Musical Cats

I just had to laugh to myself last night. Daniel had already fallen asleep and I was watching TV in bed. As the night went on, more and more cats got onto the bed until I was firmly wedged in. I couldn't move much and before I put the TV off, I decided to sort out the cats into more manageable positions.

So, I got up and moved Claudie to the bottom right of the bed. If she lies against you and you move, she tends to hum and growl a bit. So, she went near the bottom of Daniel's feet, but out of kicking range. I moved Sassy to the pile of clothes on the rockingchair. She's a real pain on the bed as she wants to lie right up against you and no matter how many times you move away, she follows. I moved Fallafel to the bottom left of the bed near where my feet go. He normally sleeps quite still during the night and only sticks his nose in your face if he thinks it's time to get up. Tommy, who's always slept with the girls, is now on our bed as well because the girls have been coughing him awake at night. He's really heavy but doesn't move around too much, so I just sort of slid him along to the middle of the bed near the bottom. He barely moved a whisker. Shandy was sleeping on the decoder but she jumped off when I got out of bed.

Then, with all the cats sorted and mostly out of my space, I got into bed, knocked the pillows into shape and got comfortable. Just as I sighed contentedly to myself, Daniel sat straight up, twisted around and plonked down again with his head wedged into my ribs. You just can't win. :-) At least Stewart is back tonight and since he tends to growl and spit at the cats in the bed, only the most stubborn ones will be sleeping on the bed with us (usually Sassy).

One of the things I like about Winter

When the wind is off the sea, the seagulls float over our house.

(Will try to come up with a few more things, but that's all for now. It's cold. I don't like the cold. *grumble*)

Post-Holiday Blues

Been feeling quite out-of-sorts the last few days. Guess it's normal when coming back from holiday, but usually I am quite happy to be back home after being away. I'm not really a Mauritius package-holiday kind of person, but this holiday was different from the other 2 times for some reason. Can't figure out if it was this resort in particular, or the fact that we stayed longer than normal, or that we did nicer things this time around. Or maybe it was just nice to be warm.

It doesn't help much that it's been cold and miserable since we've come back. Right now the wind is howling in off the sea and whistling in at the bedroom window. (The reason that I am awake already -- 7am is early for me -- is that Daniel seems to be on Mauritius time still and has been waking up at 7am since we got back.)

I don't want to live in Mauritius permanently, but would love to stay there and take photos for a few months. Not palm-tree postcard kinds of pictures, but of the people and the dogs and the plants and the building and stuff. I would also like to understand the culture a bit more. It's such a strange mixture of different influences -- they drive on the left-hand-side of the road, speak French, look mostly Indian, and that's just the obvious things.

Will post some photos later once I've had a chance to go through them.

First rain of the season

Finally had a bit of rain after it had been threatening for a day or so. Went down to the beach when it stopped, and the top layer of sand was hardly wet. So, not a lot of rain. But it's still overcast, so there's a chance of a it more. Here's hoping.

Change of seasons

Just two days past the autumnal equinox and the weather seems to have gotten the message. I heard the Winter wind at the window during the night, just testing out its wings. No rain yet, but it's chilly and overcast today and the wind is still off the sea. The outside cats are all inside today, trying out different cold-weather sleeping spots. Musty is sleeping on the stove!

The Bougainvillia started dropping it's flowers right on cue exactly two days ago. I thought that it would be a bit behind the times as it suffered a lot during the renovations -- being cut down too much and not getting enough water -- and it's only just started flowering abundantly. But no. The hanepoot stopped sending out the curly bits for clinging on to things a while ago, but its leaves haven't started turning yet. It's quite sheltered in the courtyard, so the plants there could be excused for thinking that it's still Summer.

I felt the change of seasons a few weeks ago. Not something that I can pinpoint exactly, but just a small change in the air, a slight chill in the mornings, the sky a little bit bluer. And the inevitable Wille Weghol (probably best translated as "Wanderlust") that comes with it. It's not as if I hate the winter here, in fact, Winter here is mostly nicer than Summer, but whenever I feel the seasons changing, I feel like running away somewhere. Perhaps it is some remnant of when we (humans) lived much closer to the seasons, and our survival depended on being aware of when Winter was on its way, and knowing when it was time to move on to a safe place to spend the cold months. Either way, I feel it in my bones when the seasons are about to change, and it normally makes me slightly crazy for a while. But. That was a few weeks ago, and I am back to my normal (sane?) self again and looking forward to the storms and the rain.

Thoughts about my granny

Funny how things catch you unawares sometimes...

I was happily sitting in the sun with my magazine this afternoon -- a rare thing as I always think there's probably something more important I should be doing. The girls were in the pool and Daniel was playing WII, so I decided to take full advantage of Having Time to Myself. I started reading an article in the Woman & Home about a woman who was using some of her granny's kitchen utensils and how it made her wish to have her time with her granny back again, not as a young girl because her head was full of other things then, but as an adult. She wants to show her granny the rhubarb patch at her house, ask her how to keep the birds away from the gooseberries, things like that.

And then I was crying. Just like that. No warning, no previous thoughts of my granny. Strange how it can just be there under the surface and something like this brings it all bubbling (literally!) out.

My granny died when I was 17. And I dealt with it at the time, but what you don't get until much, much later, is that you don't get any of that time back again. You don't get to go back and ask your granny how to crochet Barbie bikinis, or how to make jam or why it's important to always rinse the rice 3 times before you cook it. My granny loved me as only a granny can love a child, without having to worry about how they are going to turn out one day, how they do in school or what they wear. They can see past all that, maybe because they have already raised children from childhood through to adulthood. They know that just because you choose to wear bright blue stockings with your tackies, or hide behind an over-long fringe all the time, doesn't mean you're going to turn out a social misfit and/or an axe-murderer. They see the big picture, and can slip you chocolate and a hug when you need it.

I suspect that perhaps I was crying about my mother, actually. The missing link, the link back through to the women in our family. My mom died 14 years ago, and if I let myself think about it, I miss her more and more as I get older. I look at my children, my daughters especially, and it seems that the line backwards stops with me; the chain is broken. And I feel stupid crying for my mom, when I am a grown woman, and she died such a long time ago. My mom and I fought a lot when I was growing up and she died just as we were starting to get each other (or when I started growing up, perhaps), and before I even got married or had children. Girls need their moms around when they become moms themselves. Even if it's just to chuckle to themselves when they see the grandkids giving their mom hell. We probably wouldn't have seen eye-to-eye about a lot of things, I am not kidding myself about that, but I so wish I could still phone her up. I want to ask her for her sherbet recipe, or tell her that we have a fig tree or complain about how my kids never clean up after themselves.

Perhaps you never get too old to need your mom. I am sorry that my mom died before I knew that, and before she knew that I knew.

Music to blog by

Listening to Leonard Cohen's album "New Skin for the Old Ceremony". Perhaps not his most popular songs or best-selling album, but if you're in just the right mood, it's magic -- poetry set to music, with a good pinch of social commentary thrown in.

At the risk of sounding my age, they just don't write them like this any more:

Why don't you try
-------------------

Why don't you try to do without him?
Why don't you try to live alone?
Do you really need his hands for your passion?
Do you really need his heart for your throne?
Do you need his labour for your baby?
Do you need his beast for the bone?
Do you need to hold a leash to be a lady?
I know you're going to make, make it on your own.
Why don't your try to forget him?
Just open up your dainty little hand.
You know this life is filled with many sweet companions,
many satisfying one-night stands.
Do you want to be the ditch around a tower?
Do you want to be the moonlight in his cave?
Do you want to give your blessing to his power
as he goes whistling past his daddy, past his daddy's grave.

I'd like to take you take you to the ceremony,
well, that is if I remember the way.
You see Jack and Jill they're going to join their misery,
I'm afraid it's time for everyone to pray.
You can see they've finally taken cover,
they're willing, yeah they're willing to obey.
Their vows are difficult, they're for each other,
so let nobody put a loophole, a loophole in their way.