I write this with a heavy heart: today we lost a beloved furry friend. He was Oliver, a magnificent Burmese, my friend Craig’s cat. Craig, an Aussie boy abroad, had a massive stroke, spending most of the year hospitalised. Oliver was his faithful boy. He was a beautiful cat, who charmed everyone he met.
While Craig fought to survive and recover, for Oliver and his buddy Annie, we battled finding them temporary accommodation with kind American friends, diabetes, endless blood tests, insulin shots twice daily, horrendous costs and extraordinary red tape to bring him home from the USA then through our quarantine to reunite him with Craig. He and Annie lived with us for a few months where he stole our hearts, along with the most comfortable spots on our furniture. To lose him less than a year later to kidney failure is a very cruel blow.
Rest in peace little furry one. You were very loved by many and will be always missed.
The rest of day is a blur of refrigerator matters, still in our opinion not working the way it should, hours of waiting in the nearby Tesco, then a drive to the coast, to the Hurst Spit Keyhaven Marshes and nearby Hurst Castle. It’s a pretty drive lined with thatched cottages: the marshes are vast, set by the sea, separated by a huge stone dyke.
There’s a wide variety of bird life, huge gulls, spotted chicks, white swans and many other water birds I can’t identify – we really need an English bird book. I take myself off for the very long walk to the castle.
It’s tough going along the stones, but even the hard work this takes isn’t enough to still my mind.
This is the real reason we don’t have pets any more. I tell people it’s because we travel, but it’s not. We lost four beloved furry family members in four years, a few years ago. When you love them completely, the heartbreak is too much to bear.
Miss Baci Travels 