Tag Archives: Kittens

Off Grid! Huge changes!

28 Friday Feb 2020

Posted by in Change is a coming, Learning and Evolving, Making our own way, Reflections, The continuing adventure

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So here I am nearly two weeks in from losing our internet. I have now been off grid for 12 days, apart from one trip to good old Maccy D’s to pick up some emails, and there is still no sign of Orange repairing anything. In fact I was advised yesterday that the engineers do what they like, and Orange find them difficult to control, because there is a shortage of them. I find that ironic in a country where people need work, perhaps Orange should think outside the box and put some apprenticeships in place.

I cannot begin to describe how difficult is without the internet, and have lost count of how many times I have told people I am off grid but they then email me documents, or message me! We have an air printer that won’t work and it is frightening how we all rely on the internet now. What about all the people who cannot afford the internet, or the homeless, how do they stand a chance?!

The attitude of Orange is just another thing to make me reconsider France.

Much has happened, and decisions have been made. We are putting things in progress to make that move onto the next stage of our adventure. Life showed us the way in many ways: not least realising that there is so much negative energy generated in the ex- pat community in this area that it is like a beacon, and more and more shallow, insecure people are joining the throng. Just as Deepak Chopra and the book of Cosmic Ordering confirm the energy generated is the energy that comes back.

I have lived here five years, and written often about the people here. Being off grid has allowed me to sit and write my journal nearly every day, and clearly this was just what life had planned. I realised the level of negativity, petty jealousy and nastiness that underpins life here in this area, and I have come to many conclusions, including going back to the UK to work.

In the the book ‘ The Cosmic Ordering Service’ they explain that the left hand side of our brain (the conscious) can take in 7 impressions per second whilst the right hand side (the sub-conscious) can take in 10,000 impressions per second. It sees and understands so much more than your conscious brain, but we often don’t listen to it when it sends us small messages telling us which way to go. After writing in my journal I have come to the conclusion that there is a low level of emotional intelligence around me, generally. With everyone fighting for a buck, and undermining each other. It was time for things to change.

Writing my journal I realised that my sub-conscious had suggested something to me, a job, a while ago, but my left hand side of my brain had talked me out of it. But a few weekends ago we encountered people, and a level of ignorance and lies like we had never experienced before, which finally brought things to a head. We realised just how low people will go out here to get money. We have often had it said to us ‘Oh they’ve got money, you should charge them a higher rate.’ We have seen people over order building materials and take the surplus. Quite simply that is not us. Our rate is our rate, and we would no more over order materials than the man in the moon. In fact when a client recently gave us a tip for the good work we had done I told him I thought he had overpaid.

I am who I am and I am not, and we are not going to lose our integrity to live. If we lose that then we could have all the money in the world but we would not be living. Sadly if you don’t have emotional intelligence then you won’t understand that.

What happened was the straw that broke the camels back. We are not like these people and we don’t want to be associated with them, or even have them on our radar. To the point that RD said, ‘get me fucking out of here.’ To work out here we have to interact with the English, and apart for a select few, quite simply we don’t want to. It was a no brainer that I went back to the UK.

It isn’t just the salary, I realised when I wrote my journal just how much I have been starved of emotional intelligence, I am at risk of stagnating, and I cannot stand it any longer.

Then on Sunday some dear friends came to see us to tell us that they were moving back to England. It did and didn’t surprise me. They had been here the same amount of time as us, they had built up a community of ‘friends’. When I asked why, they too said it was because of the ex-pat community and how they too had been stabbed in the back.

I knew it was life telling us to move on. In addition my friend suggested a job for me in the UK which pays well, it was the very job I had talked myself out of only a few weeks ago. I knew it was life telling me to do it.

I have applied and I am now sitting in my seat on my way to my new job! (Hence the internet connection!) After the first conversation with my new employers I realised just how much I have missed intelligent professional interaction on a one to one basis, missed talking to others who are also professional in their approach. It felt as if the door had finally swung open, and the sun was streaming in.

It will mean having to leave RD for weeks at a time, and I will miss him and my puppies and kittens so much. But it will give us choices, it will give us the route we need to leave France and move on to Ireland. It will allow us the choice to only interact with those we want to interact with, it will give RD a break (not counting the lists of jobs I have for him!), it will give me interaction with professional people who are not only looking for a fast way to gain a buck, it will allow my brain to be used to its full potential, but, seriously, it will give us freedom.

Life will show us the way. It has confirmed it is time to go.

We have let go of the rice.

Wish me luck.

Rosie

Dreams

22 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by in Change is a coming, Dream, Making our own way, Reflections, The good life

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When we were planning to move to France I had a little dream in my head: I pictured myself sitting in my garden writing. I had some pretty clothes on and a jaunty French scarf around my neck, and the sun was shining. So as I sit here in my garden today, writing this blog, the sun is shining, and I am in paint spattered clothes (hey you can’t have everything!) and I realised that my dream has come true.

I am editing my book, surrounded by tranquility and birdsong, with two sleeping Welshies at my feet and 3 sleeping cats around me.

I realise again that my dream has come true.

My book is half way edited from the printed version (so much you cannot see when it is on the laptop!) and I will be contacting a publisher on Friday. My blogYou can read it here just hit 50,000 views, with over 8,000 visitors.

I always knew our story would help others, and from the interaction and feedback from the people who read it I was right. Someone once told me to ceremoniously burn my journal one day; but I always knew I couldn’t because it is part if me: keeping that journal made me the person that I am today.

It brought a tear to my eye today. Dreams can come true, you just have to believe in them.

Moisy

Counting my blessings: Day 5

28 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in My family and other furry creatures, My home, Reflections, Simple things, The continuing adventure

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This is Molly, my beautiful girl. Nineteen years ago, just after Rich and I got married I found a little ginger female kitten behind our shed; even to this day Rich does not believe me, and thinks I actually went and collected her from somewhere! Sadly Pussy Willow, as she became known, died when she was just two years old, but not before she had kittens, who were born in our cupboard; and we kept two of them. One, Milly Kitten, was a reclusive cat, who liked to be outside most of her life. She died at the ripe age of thirteen, after spending a year sleeping indoors every night. We loved her dearly, and Molly missed her

Molly was a different story, she loves the sunshine, but hates the cold, rain or snow. She is now very old, eighteen and a half years, but all the time she eats, and sleeps (pretty much all the time now) we know she is okay. She has had her moments over the past year but she still loves life and she is a blessing that we count every day.

She was the cat who lay beside me, with Snowy our Westie when war had devastated our lives (see my other blog http://makingthisbetter.com) they literally made a sandwich either side with me as the filling and she loves me still.

Molly kitten is my blessing.

Over the years other kittens have been brought into the house starting with this pretty little thing: Diddyman dod. She is part of our story because we gave her a home a year after ‘The War’; she was our band aid baby and only Five weeks old when we got her. Molly adopted her and taught her all she knows; we can’t believe she is ten years old, time has just flown.

Then we got Daisy, we brought her home with the shopping, as you do! Tom had gone to university and she was our ’empty nest’ baby. She is a huge, but incredibly gentle cat, just happy with life, and a bowl of milk and cream.

Sadly our last baby: Tinky Tiny Tilly, or Tillybet, was a naughty one, who gave Daisy so much confidence, they were the Black Hand Gang. But Tilly went out one day in March this year and never came home, and my eyes still fill with tears for my baby. You can read all about her in my post Tinky Tiny Tilly.

All of these cats, including sofa loaf, (A story of hardship, serendipity, and love -Sophie The Sofa Loaf) are our blessings, they make us laugh, and I know they will make us cry, just as Tilly has; and Molly will. But if you don’t open your heart to love, even knowing it will cause you pain; then you have not lived. It is all a blessing.

More and more are starting to share their blessings, spread the word let’s take people into the new year on a positive. Please share.

If you want to visit my other blog you can find it here https://makingthisbetter.com

Moisy

A story of hardship, serendipity, and love -Sophie The Sofa Loaf

28 Wednesday Nov 2018

Posted by in My family and other furry creatures, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure

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This is Sophie The Sofa Loaf.

When we first moved to France Rich we were ‘given’ Sophie by some people we had just met. In fact she was just brought to the place where Rich was working and left with him because someone’s wife had seen on my Facebook page that I loved cats! We were not given a name for her ;and the person who gave her to us had found her so they did not know her history, how old she was or anything. I suppose that you could say that good old serendipity looked out for Sophie on that day!

Rich could not just ‘let her go’ as he was told to do if he did not want her; so he brought her home to what was then a rental property we were staying in. The first thing I did was offer her some cat treats and it was only as she struggled to pick them up off the floor  that we realised that she had no teeth! I looked up why a cat would lose its teeth and established that for a younger cat it was likely to be stress related; and I knew that this poor little, determined cat had been through rough times.

We took her to the vets because she had a cough and also because in France they do not tend to have their cats neutered; and as we already had four other cats and Harley the Welshie at that time it was essential that no more kittens would be coming our way. The vet flipped her over and informed us that she was between six and eight years old and had been neutered! From that we assumed that she had been owned by English people, or a French person who had really loved her as a pet. Either way it meant that her story was incredibly sad because somewhere along the way she had lost the people she had loved.Over the months it became very clear that she had obviously been loved by someone in the past who had cuddled her because she would snuggle up on you, the closer to you skin the better and go to sleep; making her story all the more tragic.

There was another side to her though and she would swipe out with her razor sharp claws for no apparent reason, or at the slightest movement of your hands, especially if you moved your hands near her or raised them up near her;  again we could only assume that there had been times when someone had hit her and raised their hand to her.

When she first arrived all she did was eat and sleep on some sofa’s in a room that we did not use; I think she was literally exhausted; and hence the name Sophie The Sofa Loaf.

Now introducing a fully grown cat to four other adult cats and a Welshie is not easy and Sophie has never really been accepted into the fold. She would be so unpredictable and stressy that our cats just stopped trying to be nice to her; and sadly the two youngest started to pick on her. We do call her our ‘special needs’ cat because  she can be fine one moment and then biting you the next (with he gums) and has to be calmed down; add to that she doesn’t like change and becomes highly agitated we have had to accomodate her over the years.

Sadly in the first two years she lived with us our two youngest cats picked on her, and we would have to settle her down in a camp where she could see nothing else (the rocking chair with a blanket over it!). She drove me nuts at times, and would leap out from under the bed and attach herself to your leg; but Rich has always been so patient with her and she sits on his shoulder as he walks around the garden, and curles up on his belly at night.

Over time this kindness paid off and she started to calm down, and have her  own little quirky ways: Whenever we arrived back from shopping she would run out from wherever she was hiding to greet us, meowing her head off and we started to call her ‘Cat/Dog’; or you will find her sitting in the sink! Any sink, bathroom or kitchen; and sometimes when she is really relaxed she will look at you with her tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth, oblivious.

We have to hide any food (butter, cheese, chicken, and only recently my freshly cooked walnut tart!) from her; because she is a cow for climbing up to eat what she shouldn’t; but despite her eccentricity (her other name is Nitty Nutty Nora) I fell in love with this vulnerable little cat with such a sad story to tell.

Fast forward to yesterday: I decided that the Welshie’s needed a walk; I have spent so much time writing lately that they have been cooped up in our acre of garden, and despite catching the odd rat they were bored.

So off I went with what Rich and I affectionately call the ‘stunt kite’ (you try walking two welshies on the lead!) down our road; as we left the garden Sophie came running over and decided that she would come too!

Picture the scene: There I was walking down the road with  two Welshies and a cat in tow (see I told you:Cat/Dog!) I was laughing to myself as this little cat pranced along beside me and the Welshie terrors without a care in the world and thought to myself ‘the French must think I am mad!’

Now our lane is narrow and the French drive like madmen’; as we walked the postman came driving down the road towards us in his van; he smiled and waved and could see I had Sophie Loaf with me, so he slowed down because she decided that she was not going to move! Eventually she moved over to the side and the problem was over; or so I thought. But as postie drove back up the road Sophie decided she was going to sit in the road and front him! He did slow down but instead of moving over to the side Sophie decided to run, right in front of his van, and the French being the French he carried on driving terrifying her along the way. She started to run up the road in front of his van and  as she was running up the road away from me, our other neighbour came down the road in his van meaning Sophie was in trouble.

I was shouting at her to move to the side, the dogs were barking and she was terrified! She jumped into a field by a derelict house and both of the vans sped past; how they missed her I do not know.  I was confident that she had not been hit, confident that she would follow me back down the road to our house; as I had started to make my way back becasue  it had started to rain. I stopped intermittently and called and called her but Sophie did not come.

I put the dogs back in the house and went back out into the garden to call her, but there was no sign. By now it was pouring with rain and the wind was blowing up and I just hoped she could hear me calling her. I started to worry. ‘She’ll come back in a couple of hours” I said to myself, but by four o clock in the evening the dark was drawing in and there was still no sign of Sophie.

I decided to go drive back to where I had last seen her. I pulled up by the derelict house where she had been and called and called her through my car window, but there was still  no sign of her anywhere. I got out, wearing only my slippers, and looked in the ditch and the field where I had seen her jump into; and then I started to question: ‘surely the van didn’t hit her, I watched and she was okay. Wasn’t she?’

When Rich got home it was blowing a hooley, but he went back out to look for her with a torch; she loves him so much we thought she would respond to his voice. But there was still no sign. She did not come home for dinner and by the time I went to bed I had tears in my eyes for the little grey cat that had experienced so much hardship. Just when she was happy and coming for walks like a cat/dog it all seems to have been taken away from her.

I kept waking all through the night wondering  why hadn’t I gone back to check on her? Why had I assumed that she was okay? Why hadn’t I helped her? By the morning there was still no sign and it was still raining. So I got dressed and before Rich left for work we went down together to the place I had last seen her, by the fenced off derelict house; hoping that she had not died in a ditch on her own in the pouring rain.

I called her, Rich called her, but there was nothing. I started to cry and said ‘Poor Sophie, she just had a lovely life and now this, life is so cruel’. With that Rich climbed over the barb wire fence into the overgrown field calling her as he went; suddenly he came running back to say he could here her; she was in the derelict house!

Rich went back to the van to turn it off so we could hear clearly and there it was: Sophie’s loud meow answering us every time we called her. She was in an upstairs room in the boarded up house.

We were clearly trespassing because only recently they had replaced the fencing to stop people going on the land; but we did not care, we didn’t know if she was laying in there injured or what.  I called her and called her and you could hear that she was following the sound of my voice until she appeared at the ledge of the upstairs window. God knows what the French people in the house opposite were thinking: The mad English are now climbing all over the derelict house opposite in the pitch black with torches!

We through caution to the wind and Rich precariously climbed up on the wall by the steps and then up again hanging onto rusty bits of metal hanging out of the house, until he was about a foot below her ‘come on Soph, jump on daddy’s shoulder’ he said; and she did! There he was my six foot one husband climbing down a wall of very old French house, with a cat on his shoulder!!

Needless to say she was hugged, fed and given milk and cream. Now she is ensconced behind mummy as she tells you all her story. Love conquers everything if you let it, and I love this little, pain in the arse, cat!

Moisy

Tinky Tiny Tilly from Tinky Tiny land

03 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by in My family and other furry creatures, The continuing adventure

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I have thought about writing this post, because it may make things final, which I don’t want them to be. I have tears in my eyes as I type this, so forgive any typos I cannot see the screen well.

We bought this little bundle of fur home just under six years ago. So so tiny but the toughest of all of our five cats. Daisy, our black and white cat had been bullied by our rag doll cat Diddies ever since we had bought her home six months previously. It was so bad that I had to carry her everywhere with me (they are good friends now!) Then along came Tilly. I had been warned by the person who was trying to home her that she was the naughtiest of the litter, and when we bought this little bundle home we put her on the floor and she literally ran at Diddies screaming, she looked like a devil banshee all mouth and ears; and Diddies turned and ran. Daisy was watching her and marveled at her courage and confidence and from then on they became inseparable; our Black Hand Gang, and Daisy was bullied no more!

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She was not viscous just didn’t want to be handled by children, and she loved cuddles and would lay on my lap most nights being stroked and shouting at me to  stroke her some more.  Always the most vocal of our cats she would sound as if she was shouting Oh! or Yeah! at you as you stroked her, when you asked her a leading question she would say “yeah”.  She was so naughty I caught her hanging from my dress on the washing line as if it was a swing!  She was a prolific hunter.

Always one to find an additional home she decided to adopt our friends and neighbours Jo and Mike, and would saunter into their home on a whim and just look at them and shout as if to say “What are you doing in my house.” If their door was shut she would sit at the window and shout at them until they let her in.

When we walked in the door with fish and chips (a common Friday night occurrence) she would smell them from wherever she was and be in the door in minutes to share our fish with her; if you dared to not give her a bit after you had some she would put her paw on your hand to stop you having any more until she had got hers! Jo and Mike loved her so much they asked us to leave her with them when we moved to France; but we couldn’t, she was our baby.

Sadly we lost Milly our fluffball the year after Tilly joined our house so when it came to putting the cats into the cattery we had only four. The man at the cattery fell in love with the ‘Black Hand Gang’, they made him smile every day when he let them out for a play in the run. So much so he let them out for longer.

By this time we had adopted Harley and he and Tilly rubbed along together okay, he is a terrier after all so he did chase her sometimes but never did anything other than make her run. She soon learnt to turn around and front him, making her tail big, but still looking tine, but Harley knew she meant it and would just run past her.

When we moved to France Tilly was in her element, and would spend hours at the edge of the pond of the house we had rented longing to catch a fish; and she did!! She came running across the lawn with this huge fish in her mouth to show us what she had caught, the fish was bigger than her because she always stayed tiny, she had been the runt of the litter, with the most personality.

I remember one morning very early, I was sitting in the sunshine with my cup of tea and over the lawn she came with a mouse in her mouth; when I looked at her and said “I don’t want it!” she looked at me with disgust as if to say “And I caught you breakfast as well, you ungrateful cow!” and spat the mouse out on the lawn.

But Tilly being Tilly she did wander and would sometimes not return for a couple of days. Last year she disappeared a number of times and one time she did not come back for six days; Rich found her running down the drive of the Chateau that is down our lane, where children go for holidays with their schools. She was clearly being spoilt by the kids and probably the staff because she still looked like a kitten, but she still came home after Rich called her.

But the problems started when we adopted Wiglet! She is from hunting stock and decided that Tilly, being the smallest, was prey and she would not leave her. I wrote back in 2015 how our Christmas day was ruined because she nearly killed Tilly who then ran along the open shelving we had then smashing everything in her wake along the way. We bought cupboards after that!

After that Tilly had her camp on top of our fridge, and we have carried her in when she has called us for the past two and a half years; but over the past few months she has wanted to be with her mummy and daddy and wanted to be part of the family. We tried, we put the Welshies to bed at night and called Tilly in for cuddles. She has always been at home when the weather is wet or cold.

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Now we  have not seen Tilly  for a week., and this has been the longest time, and it has been generally wet and chilly; and I have a bad feeling. I reassure myself that she has reveling in living in France, and going off into the woods and across the fields. I suppose you could say,she has had a wonderful life for a cat, and that she has been luckier than most. I tell myself, we tell ourselves, that she is back in the chateau that has just re-opened its’ doors to holiday makers. I imagine her in front of a radiator or fire, or snuggled on someone’s bed saying “Oh!”

But she loves us you see and I know that she would not be able to not come home for any great length of time and I am afraid.

I tell myself that this is life, better to have had a free life, chasing all the wildlife that is out here, safe in the knowledge that she is loved by us. I know that we all go back to whence we came, and as I said recently ‘change is the only constant there is.’ But it does not stop the tears welling up in my eyes, or me looking at her bed on the fridge, or missing her sitting on the island in the kitchen every time we got chicken out!!! It was her entitlement after all!

So come home Tilly, because we love and miss you. But if you cannot then fly free my baby until we meet again, it has been a fantastic adventure with you.

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Mummy