busty for comfort) or a sleeveless dress, but that may go by the wayside when I try some on.

Life is good...still struggling through the latest German course, with an exam in November and the next course starting about a week later. That's if I stick with the VHS in Schwetzingen and don't say 'sod it!' and decide to do C1 in four weeks in Heidelberg. However, without knowing the result of the B2 exam, I can't start that class, and getting married may get in the way of taking a four week course, so...

My soon-to-be niece Nicole is getting married on November 27 in Florida, and is expecting a baby in mid-March next year! She doesn't hang around; she met Tony, was pregnant and engaged to him in about six weeks! She seems to be blissfully happy, and we both wish them all the very best for the future.

One of our other nieces, Dawn, had a fourth baby, another boy, Max, earlier this year. He is a big, bouncing boy, full of smiles and very handsome. Dawn and DeAnn, her sister, have the most gorgeous children!

I think that's all the news; I've probably forgotten lots, but never mind!