Bye Bye Squeaky.

It has been an eventful day. The saddest event was the loss of Squeaky our 17 year old ginger cat. After sleeping in the conservatory for most of the day she came round to the front of the house where I saw straight away something was very wrong. She's been a bit tottery for a while but today her back legs were hardly holding her up. Thinking she might have had a stroke I quickly checked out the vets' hours to find that the nearest branches closed at 3.00 and it was already 3.30 but the veterinary hospital was open until 4.00. Peter was sorting out another emergency with the rayburn so as I left I asked him to ring the vet as I hadn't been able to get through, and let them know I was on my way. I got there at 4.00 only to find the sign on the door said they were open until 3.30. They were expecting me but of course I had to pay the out of hours fee. On looking at Squeaky the vet said her sight had gone completely as a result of her poor kidneys. At that point, although the vet talked about options I knew it was kindest to have her put to sleep. I warned the vet that I'm a weeper but I stayed and stroked her as she slipped easily away. We've had her since she was about 3 months old so naturally it was very sad to lose her but that is the price you pay for having pets. I didn't want to bury her in the garden so she's now buried in the corner of the plantation across the stream but still under the branches of the big beech tree. 

Rain was forecast for today but didn't arrive until 4.30 so I was able to get washing out and dried on the line. Standing in the garden I could smell the scent of the sedums. No wonder they were covered with butterflies, mainly red admirals and small peacocks with the occasional speckled wood also honey bees, white tailed bumble bees and assorted other flies and bees. 

I was hanging around in the garden trying to catch sight of a southern hawker dragonfly which has been patrolling the garden when instead I saw this newly emerged red admiral butterfly. I stood there watching for a while as its wings slowly unfurled. It seemed to be taking a long time so I went inside for a moment and when I came out again it was just flying off. 

One of the other things that happened today was that we came down to find the rayburn cooling down. Upon investigation it turned out that we were almost out of oil. That shouldn't happen as we are supposed to get regular top ups from the oil company. They're not open until Monday but Peter was able to get 25 L from our neighbour to keep the rayburn going. He gets his oil from the same company and they had been down 3 days ago and filled his tank so they should have come to us as well.

Finally - the house sale. We had given the buyers a deadline and at the very last moment they contacted our estate agent and will be paying the agreed price after all. I suppose they thought it was worth trying to get us to drop the price but it did make us cross. Now it's full speed ahead again.