Doudou

Isi loved teddy bears - her doudous. I mean, really loved them. She took her doudous everywhere - the shops, the hospital, school. Once we accidentally left a doudou at school and only remembered when we were half way home. We raced back and were so relieved to find that her teacher had not only put it somewhere safe but had alerted the whole staff to look out for when (not in case, but when) we came back for it.

Now today it is 6 months since what should have been Isi's 7th birthday. We haven't talked about it much here in the house - it's been somewhat of the elephant in the room so to speak. But it has been really hard for me. I've been thinking a lot about how she would be now, and I think she would still have loved her doudous just as much.

So, the first picture I am sharing is of the gorgeous teddy that my lovely friend Anne sent for Isi for her 7th birthday. Sadly isi never saw it, but we are saving it so that if we ever have grandchildren then we will give it to the first one as a gift from Isi.

It doesn't show in my poor photo but it is so soft and fuzzy and squishy that Isi would have loved it - thank you Anne.

The second thing is Isi with another of her bears. Sorry that it's the wrong way up but I haven't learnt if there's a better way to load videos.

For Isi, as long as she had a doudou she could face the world.

I wish I had a doudou myself.

Countdown

Today was a bad day - it has been six months since Isi died.

I count things down these days - how many weeks has it been, how many days until Steve comes back, how many hours until I can take more painkillers.

Well Isi loved to count in a much nicer way so here she is. Much more fun than my counting!

Cats

We have a few cats due to my soft hearted habit of homing unwanted cats and kittens. As of 2 o'clock this morning we have one less. Doom Kitty (my kids name the cats!) died after falling ill suddenly yesterday afternoon. He was less than 3 years old so this has come as a terrible shock. He was in fine health before so I don't know why he died. I am wondering if perhaps he ate poison (we have a lot of farms around here and I know at least some of them put bait down to kill mice and rats) but I just don't know. I have to tell Isi's sisters this morning and Rachael in particular will be devastated as she adores all the cats.

What does this have to do with Isi? Well, she wasn't keen on all of our cats (sadly, including Doom Kitty) but she did love two of them in particular - Salem and Floppy. Salem she loved because of his loud purr and the way he licked her hand when she stroked him. And Floppy because she was such an easy going cat - never scratched or bit and you could pick her up and play with her like a doll almost!

When we found Doom Kitty, aged about 6 weeks or so, Floppy instantly took to him and behaved like his mum. She would let him suckle for hours, slept with him, played with him, everything that a mother cat would do, except that as a neutered cat she obviously wasn't his mum.  I look at Floppy now and think she has sort of lost her child too.

Anyway, here is Isi with Floppy in Isi's dolls pushchair. What you can't see from this (and I wish I had taken a video) is the half hour before these photos were taken, during which Isi was pushing Floppy around in the buggy. I kid you not, it was for a full 30 minutes that Floppy just say there in the buggy being wheeled around the house. Any normal, sensible cat would have jumped out, but not Floppy - I told you she was easy going. I remember Isi having great fun doing this and the photo shows her giving a little love to Floppy after her long ride.

RIP Isi and now Doom Kitty