The big freeze, New Year's Resolutions and a New Kitteh on the block

You know that saying careful what you wish for? Well we got a prime example of it in the last few days. As I'm sure most of you know, Ireland regressed to the Ice Age over Christmas, and it's only in the last couple of days that we're beginning to thaw. Temperatures went down as far as -8C, which for us is bloody cold. Strangely enough, our little town didn't get the snow until Saturday, and we were beginning to feel a bit left out, watching the rest of the country on the news under several inches of the stuff. The inner children in us were longing for a good old snowball fight.

We hadn't got over to visit my in laws, who live a 40 minute drive away all Christmas, because the roads were just too icy. John had been talking to them every day, and it had got to a stage that their water had gone on the blink. So last Saturday we decided icy roads or not, we'd get in the car and drive over, even if we had to go 20mph all the way. Halfway there, it started snowing. Shortly after we arrived at the house, parents in law arrived back from a trip to town to bring home one of the cats from the vet. They have what I could only describe as a tribe of black cats in their yard, mostly feral, who would make great extras for a Hitchcock type movie. Anyway one of them came out the wrong side of a fight a few months back with what we guess must have been a dog or a fox, and she lost more than half her tail as a result. It got infected, and the poor thing was in pain, so mother in law got some sort of trap from the vet to catch her and bring her in for treatment.

She was released from the vet with instructions to keep her indoors. Now I knew there was no way in hell that my parents in law were going to do that. As far as they are concerned humans live indoors, dogs and cats live outdoors, end of. She was very distressed from being in a cage and travelling in the car when they got her home. I opened the lid of her cage to pet her and calm her down, and within minutes she was purring and nuzzling my hand. So I took pity on the poor little thing and after working on John for a couple of minutes, declared that we would take her home to care for her. So we loaded her cage into the back seat of the car, and off we went into the snowy night. Driving on a windy crappy road in the snow at night can be a stressful enough experience, but when you have an extremely traumatised injured cat providing the soundtrack, it's pretty headwrecking. We stopped off at the supermarket en route to buy her a bed and some extra food, and by the time we got home it was 7pm.

Once in the house, I went to fill the kettle. No water. We checked with our neighbours, and their water was fine. Ours had frozen over because we were out of the house all day. D'oh. That was Saturday, it's now the Friday, and it still hasn't come back. So we've been showering in the gym and filling our water tank in the attic via a hose from our next door neighbours. On top of that, we both came down with colds this week. I am still smothered with it. Yuck.

We made a little safe haven for the new cat in the sun room, and managed to smuggle her in without our own two cats noticing there was a new resident under our roof. Little by little I started to gain her trust, to the point I got her to sit on my knee. When she does this she purrs like an engine, then she claws me to ribbons in happiness, and drools profusely. Nice. Yesterday I spoke to her vet who told me that what's left of her tail needs to be bathed three times a day. Ever since I have been having great fun and games trying to get at her tail, and every time I get near to clean it, she tucks it in under herself. Our cats have begun to cop on that there is a house guest in residence. So far there hasn't been too much hostility which I'm surprised at really, they are normally extremely territorial when it comes to their home turf. So I don't know yet if we'll keep her or try and re-home her. Whichever way, I'm not sending her back to her original home as she will only get booted out the door again, which is a pity because she has great potential to be a really affectionate lap cat. But I'm afraid that I am on the slippery slope to becoming one of those witchy old cat women if I keep her and then have three of them.

Anyway, enough pussy talk (fnarr fnarr). I gained quite a few pounds weight in the last month or so, between Christmas and a post ectopic pregnancy comfort eating binge, so I decided to do something about it for once and for all. I signed up and paid up for a 20 week weight loss programme with Motivation Weight Management Clinic. Two of my brothers did their programme and had great success with it, one of them lost three and a half stone last year (49 lbs) so I decided to give it a go. I want to lose around two stone (28 lbs). So far on the first week I was down 4 lbs. My sister in law has very generously booked us flights to visit her and her husband in Dubai in March, so my aim is to be down at least 14 lbs by then. I was doing well on the exercise front until this cold hit me, and now all I want to do is curl up in bed with a hot water bottle. But hopefully I will shake it off before too long and will be back up on the treadmill soon.

So there's my New Year's Resolution. To be back in size 12-14 by Summer time. And hopefully I will then go and undo all my good work by getting pregnant and actually carrying it to full term.
I'd better go now, I have to play Florence Nightingale to the furry amputee. Here kitty, kitty.....