Remembering Chivers...

Two years ago today we lost our beautiful Chivers - it was father's day.  Chivers was the most unassuming, most undemanding and ultimately the most unnoticed of our Cypriot Cat family but he was most definitely John's buddy, John's boy which made the day of his passing all the harder to bear.

We had been so grateful to have found him rather than him disappear for us to forever wonder what had happened to him.  It had been an exceptionally hot day and he had ingested something toxic and got stuck in the garden of 11a too ill and weak to get out.  We did find him and he was still alive and rushed him to the vet.  In my final photograph of him at the vets he looked terrible.  I think in my heart of hearts I knew that he wasn't going to make it.  John was devastated that we had not been with him.

Having recently witnessed Miss Minnie with her acute pancreatitis I wonder if this was what Chivers had experienced.  He had been sick and off colour several times prior to the day he died.  His symptoms were very similar and dehydration often occurs - sadly he was stuck in a garden with no access to water.  Now I would have recognised the signs, then I knew nothing about them.  We miss him terribly because he was just beautiful and we had hoped he would have been with us for a very long time.  He came home with us and is buried in the Peace Garden so he will never leave us - Rest in Peace dear Chivers.

With the current trend of spiraling price increases we are staying in more than we might have done in the past.  We don't mind as it gives us an opportunity to look at our surroundings and we would prefer to spend money on them.

I had to nip down to Paphos today to sort a few things out and I called into Sklavenitis after going to the bank.  I only wanted a box of cat food for Charlie - he will eat their own make, Baron, when he has got bored of all the others.  A box used to cost €2.75 and now it is €3.50 which is a massive increase and just highlights my point earlier.  They do however have a small but interesting selection of plants at the bottom of the escalators which includes some succulents.  I am fond of succulents and in the garden centres even the small pots cost around €5 - in Sklavs they are €1.50 so I bought a selection to go in a rather nice cheap and cheerful pot I got in Jumbos - these are great because they have a built in reservoir at the bottom - not that these will need watering much.  

John is keen to tackle the area by the arch where the kiwi fruit lives so when it was a bit cooler we started to cut it back in readiness to take it out.  I think he is right that it will open up that area of the garden.

It was a strange day today weatherwise - cloudy, muggy, overcast, sticky you name it but by late afternoon it looked and felt like it was going to rain!

This is not what the Doctor ordered that's for sure but it did make for much more pleasant sleeping conditions.  The forecast is for the temperatures to rise again so we had better make the most of it!