5th March

So this Sunday we took Mum to Steni for lunch.  It is somewhere she says that she likes and it is cheap and cheerful so even if it is a complete failure then it isn't an expensive mistake.  Steni is renowned for its ribs and mega platters and we all plumped for ribs.  The weather was not quite so nice today and fairly windy so we had booked a table inside which was probably a wise decision.  This is the penultimate time that Mum will be able to drive up to us - today she came without her hearing aids and got lost coming out of the toilet and left her car keys in John's car so maybe the time is right!

John and I both went for a full rack - I knew I wouldn't eat all of it by we reckoned we would have enough leftover for our supper on another evening and we weren't wrong!!!

We have fond memories of a very impromptu and entertaining New Year's Eve at Steni many years ago when we had Mum and Dad and Jane and John with us for Christmas and New Year and we went only planning to have a meal and then leave and we just got swept up in the evening and stayed to see in the New Year with great food and company and fireworks and everything.

I also remember going there when Mum first had her hearing aids and we returned and she was minus a bloody hearing aid - as it happens she had lost it getting into the car and miraculously no-one had run over it whilst it lay on the tarmac.  John and Dad went back to Steni to see if it was in the restaurant and then I think it was me that found it outside. 

This time we returned home and Mum could not find her keys and I had visions that she had lost them on her misery tour to and from and in the loo.  Thankfully not, but for some reason she had taken them out of her bag and left them on the back seat of John's car.  This delayed her setting off back for home but fortunately she got back without any problem.

We had a quiet evening after Mum's departure and surrounded ourselves with the cats making sure they were safe.  Our friends Gail and Pete had taken their two dogs to Pikni forest yesterday and the girl Dot had eaten something poisonous and was in the vets.  We had wondered if maybe she had had an encounter with some toxic processionary caterpillars but sadly she was not the only dog that had been poisoned that morning so it would seem that something had been put down - this is not uncommon.

This incident has brought back to us the tragic day when our beloved Chivers ingested something toxic - we didn't get him to the vets soon enough, fortunately Dot was being treated within 15 minutes.  We have everything crossed that she pulls through - it was only last Sunday that we were out walking with Pete and the dogs when Gail was away.

Our cats mean the world to me.  I have never forgiven myself for not looking for Chivers sooner but was so very grateful that we found him and sort of knew what had happened to him. I know John thinks I fuss unnecessarily over Minnie, Charlie and Boo but I can't help it.  That doesn't detract from the fact that they interrupt my sleep every night with their demands and tonight was no exception.  At the moment Minnie is the biggest culprit but as we almost didn't expect her to recover from her most recent illness I really cannot get cross with her.