Cats and flowers

Love comes in all shapes and forms

So. Val's guest post on Saturday and my sister's (Katy) comment in reply have brought me to this post today: Life goes on at our house, regardless of anything else. It's really all about the cats and small acts of connection. 

Holly loves her new tube in which she can hide and can chase imaginary mice and real barn-yarns filled with catnip; and Chester appreciates the lavish condo Val has constructed for him on the front porch. He seems to have given up on the equally lavish condo she built for him in the garage last winter. Maybe an intruder has ruined it for  him. 

Thanks to...

• Deborah S. for the beautiful amaryllis that is blooming into beauty day by day
• Each of you who has sent an email to stay in touch
• Each of you who has sent a snail mail letter or card - it's always exciting to get 'real' mail at the end of the work day
• Yvonne and Randa for bringing dinners
• Jacki, Mo and Yvonne for bringing us groceries   
• My family - Anne, Colin, Katy, Charles and Lisa - who sent a big fat cheque as our Fine Food Fund, out of which we are to buy ready-to-eat meals
• This list is not exhaustive: Many of you have dropped by with muffins and soup and other fine offerings; thanks to each of you

On the food front, we seem to have more or less sorted ourselves out. More meat on the menu than usual and more repeats of tried-and-true options. So far so good. If you have a serving of something you'd like to offer us, I would welcome it! Just email me with details, so I can plan it into the week's kitchen schedule.  

We are enjoying the Doc Martin TV series lent to us by Barb/Dick and Deborah/Mendel. The Cornish countryside is exquisite (though can you imagine living there with single-pane windows and all that wind and sea-salt spray???) and the characters amusing in their daily lives. 

My teaching is moving into end-of-term rhythms, which means the students are getting really focused on final assignments and prepping for exams. While this translates eventually into mounds of marking for me, it also means slightly less onerous workloads for me at the moment during the week. Phew! 

I have upped my exercise quotient by walking to and from bus stops farther away our house, and that time moving my body allows my mind to sort itself out and settle into and out of the day. Feels good. 

Eventually, I got a great long list of book suggestions from you - thank you! However, I  have discovered that I am not up for anything terribly erudite or complex: A good story well told that pulls me along through it without a great effort on my part to put things together is what I'm after. Jeffrey Archer worked for me (The Fourth Estate), but I'm not sure I can take a whole bunch more of him and his characters - although the story of the newspaper empires was entertaining on my bus rides. I may yet fall back on my children's books of ponies and schools and nurses; they truly require no effort on my part! 

The cold has arrived here over the weekend: wind chill into the minus 20s. Good grief. But no snow yet. Although I'm sure that will come, too. 

That's all for now. I'll share the results of the CT scan that Val had on Thursday once we get them from her oncologist. In the mean time, just carry on, day by day. 

Love,

Amanda