Remembrance Sunday...

When someone or something you love is poorly time seems to stand still.  We received a text message from the vets regarding Charlie at 1.30 am this morning telling us that he was stable.  This was good news but then my mind began racing with all sorts of different scenarios not least about how we would manage his return (if and when he returns) with our three other cats to take into consideration.  The remainder of the night was one in which I grabbed small chunks of sleep.

We woke this morning waiting for the update phone call to come but we didn't know what time that might be.  When it did come Dr Inna sounded reasonably positive except that Charlie didn't want to eat and this was a sure sign that he was feeling pretty poorly and she also had concern about the damaged eye which was not, at that stage, responding to light.  She said she would be keeping him quiet today before giving a further assessment tomorrow but she didn't believe there was anything broken anywhere which is pretty amazing.  We hope that his chunky frame and thick fur may well have provided a cushion to the impact.

We know it was a car because we went out in daylight and followed the blood spatters.  We cannot be 100% sure but we think he was probably clipped by a car being driving to or from the horse that is being kept in the field next door.  Charlie is pretty useless with cars and we often have to move him from running in front of ours when we return home.

He did at least make it through the night so that is one milestone reached - we now need to take one day at a time.

It is Remembrance Sunday and this year marks the 100th anniversary of the end of the first World War.  Normally we mark this occasion in some particularly as John is ex military but not just because of that but because we believe these events which mark the sacrifice made by others should never be forgotten.  Today, for a number of reasons, we simply donned our poppy pins and watched the ceremony at the Cenotaph rather than going out somewhere.  I had been particularly taken by Danny Boyle's initiative to have tributes made in sand which would be washed away by the tides.

When I was at school there were two war poets whose work had a profound affect on me.  One was Rupert Brooke whose poem The Soldier is probably his most famous...

If I should die, think only this of me:

   That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.  There shall be
   In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
   Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
   Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
   A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
     Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
   And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
     In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

The other poet was Wilfred Owen whose image was etched into the sands at Folkestone - and who I will remember for these haunting words...

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

John and I didn't need much encouragement to have an early night as we wait for further news regarding Charlie's progress which should come tomorrow morning.  Currently he occupies our every thought.

Good bless Charlie, sleep tight xxx