Tag Archives: Tom

New Feline Family Member

by . Posted on
14 Apr

Just when things were getting back to normal, Ged went up the road to look at some wiring and came back with a new member of the Love family!

She is young, calm, easy going and cuddly and to ease her into Phoenix’s existence, we are only having her during the day at the office so we can gauge his reactions and tolerance levels.  He hasn’t been either excited by her or antagonistic but since his stress levels are still pretty high after the comings and goings around the wedding and the trauma of 12 days in doggy prison, best to go slow and tread carefully.
I wasn’t particularly enamoured of her at first, although Ged seems to have fallen very hard.  But she’s growing on me, and wheedling her way into my affections, so I know resistance is futile!
But let’s face it, I loved Tom so much and while I have desperately wanted another cat, I am loathe to let anyone take his place in my affections.  I feel disloyal to his memory if I fall for this little Tiger.  But a house always feels so much more like a home when there’s a cat waiting there for you.
She hasn’t taken long to make friends of us all and sure enough she came home before the weekend . . . she’s pretty content with her new-found family and warm, cosy home.
The deluge has begun again.  Everyone keeps commenting that March was, indeed, a miracle!  We lay the credit at ‘the power of positive thinking’ – we were determined that it wouldn’t rain in March, we kept saying so, we decided to believe so, and our thought shaped our reality.  We also said we didn’t care what it did in April . . . now that was foolish!  My sunny resolve and relaxed mindset is giving way to Eeyore-like gloom as we face day after day after relentless day of torrential rain.
Of course, the other problem is that I haven’t got anything to WEAR!  I grew out of jeans and their ilk weeks ago, and my elasticated waisted summer pants are way too cold for the Comboyne climate so I am in mini-skirts, tights and boots (they must be the mini skirts from my fat days!) and I can’t see me squeezing into those for much more than a month!  I have taken to riffling through my wardrobe every morning and trying to put together creative, comfortable clothing solutions that don’t make me look like a fat frump!  I have been fashioning fashion from things that haven’t seen the light of day for 15 years!
It was much easier in Fiji where a sarong or sulu hid all lumps, bumps and burgeoning belly!  Oh well, as soon as we have made some moolah again I guess I can go shopping!
Mischa, making herself very much at home . . . .

Ode to Tom Kitten

by . Posted on
17 Sep

While I was so sick and fighting fever demons in my bed that week of the raging temperature, someone else was sick and I had no idea. Tom has had a kidney infection before after a tick and it would appear that he was brewing another bout. By the time I was strong enough to stand and get around the house I noticed that he wasn’t himself and tick checked him and tried to ascertain what was wrong. No tick symptoms but he was definitely in pain so I resolved that when Ged got home (he had been up the coast doing a course for a long weekend) we would get him to a vet. I suppose I was so concerned with my own symptoms that I didn’t realise how ill Tom was or Tom, being Tom, just soldiered on, looking pretty normal, if a little subdued. When Ged came home we both examined him and resolved to take him to the vet the following day. I brought him in that night and put him in Phee’s basket by the fire to make sure he was warm (the nights are still cold) and he stretched out and looked quite all right. I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the loo and checked on him but he was long gone. My poor boy. He was the most amazing cat right from the word go when Phee adopted him at Tamworth. Phee was determined to have his little friend even though I was completely resistant. Tom won my heart though with his love for Phee and he let Phee drag him around by the head and play with him ad nauseam. They were true brothers. And for Tom, we were his family. Phee and I were his. Wherever we went he wanted to come too. He has come on countless runs with us – even as far as Flat Rock and back and it was always lovely to come home and know he was there. Wherever we had been, he was the heart and the hearthfire of our home. He used to lick those he loved (which could be a painful experience with that raspy tongue) and he was incredibly beautiful. True green eyes and the bushiest tail anyone has ever espied on a cat (maybe he was part possum). He was the hairiest cat I have ever seen. He had the softest, most beautiful nose and delicate little paws and he was a great ‘watcher’ from wherever he had picked for his day’s rest. He was an excellent mouser and it is true that he loved to kill birds but he knew he wasn’t allowed and used to try and restrain himself accordingly. Both times we moved he was just loose in the car with Phee and would get out and have a wee with Phee when we stopped and then pile back in the car for the rest of the way. He always came when he was called, wherever we were, because he knew he belonged with us. It took him a long time to settle in at Avalon. All those men and disruption and none of his furniture to claim and rest on. But he had finally settled in, had decided to love Ged and there seemed to be no good reason for him to leave us.

He has left a huge whole for such a little man. It’s horrible coming home to an empty house. Phee is lost without his best friend to rouse when he wants to play or chat, and when we come home there’s no-one to tell all about his adventures. He was such a joy – a low maintenance constant on my bed, in our lives, moulting all over the furniture. And he and Phee would curl up together wherever, they just loved each other so much. I can’t really believe he’s gone. It was so totally unexpected. He was only 3. Just a baby. I feel so guilty that I din’t get him to a vet earlier, but guilt is a useless emotion and will not bring him back. Ged dug a huge hole by the house and I put him in there with part of the wool rug he loved so much. I have planted a baby bottlebrush over him to attract the birds which he would like.

I am so tempted to try and replace him but I honestly think he is irreplaceable. The bond he had with Phee couldn’t be recreated. It was a truly unique relationship and no-one who ever saw them playing together will forget the miracle that they presented and the laughter they engendered with their bizarre antics. Plus a cat in the country like this is a bad idea for the birds. So we will have to save up for a girlfriend for Phee and we will have to learn to live without him. He was a loyal, loving and true friend and we are so sad that he is gone.

I wish him happy hunting grounds and friends as dear to him as we were. He was very special and totally unique. He won over even the most hardened cat haters. I hope he can forgive me for not taking care of him better and that he rests in peace and joy.


THE VERY BEAUTIFUL AND SPECIAL TOM CAT.  MAY HE REST  IN PEACE.

The ‘C’ word . . . Commitment!

by . Posted on
10 Sep

I have had lots of queries from you all about Ged so I suppose I’d better come clean.  He’s 38, 5’10, blue eyes and a reasonable head of hair except the Prince Charles bald spot at the back (but he is definitely going to look like Phil before long).  He is incredibly kind and sweet and loving and for some strange reason thinks that the sun shines out of my a**se (which, considering he works in the solar industry, is a real worry!)  He loves Phee and Tom and the horses and copes well with all their unique foibles – Phee trying to shag him, Tom regurgitating fur balls with monotonous regularity at the moment, and Tinkerbell using every wile and cunning at her disposal to break into the feed (again!)  Good thing I have one perfect Baby . . .

He has forsaken his Aussie meat pie and three dead animals a day diet and completely embraced my limited one.  He says he doesn’t miss the meat, wants to learn to cook the stuff I cook and has lost weight and is looking better for the shift. At this point my Mother will be screaming ‘quick, don’t let him get away!’ and quite possibly getting straight off a plane from The Rockies and on a Roo bound for Down Under so she can chivy things along!!

He’s completely house trained – does the washing up, washing, pegging clothes on the line etc.  He’s also a builder which is a bloody good thing at the moment and a farm boy which means that none of the realities of life on the land worry him one iota.  In fact he has 400 acres just up the road.  We met when he quoted me for the upgrade of the solar system here and during the long process of the purchase we talked regularly on the phone.

He doesn’t seem fazed by any of my foibles (burping, farting, scratching and snoring!).  Someone revive my Mummy!

He wants the 4 C’s – commitment, chaplain, children and did I mention commitment?  Now that’s one C word that I have an exceptional amount of difficulty with so I have been running around in ever increasing circles looking for a way out because it all seems too much, too soon, too unexpected.  And, of course, having been single for so long, I am used to my own company, my own space, the solitary silence that I share with the animals and nature and the peace of the solo sleeper in the double bed . . .

Am I too old and entrenched in my ways to make room for someone who looks after me so thoroughly?  Or do I just need to keep running a little longer til I realise that there’s nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, and that what’s good enough for the rest of the planet might just suit me too?

Luckily Ged (short for Gerard) is patience personifed because we all know I’m not!  In some ways we are very alike but I guess in the important things we are polar opposites.  He knows I’m a complete worry mutton, and he doesn’t (apparently I look very peaceful when I’m sleeping!)  He knows I always have a plan and normally just fits in with it .  He doesn’t drink very often (like me he had a battle with the bottle and can take it or leave it) he doesn’t smoke although he once did so snap there.  He’s also a Gemini which scares me witless and two generations back his family on both sides came from The Emerald Isle (Catholic) . . . .  smelling salts for my Daddy!

He insisted on taking me to meet his family this week which was pretty terrifying.  His father is a blue eyed farmer whose family came from Kangaroo Valley so he great tales to tell and we had mutual acquaintances to discuss.  His mother is a much harder nut to crack – wary, suspicious and assessing so I might have to get a spade and dig deep there if this goes the distance.  Mind you she reads Maeve Binchy and Dick Francis just like me so the heart beats true!  And she’s got the complete works of Banjo Patterson so I will need that spade after all . . .

Running, running scared . . . . . .