Purrfect People!

St Gertrude needs to sharpen her pencil in readiness for this entry into her Book of Purrfect People.

I have written before about the wonderful members of my family who regularly rescue, foster, save, re-home when possible, keep if they can, put to sleep with aching hearts when sick or injured, but without exception, love cats.

My daughter and her husband are winding up their Dubai days and returning home! (Every time I think of that, I grin! In two months time they will be back on our shores, and close by, in the Cape, only 600 odd kilometres from me! More grinning!) For the last six years, Catherine has been involved with TNR (trap, neuter and rehome/release) of cats in their vicinity. Her own tally is standing at 83 and apart from that, she has fed several other homeless cats and has had four wild 'outside' ones living in the car port. When I was with her last month, she was faced with the heart breaking decision of what to do with those special four.

It was a decision that was made for her. She knew that at least two of them were FIV positive and that is a death sentence for a cat that is too wild to be homed. It means that eventually they starve to death as the mouth sores make it impossible for them to eat and in a weakened state they are unlikely to be able to fend for themselves. If they were staying, the cats would simply stay too, until their quality of life became impaired but abandoning them was not an option.

So, it was with heavy heart that I accompanied her on three trips to the vet. We knew that it was the right decision and we kept telling each other that there was nothing else that could be done, but when push comes to shove, it's hard to take a cat that looks fine to the vet, and come out with an empty basket and a heart that's spilling over. I think that week was the worst one in Catherine's life.

Boots and All!

As you all know by now, both Rob and I are avid rugby watchers. And at the moment there is lots to watch! The Super Rugby is well under way but sadly, my team, The Stormers, are not doing too well, in fact we are lying 13 out of a possible 15, only one place behind the Cheetahs! (At least we have moved up from the bottom.) Rob supports the Stormers sometimes and the Cheetahs sometimes. And the Bulls, but I shan't mention that! I never support the Bulls unless they are playing a foreign team, and then only sometimes!!

And that brings me to the point of today's blog! Rugby!

Last Saturday we watched the Cheetahs play, um, someone, not sure who any more! Halfway through the game I happened to look at the Cheetah's captain's boots! He was wearing two different colours. One was red and the other was blue. Well, I just thought that maybe something had happened to one of his boots and he had had to make a quick change and just happened to have another pair of boots of a different colour in the change room. Wouldn't you think that?

So, yesterday we settled down to watch the Bulls play the Brumbies. We had been out for lunch (my next blog) and were pleasantly full and mellow. The game was well into the first half when I happened to notice that two players in the Bull's team were wearing boots of different colours. One red and one blue. Why?
And they weren't sharing a pair either because they both had the red on their right foot and the blue on the left foot. (I must apologise for the quality of the photography, I was not drunk, I had to photograph the telly!)

Look there, you can clearly see number 13.

Well, that got me thinking.

Was it a case of R for red and R for right foot?
Do they get confused when they are kicking? Has the coach said 'Kick with the red foot man'?
Have they got another pair of odd boots at home, or do they buy them like that?
Is it to confuse the opposing team?
Or, and this seems most likely, is it some daft fad?

See?

Whatever it is, it has ruined the game for me. Instead of watching the ball, I am now firmly checking out the players boots to see if it's just our teams that do it, or if it is a worldwide phenomena.

When Rob says to me 'Hey, did you see that?'
I can only answer, 'No, but look at that guy's feet!'

Does anybody out there have the answer?
And maybe The Stormers should follow the trend!

Of This and That!

I have become very tardy lately! For the last week I have been wondering what to write about next. My head is full of ideas, so much so that I cannot pin it down to one subject, so I have done nothing about anything!!

But, here we go!

I shall skip over my birthday (yes, another one, don't they come round quickly?? And I had a wonderful day starting with coffee in bed, even though it was an even numbered day! Add to that skypes with my family and chats with lots of friends, wine at lunchtime and rugby to watch later and you get the picture! And, Saturday Chicken for lunch, on a Saturday too!) Rob had a four day tour starting on Sunday, so he set off after lunch on Sunday and Alfie was a little confused with the comings and goings!

Oh, look what's on the telly! This has nothing to do with the story, but it's quite funny!

Where Do I begin?

In the immortal words taken from the theme song to an unforgettable movie, sung by Andy Williams..........................

'Where do I begin.....................?'

(Remember 'Love Story'? Love means never having to say you're sorry? Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal? Remember 1970?)

Anyway, here I am, home again after a wonderful five week holiday. How can time go so fast? It stretched ahead of me like a piece of elastic............

This is the actual plane that took us to Madrid, Rob tracked the flight!!

Dubai was a quick two day catch-my-breath stopover with Catherine and Stuart. Then the two of us flew to Madrid, on our secret mission! We dropped our luggage off at our tiny apartment and Irina came by to collect us. And off we set to surprise Andrew.

Our little apartment, close to a pizza outlet!

Or so we thought!! He acted surprised, but he said that he knew all along as I had explained too thoroughly why we weren't coming! Too many reasons and too much information, which made him realise that we would be there for his birthday!

A staged surprised look!