It's been a while....

....and a tough time it has been. It's been 3 months since I last wrote and nearly 10 months since I lost my beautiful girl Smokey. I'm not going to lie to you, it's been a bloody hard 10 months without her. As you know it took me months to be able to write about what happened as I was so upset. Since then I have got better week by week and just when I think I can talk about her without crying, it hits me again. I have had to odd blubber over the months but for some reason past month has been very hard. I obviously think about her a lot, she was my baby. When the extension to our house was finally finished hubby said, "Smokey would have loved running about in here" as I'm sure you can imagine that broke my heart. She got ill and left for Rainbow Bridge whilst all the building work was going on, and I know she would have loved the new sun room and would have spent many hours lounging on the new sofa in the sun. Then on Christmas Day while I was cooking the lunch, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the fact that Smokey wasn't screaming to be fed and getting under my feet, again I ended up in tears. This past week every night when I have gone to bed she has been on my mind, maybe she has been visiting me. And then today I was transferring some stuff from my old lappy onto my new one and found the video of her eating (the one on the post below) and ended up in floods of tears, feeling so guilty again. I don't think this feeling will ever leave me as long as I live.

Well, let me catch you up with all the other things that have gone on this past 10 months that I haven't been able to write about as coming back here is still very painful for me.

My family and friends have been amazing to me where Smokey is concerned, all of them understanding how I feel, but one person in particular has been a massive help to me. And that person is someone I have never met face to face. Her name is Clare Earl and we "met" through being on the Polka Doodles DT together. Clare is ill like me, and also childless like me, so her fur babies are her life too. I can't put into words how much I appreciate her care and kind words just when I needed them most, she has been my rock and is truly an angel in our midst, I love you Early bird!

We all know there are lots of facebook pages where animals are looking for new homes, and I see them everyday and wish I could give them all a home. Some affect me more than others, the ones who have been ill treat and abandoned for no apparent reason. I have shed quite a lot of tears over these knowing there is nothing I can do for them. Then in August, the 12th to be exact, our local vet posted a photo of 2 cats that had been abandoned in a cardboard box outside the vets surgery. My heart leapt into my throat and I knew I was looking at my new fur baby. I knew I said I would never get another because of the heartbreak when they pass, but I instantly knew this one was special. This was the photo they posted and as beautiful as they both are it was obviously the blue one that stole my heart.

I left a message with the vet that I would speak to my hubby about her and let them know. So as soon as Dave came in from work I told him about her and he said "No, we're not having another one, I can't stand to see you go through what you did with Smokey 3 more times, having to do it another twice is going to be hard enough". Well I just broke down and said I needed to give her a home. Eventually he kind of accepted it although he wasn't that happy. I rang the vet and said that I wanted her. I arranged to go meet her to see if we bonded. I told Dave when I was leaving and he asked if I wanted him to come with me, I said it was up to him he didn't have to. He said he was coming! So off we set and went and met her. The nurse showed us in and opened the cage where they both were. The little black one was hid under a blanket and wouldn't come out, but the blue on was straight out and investigating everywhere and everyone in the room. Dave scooped her up and tried to give her a cuddle, she was a little restless bless her, obviously scared. Then it was my turn to hold her and straight away she took a piece of my heart! She looked so like Smokey when she was little, the same colour, the same shape of her face, everything. We spoke to the nurse about her, she told us they think she was about 8 months old, so born sometime in January. It looked like she's just recently had kittens herself as her mammary glands were still swollen but not producing milk anymore. Poor little lamb was only a baby herself. I was also concerned about the black one as well but Dave put his foot down and said definitely not! The nurse said they were sure to find her a home also. We discussed the other cats getting on with her, and the nurse said if there was a problem we could bring her back and they would find another home for her. She said they would neuter her free of charge and give her a health check and then asked us if we wanted to take her home there and then or did we want to wait until after she had been neutered. Dave said we would take her straight away! So that's what we did, we borrowed a carrier from the and took her to what we both hoped would be her forever home! On the way home in the car Dave asked what I was going to call her, I suggested Ash because of her colour of course, and Dave said "No, I think we should call her Bonnie as she is very bonny" So that was decided, we now had 3 B's Blue, Belle & Bonnie. I said that I hoped she would help Belle with her grief as well as me. Poor Belle has suffered just as much as me over losing her bestie, she still cries for her, looking for her and was still not eating right. I hoped this little one would be mothered by Belle just like Smokey was.

We got her home and Blue and Belle were laid on the sofa, so with Bonnie in my arms I slowly introduced them and Blue had a little sniff and then hissed, poor little Bonnie was taken aback so I took her away from Blue and let her look at Belle, but Blue had made her wary so she didn't want to get too close. She had a sniff around at everything and then jumped up on the windowsill to sit in the sun.

Here she is enjoying the sun.

Now look at this one, Smokey in the exact same spot on the 13th March, 6 days before she passed. It was one of her favourite spots when the sun was shining. I have more photos of her in the same spot from before I went digital. I must dig them all out and get them scanned.

I'm going to have to leave this for today and come back tomorrow. Yep, I'm crying again.