Coming up roses

My first full day in the garden. Still in April and it feels like June. This does not bode well, comrade. Suspect we’re in for another long, hot summer. At least we had more rain last winter than we did the previous year. Fingers crossed.

First job of the day (after retrieving the swing cushions from the shed) is a bit of pet cemetery maintenance. Weed around and add compost to first Angie and Tri’s rose bushes…

… then Clancy’s

The other rose bushes are also coming back nicely.

Although, sadly, the one at the back on the right looks as if it might be dead. Oh, no, wait a minute, on closer inspection…

Check this out! A new rose bush seems to be coming up out of the roots of the seemingly dead one! The last time this happened, the roses on the new bush were a completely different colour. Wonder if this will happen again? (Wonder if I can remember what colour the roses on this bush were before?) 

Don’t worry, I shall keep you posted.

Questions, questions

It’s a beautiful day in the neighbourhood, but, let’s face it, we’re in September now. Our beautiful days are numbered. Which raises a few garden-related questions.

Will there be enough sunshine and decent weather to…

… ripen these tomatoes?

… get a second crop of peas in?

… turn these tiny squash into soup?

Why, when they’re from the same plant, do these look like completely different types of squash?

When should I pick the one apple my new tree produced?

Is it possible my 92-year-old neighbour Pat is sun bathing au naturel on his front porch?

(I did not call across the road to get his attention and find out.)

Who is this?

The answer to the final question is Stella, a lovely seven-year-old cat who was being fostered by Cats Alive after her person died a few months ago. It may seem to be rather soon after I said goodbye to Angie, but I realised one dark, rainy morning (shades of the months to come) that there was no way I could survive the winter alone in the house. And, as I’ve said to a number of people recently, Angie, more so than any other cat I’ve ever known, understood how much people need cats .

Answers to or thoughts on all other questions welcome.

There’s a new rose bush in the garden

Twenty years ago, although we already had my two cats (Crazy Clancy and Lady Jenny), Mike and I decided that it would probably be good for Heather, his cat-loving daughter (at the time living with us), to have a kitten of her own.

A friend of a friend had taken in a stray who turned out to be pregnant. Mama Cat somehow managed to produce eight kittens: five females and three males, all with remarkably similar colouring and markings. I figured a female kitten would be less likely to make Crazy Clancy any crazier. By the time I rang the woman in question, four of the females had already been adopted. There was one female – claimed by me – and the three males left.

As explained in a previous posting, Heather and I set off to collect one kitten and came back with two.

Angie, the female, quickly worked out that she was getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop as far as Heather’s affections were concerned and decided she was going to adopt Mike as her person. No argument from him.

If not at first sight, it was definitely love.

When I returned to Gabriola after Mike’s sudden death in Vancouver, Angie had no interest in me or in Catherine, who so kindly came back with me. Angie trotted out to the car to see where Mike was and when it was clear to her that he was not with me she was inconsolable.

But we muddled along. As well as having Tri on my lap while I was reading or watching telly in the evening, I now also had Angie curled up by my shoulder.

Blind as a bat, Tri kept on grooming Angie.

About this time last year the vet told me Angie’s kidney functions had all but packed in. There were, he said, medication which might work, but no guarantee. I started trying to prepare myself for the worst. Happily, the medication did seem to do the job. Angie perked up, back in my arms again.

Then Tri, my big galoot, got sick and was gone so quickly I couldn’t believe it.

Jenny died in 2002, aged 16. She was buried in what was then barely a garden. Clancy made it to age 18. Typically, although he’s been in the garden for several years, he can still scratch.

The same weekend I buried Tri under a rose bush last October, I dug another hole nearby, convinced his sister would soon be following him. I started trying to make bargains (with whom I’m not quite sure): Please don’t let Angie die before my birthday, before Christmas. Like the Energiser bunny, she just kept going, bless her. In the spring I filled the hole back in.

Well, we were together for nearly a year longer than I thought we would be. But when she stopped curling up with me in the evenings and then stopped eating anything except cooked chicken, I knew it was time to let her go.

I’m not much on the afterlife, but as I buried her beside her brother yesterday I was hoping that Angie and Mike have been reunited.

For the first time since we bought this house in 1996 there is no cat in it. But there are four in the garden.

Floral notes

Back in the spring, when Krys was taking a turn digging the hole for my (one) apple tree, she tried to move this pot out of the way, not realising the rose bush had taken root in the ground underneath. She ended up being scratched by a rose thorn. “Well,” I said, unable to suppress a smile, “it is Clancy.” (This being the rose bush I’d bought to replace the bedraggled fuchsias marking crazy Clancy’s shallow grave.) Given the temperament of my old black cat, she did laugh.

I’d already pointed out to her the ceanothus marking Jenny’s grave and the rose bush marking the spot where last autumn I buried poor old Tri. Krys looked from Clancy’s rose bush to me. “This isn’t a garden,” she said. “It’s a pet cemetery.” Well, perhaps, but it is a garden, too. (That said, I suspect it’s not going to be long before I need another rose bush. Angie, Tri’s sister and very much Mike’s cat, has held on longer than the vet thought she possibly could last year. She’s a game old gal, who hopefully will turn 20 soon, but it’s just a matter of time.)

Clancy’s rose bush hasn’t been doing all that well. I think it might have managed one blossom per year the previous two summers, but, as elsewhere in the garden, this year is a whole new year.

There are already four red roses ready to open up.

Tri’s rose is also ready to bloom.

Elsewhere in the garden…

The dahlias Pat donated to the cause earlier this year are starting to flower. Unfortunately, when Krys asked me where I wanted them planted before I left for the UK, I picked the wrong spot.

They’re behind the tomato plants, which are much taller this year than I remember them ever being in previous years. Thus, you can barely see the dahlias. Note to self: move dahlias next spring.

And another floral note to self: I need to investigate bee-friendly late flowering plants. The bees loved the apple blossom (main reason I am being very philosophical about the lack of actual apples). Just as the apple blossom was disappearing, the ceanothus (which they really love) bloomed. And just as the flowers on the ceanothus were finishing, the blackberry bush started to flower. Again, happy bees. But what about after the blackberry blossom? The bees are still around, but I have nothing for them.

Must do better for the poor bees.

I have a cat

And, no, I'm not referring to the ones resting under flora in the garden.

In 1993, when Mike’s then 18-year-old daughter Heather was still living with us, we decided it might do her some good to have a kitten of her own. Heather did, after all, love cats. Having Clancy in the house did her no good, as he only ever hissed at her, but Jenny did welcome affection. However, it did seem that Heather would benefit from the responsibility of her own cat.

A friend of a friend had taken in a stray, who turned out to be pregnant and produced eight kittens – five female and three male – all a golden tabby with white stomachs and paws. By the time we rang her about taking a female kitten (figuring this would stress Clancy out less), there was only one left. We said we’d have her. Heather and I set out to collect the female kitten, the runt of the litter, named Angel by her temporary owner. As we sat on the floor with the kittens, one of the males, dubbed Triangle Nose for (you guessed it) the triangle on his nose, made a bee-line for Heather, curling up in her lap and purring up a storm. It was – for Heather – love at first sight. She’d lost all interest in little Angel.

What to do? I rang Mike and asked him what he thought of bringing home two kittens instead of one. (I was figuring if there were two of them, they would play together and lessen the likelihood of the male hassling Clancy.) Mike’s response was pragmatic: “One kitten, two kittens, I don’t mind what you decide, as long as it’s clearly understood that whatever happens, it’s not my fault.” My decision, then. We took both.

Heather, to me somewhat surprisingly, had no interest in renaming the kittens. I had no interest in having a cat named Angel, so that was quickly morphed into Angie. Even as a kitten Tri (another quick abbreviation) was a big, affectionate feline. Angie soon realised she was getting short shrift on the feline adoration front and considered her options. Mike, she worked out, didn’t have his own cat and so she decided he was going to be her human.

An early indication that Angie was smarter than the average cat came one night when we’d retired, taking Clancy and Jenny into the bedroom with us for some peace and quiet. As we were laying in bed reading, the bedroom door knob started rattling. I got up to investigate and found Angie on the bookcase in the hall whacking at the doorknob with her paw. She didn’t succeed in getting in, but she’d been quick to work out how doors worked.

Anyway, by the time Heather was ready to move out, Mike was far too bonded to Angie to consider letting her go anywhere and it was generally agreed it would be cruel to break brother and sister up, so we ended up with four cats.

Flash forward to 2008. Mike’s been in hospital for much of the year being treated for cancer. The prognosis is not good and I decide to take time off to get him back to Gabriola for a few months. Tri and Angie have been in the “care” of the housesitter from hell. The housesitter has been evicted and more responsible replacements brought in.


I think the worst damage the housesitter from hell has done is destroy my beautiful blue glass Deco coffee table set. (When I heard this I did wonder what was really so bad about the death penalty.)

Then I realise, when I look at Tri, that his left eye is completely clouded over. Take him to the vet who says the eye was probably injured in a fight and, left untreated, a cataract has formed and covered the eye. Now I’m really wondering about the death penalty.

Still, he’s getting around okay with one eye and it certainly hasn’t diminished how affectionate he is nor how loudly he purrs when he’s curled up on or beside a female human. (Tri is definitely a ladies man. And he is, as you can see, such an elegant cat.)



Since my return to Gabriola in May, Tri has made it very clear that I am his human. He spends every evening on the sofa, curled up beside or on me.

When we came back from our early July trip to move Mike into the new flat, there was a note from Judy, the cat sitter. She suspected Tri had gone blind. A trip to the vet (and the evidence of our own eyes watching him nearly walking into things) confirms this. His blood pressure is high and apparently in cats of a certain age high blood pressure can result in the retina detaching itself. We put him on medication (really, where have Pill Pockets been all my life – all those struggles to get medicine down an unco-operative cat’s throat, instead of them gobbling them up?). There is a slim chance that, if his blood pressure comes down, the retina will reattach itself.

In the meantime, as the ophthalmologist we also take him to see points out, cats are better equipped to cope with going blind than dogs, their whiskers protecting them from actually walking into walls. As long as he has my nap of an evening, he seems contented enough.

Unfortunately, Tri does get very upset at night when I come downstairs to my part of the house, wandering around upstairs yowling loudly and plaintively. Then one night, I’m awakened by Mike banging on the ceiling. I blink awake, conscious that the clock radio is still working and therefore the problem isn’t a power failure. Make my way upstairs. Mike in his wheelchair in the kitchen doorway, pointing frantically up the path where Tri is determinedly making his way away from the house, towards the car and then the trees. I can still see him, walk up the path, pick him up, carry him indoors. Has Tri gone looking for me, we wonder? I walk up and down that path often enough to the car. Was he following my scent?

What to do? If we block off the cat flap, Angie, who enjoys her nightly prowls, will go ballistic, but we can’t risk Tri wandering off into the woods. I decide to bring him downstairs where there is no cat flap on the door, so he cannot escape in the night. Seems a bit mean, given that he’s blind, but decide it’s the best way to protect him. Fill a spare dish bowl with cat litter, cart that, some food, two bowls downstairs. Bring Tri down, show him where the litter and food are. He navigates around this new space with his whiskers, finds the litter box, eats some food, drinks some water, then finds me on the bed, curls up and starts purring.

I have a cat.

It’s a long time (other than brief visits from Irmani’s cat Mojo when Irmani and Jonno are away) since I’ve had a cat sleeping on my bed.

The first morning, before going out to water the garden (yes, there is a garden connection to this story), I take Tri back upstairs. When I go back in later there is no sign of Tri. Bit of a panic, until I realise I’d left my door open (as I generally do). Tri is back on my bed, curled up and sleeping soundly. He’d found his own way back to my part of the house. All right then. He’s claimed his territory.

I have a cat.