Is it really the last day

of 2014? According to the calendar it is...but where did the year go?
Every year I draw up a large sheet of light cardboard - days across the top, months down the side and all the dates in the middle. It is our wall calendar for the year.
My mother started it when she and the Senior Cat retired. They suddenly had no school diaries and there were other things that needed to be included in the calendar. Some things had to be planned ahead.
Her calendars were always done in beautiful "infant school" printing. My days and months are done on the computer, printed off, cut up and stuck on. The dates are legible - sort of. The birthdays go in, any known medical and dental appointments, any regular events or other important dates. Then, gradually, other things go in as well. I can look ahead and remind the Senior Cat - who sometimes forgets to look - about the birthday of a grandchild or great-grandchild or that he has an appointment. I add mine so that he knows - and put mine into the calendar on the computer as well. I also try to remember.
And, at the beginning of every year, the calendar will look quite empty. "It is going to be quieter this year," the Senior Cat tells me. It never is.
This time last year I was concerned about two very elderly friends and a younger one. One of the very elderly friends has bounced back after minor heart surgery. He's gardening again - gently - he's walking his elderly dog - slowly. The other has left for the great library in the sky and I miss talking books with her. She was a voracious reader until the last.
And the younger one has also died. I still find it strange that, this time last year, she was living in her own home - that I could knock and then call out and walk in. The place belongs to someone else now. I have no longer have the right to enter it.
It has made me think about "ownership" and "right of entry" and how these things change and - well, do they matter? They seem important at the time - but are they really? Friendship seems more important.
I have seen less of friends than I would like but leaving the Senior Cat for more than a few hours is no longer wise. My friends understand that. One of the joys of e-mail and social media is being able to keep in touch even when I cannot physically be there. Much has happened in their lives too.
And I wonder what will happen in the coming year. I am not making any resolutions. I have things I would like to do and I hope to do them but they will not be resolutions.
So, those of you who read this - please keep me at it. There are novels I still want to write - although I doubt publication more and more. Why do I bother? I don't know. There is the more serious book about weaving patterns for knitters. There are knitting patterns to write for my friend P.... There are too many books to read...and yes, a blog to write I suppose.
Whatever happens - Happy New Year to the rest of you.

There were hot cross buns

in the other supermarket yesterday. Middle Cat reported this fact to me when she delivered some things for the Senior Cat from the hardware store.
Mostly we support the family owned independent supermarket. They will soon have their buns out too but they have the courtesy to wait until the twelve days of Christmas are actually over!
Christmas seems to begin in August. Easter begins after Christmas. There is "Halloween". Then there is "Mother's Day" and "Father's Day". There appear to be numerous other events which we are told require the expenditure of money.
A "sale" no longer excites me - if it ever did. There seem to be constant "sales". I know too much about them now.
I know someone who used to run a local "dress shop". It was a small but popular shop which sold the sort of thing that people actually wore on an everyday basis. Most of the clothing was brought in with that very thing in mind. If you wanted sensible clothing to wear to work or to do the supermarket run on Saturday that is where you went. Unfortunately it had to shift location when major changes were made to the shopping centre. The owner of the centre thought it was not sufficiently "upmarket" for his new look. He did not consider what people actually wanted.
But, I got to know the woman who ran it. She is a lively, intelligent Greek woman now retired. The shop was adjacent to the supermarket and I would sometimes "mind the shop" for a few minutes as she dashed upstairs or off to the bank". (She worked alone and the centre rules said the shop could not be closed.)  On the very rare occasions I needed to buy something I would tell her what I needed and she would tell me, "Not yet."
I knew to wait - and why. She would show me new stock.
"Look at these. The boss paid $5 for these."
The price on the label would be $95 or even $105. When they were "on sale" they might be $65 or $70. Once in a while they might be even lower than that. And I would get "staff discount" for minding the shop. 
"The boss" had met me and approved my "shop minding". She was demanding and of uncertain temper. She claimed constant poverty. I very much doubt she had any idea of how much her employee had told me about the "mark up" business.
But it taught me to not get excited by "sales" and to wait for them. Yes, I know about "overheads" and the expense of employing people - especially those in bricks and mortar shops. I do not, for a moment, think that being in that sort of business would be easy. It has, in many ways, to be harder than selling food. We need to eat. People buy food every day. They do not buy clothing every day. But we do not need to buy those hot cross buns early. We do not need to buy them at all. They are actually intended for just one day of the year.
I will not be buying hot cross buns.

A rather extraordinary woman

has died. Her death notice appears in the paper this morning.
It will go unnoticed by most people. Her funeral will be small.
She was ninety-eight. Her brother died long ago. Her sister some years ago.
She never married. Her sister did not marry. Her brother did and, if he is still alive, she has a nephew.
She was once our neighbour, when we lived in our previous house. Her "family" is the family that lived on the other side. They have cared for her all these years.
I did not see her once she moved into a nursing home on the other side of the city. Her "family" had moved to that side of the city and they wanted her close.
But, why was she extraordinary? She came from another era. She was private-school educated. I have seen photographs of her in her old-fashioned school tunic, hat and gloves. On leaving school she trained as a "secretary", an acceptable job for someone of her social status. But she was no ordinary secretary of course. She spoke fluent French and she was soon employed at the highest levels.
She wanted to travel - and she did. She earned good money, lived at home with her sister and her father after her mother died, and used her annual leave to travel.
When her employer died she went off to Uganda and worked for Idi Amin for two years. She detested the man but found Africa fascinating. It gave her the chance to travel in Africa. She came home with some wild tales - and just in time.
She and her sister went to China and Mongolia long before they became tourist destinations. They travelled the length of the Andes and the Rockies, crossed Canada, did the trans-Siberian trip, took themselves along the Silk Route, explored eastern Europe, north Africa and all the more usual European destinations.
Their travel was not about well-known monuments, museums, palaces or places to eat. It was about finding the unusual and different, about meeting local people - even if they had no common language - and coming home with stories to tell.
Her last "big trip" was eleven years ago. She went to New Zealand - a country she had not explored "properly". For her that meant trekking in the South Island and, while she was there, taking a flight to the Antarctic "because they say the scenery is spectacular".
After that she settled down - a bit. She did some leisurely travel across Australia by train and a short trip to Tasmania.
And then, for the last few years of her life she lived in a nursing home. She rarely travelled beyond her room and the dining room. She was surrounded by her travels, her photograph albums and her memories.
I often wonder what she thought of in those last few years. It is hard  to  know. Conversation was difficult as she was profoundly deaf but she read - often about other people's travels.

There was too much food

on Christmas Day. There usually is. It always bothers me. I hate to see food wasted and I know some of that would have been wasted.
The Senior Cat is not a big eater. Few people, if any, are at his age. I weigh more than I should but I genuinely do not eat big meals. A plate piled high with food is bound to make me feel less like eating.
I try to feed the two of us sensibly and within a budget.
But I do wonder about other people.
We have some lovely neighbours across the way. There were five adults and two children for Christmas lunch. The children are, to put it mildly, fussy eaters. On Christmas Day they had gingerbread (the Wise Men we had decorated the other day) and "dessert". They were surrounded by turkey, ham, roast vegetables and all the trimmings. They were not interested. All the effort was wasted on them.
As children we were expected to eat what was put in front of us. We had to sit at the table until we had finished our main course. Dessert, if we had it at all, was a treat. More often we were given a piece of fruit and told to eat it outside. I assume it gave my harassed parents an opportunity to talk without us. (It did not take my brother and I long to work out the meaning of that "Latin" conversation!)
And chicken was a Christmas treat. My maternal grandmother kept hens. She would kill, clean and cook what was really a fowl. We children would get a small piece each. It was supplemented with my maternal grandfather's indulgence, larger portions of ham straight from the bone. He would carve this and the fowl in front of us. I would keep my eyes firmly on my plate. My brother would wriggle - but not in anticipation.
My paternal grandmother did not keep hens. She would order a pair "roasting hens" from the butcher. The meat would be carved in the kitchen and delivered through the "serving hatch" into the dining room. My paternal grandmother also understood about sprouts. It was Christmas. There would be half a sprout (the smallest she could find) and it would be surrounded by peas we had podded. We could dip the sprout into the excellent gravy she made and get rid of the sprout first and then enjoy the rest of the meal. But yes, we were still expected to eat it. I quite like sprouts now - if they are properly cooked.
My maternal grandmother insisted on Christmas pudding. She had small trinkets that she would add to this and you had to be careful not to bite into one. She made brandy sauce for the adults and custard for the children. It did not matter how hot it was we had the full roast meal and pudding - and all the washing up that went with it.
My paternal grandmother would provide the roast because it was expected by most people back then but my paternal grandfather had other ideas about the second course. It was an occasion for fruit salad, jelly and ice cream. The ice cream came shaped like a brick and would be sliced up into squares. We children thought it was marvellous stuff.  All that was probably rather less work for my grandmother on the day. Afterwards my grandfather would wash up and we children were expected to wipe. We never minded too much because he would tell us about Christmas when he was a boy. It was one of the few times he would talk about his childhood. My father and his brother would help by clearing the table and putting the best cutlery and crockery back in the sideboard. It was, I suppose, all over fairly rapidly.
My grandmother would see to one thing. Putting any leftover meat into the fridge ready for the following day. She would try to have just enough for the two of them to have another meal.
Our neighbour came over yesterday and asked if we would like some ham and turkey. They still have too much in the fridge. I thanked her, accepted the offer - and put what I had planned to cook into the freezer. It will keep. We won't waste the other food.  She brought over a generous plateful - enough for us for two meals. "There's plenty more," she assured me.
It is very kind of her and I do appreciate the gesture - but it bothers me that people should have so much food in the first place. My grandmothers would be back on plain fare by now.

Forty years ago yesterday

our phone rang at just on six in the morning. As the only one up I answered it wondering what else was wrong. We had gone to bed knowing that Darwin had been devastated by a cyclone. Concerned though we were we knew nobody living there or even on holiday in that part of the world.
"Cat it's B...here. Sorry to ring so early but I thought you'd be up. Is there any chance you and your parents could be at Centennial Hall by eight? We need some help."
My parents had come sleepily out of their bedroom by then to find out what was wrong. I relayed the message. We all knew why help was needed. They nodded.
The old Centennial Hall building was then the largest in the show grounds. It has since been demolished but, by the time we arrived, the Red Cross was moving in and organising things. B...came hurrying up and sent the Senior Cat off with her husband to organise. She told my mother what she wanted her to organise. She introduced me to someone who said, "You're awfully young but B...says you have some communication skills we might need. Do you think you can handle some very distressed people?"
"I'll try," I told her.
The government was trying to make sure everyone was accounted for and I spent very long hours for the rest of what should have been the school holidays interviewing people. Most of them were nice, reasonable, grateful to be getting some help - even while they were frightened and worried and bewildered.  Most of them spoke English but sometimes the other interviewers would pass people to me because their English was limited or because they were deaf and used sign language or they had some other problem which meant they needed a little extra time.
I remember the profoundly deaf mother of nine children. I was taking down the names and ages of the children. We got to the end of the list and I checked. There were eight children on the list. I showed her and signed "eight not nine". She burst into tears. In the chaos one of her children was missing. (They found him safe later.)
I wonder what happened to all of them.
I remember the very old man, almost blind, who was only worried about his dog. I don't think the dog was ever found but I passed him on to someone who took him for a cup of tea while I phoned his granddaughter in an outer suburb to say he was there. She burst into tears and said she was coming to get him immediately.
I remember the car loads of families coming in. Some of the cars were, quite literally, tied together with garden twine and pieces of rope - and they were the cars the police had allowed through at the checkpoint up north.
I remember the indigenous family who looked totally bewildered. The mother had a six day old baby in her arms. I phoned my indigenous friend R... They spent the next eight weeks living with her and her family.
And I remember the family with two profoundly disabled children who had been left with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. There was a residential section in the school I was then working in and I rang the Matron. She sent one of the school buses over to pick them up so they could stay until somewhere was found for them.
Yesterday the sister of one of those children, now both sadly deceased, phoned me. She was just eight at the time.
       "I don't remember much," she told me, "But Mum had kept your name and I looked up the phone book. I just wanted to say thanks to someone for the help we were given."
I asked her where she was working now. She's a nurse.
"I wanted to do something where I could be kind. The way people were to us."

In a moment of slight insanity I made

apricot jam yesterday. Yes, I know it was Christmas Day. I also made bread...and put the topping on the cheesecake.
I had planned to make bread so that was fine. I had planned to put the topping on the cheesecake (fruit) so that was fine. But...the apricot jam?
Well, the Senior Cat had picked a bucket of apricots. As he is 91, almost 92 (and thinks he is about half that age at the very most) I had to admire the effort involved and do something about it.
It meant a last minute, unplanned trip to the supermarket to buy the sugar. It involved finding the jam jars. It involved cutting and weighing and all the other things.
I did it. We have apricot jam nestling alongside the marmalade. The Senior Cat is feeling very pleased with himself.
The rest of yesterday was taken up with family, food and a friend of Middle Cat, a young Vietnamese student who would have been on his own for Christmas Day. He looked a bit hesitant to start with but my nephews and their cousins, who are about his age, hauled him off to do energetic things and he wasn't given a chance not to be part of the group. When his hostess, sister-in-law to Middle Cat, was being given farewell hugs and kisses by the nephews he shyly lined up to shake hands and then shyly hugged her instead when she reached out to hug him.
"I had a wonderful time," he told her.
"Good. We didn't want you to be on your own," she told him.
And they would not. The Senior Cat and I know that. We have always been included too.
My nephews and their cousins have been brought up to accept people of all races and faiths and the mothers will hug all the children - because they see them as their children too.

How the Cathedral cats did it.

Oh yes, Christmas…

the Cathedral Cat thought he could tell them a thing or two about Christmas.

He wouldn’t of course. It would be impolite. The position of Cathedral Cat was an important one but he had never let it twitch his whiskers. It was too much of an honour for that.

There was a service at midnight of course. The Cathedral was crowded. The Cathedral Cat wondered when most of the people had last been to visit. It had probably been the Christmas before – or perhaps Easter Sunday.

But, by 2am the Cathedral was empty again. There was just one small light on, a light over the manger – a light to show the way for the baby. It might be a nice bed for the night – if the hay did not tickle his nose too much.

He jumped in and settled down but had barely put his paw over his eyes when he heard the noise. A kitten mewing? Surely not. His sister had those kittens of hers well under control in the Bishop’s Palace.

The noise came again. No, definitely not a kitten, or mice. He had heard that noise before.  A human kitten. No. Impossible. Maybe. Yes. It had to be. It was outside too.  Cold. What was a human kitten doing outside in the cold?

He jumped down from the cosy straw with a sigh and padded down to the Little Door and let himself out. He went past the Transept Door and up the path as silent as the moon overhead. The human kitten was crying properly now. He turned the corner and saw a pale coloured bundle on the steps. Oh. He went a little closer. It was a very small human kitten, even smaller than most of those who got water on their heads from the little stone pond at the front.

There were no other humans there. The Cathedral Cat thought about this. It seemed wrong. A human kitten was like a cat kitten. It couldn’t look after itself. It needed to be somewhere warm and safe. This was not safe. Something needed to be done.

The Cathedral Cat padded briskly across the lawn, climbed the tree next to the wall of the Bishop’s palace and let himself down. He went up to the Cat Door. It was open. Good. He let himself in and went to the laundry. That door was open too.  

His sister looked sleepily at him. What a time to come visiting! He meowed - very softly so as not to wake the tight jumble of sleeping kittens – and explained.

Oh. Typical male. No idea how to handle an emergency. No they would not wake the Bishop. He had to be up early for the next service. The poor man was only going to get about five hours sleep. The Bishop’s cat  extricated herself very carefully from the basket. She jumped over the kitten-fence and, tail in the air, told him to follow her. Up the vine, onto the top of the fence, down the tree, across the lawn and up the steps. Mmm…yes a very small human kitten.

The Cathedral Cat looked at her. She looked at him.

It was too big to carry by the scruff of the neck – even if a human kitten had the right sort of fur for that. Human kittens did not seem to have fur at all. How they kept warm was a mystery. It must be all those strange things they wrapped themselves in, those things you could not lick clean. It was terribly inefficient.

But, perhaps they could use those things now. The Bishop’s Cat put a paw on the now screaming bundle and patted it gently. It quietened a little.  She looked at her brother and suggested they needed the Cloister Cats. There were two of those – if he could find them.

He padded off. No, not there or there. Not in there or up there. He called. No not behind there either. He found them at last, tucked cosily in among the choir robes. He sighed. More work for him in the morning but he needed their help. He explained.

They looked at each other and, aware of his unspoken displeasure at their cat hair being on the snow white elegance of the choir robes, they followed him out through the Little Door.

The Bishop’s Cat had quietened the human kitten again but the little thing was not completely calm. Right boys one corner each in your teeth and one in mine she purred quietly at them. Ready?

And, very carefully, they took the bundle of human kitten down the steps, down the path, around the flying buttresses, past the Transept Door and in through the Little Door. It was all quiet inside but the light was on waiting to welcome the baby.

Getting the human-kitten into the manger? How were they going to do that? The Bishop’s Cat waited, padding gently to keep the human kitten calm. The Cathedral Cat thought about this. No it would not be a problem. He and the Cloister Cats pushed against some of the cushions the human cats used for their odd shaped knees. There. Now they could carry the human kitten up the cushions and into the manger.

The Bishop’s Cat pulled back the straw and they put the baby in. It would go back to sleep now.  She gave it a final paw pat and went back to her own kittens. The Cloister Cats settled on the cushion steps. The Cathedral Cat settled at the end of the manger. They slept.

On Christmas morning the Bishop’s phone rang. A present for you on the Cathedral steps. It can’t be left in the cold any longer. Please take care of it!

He hurried across, fearful of what he might find. There was nothing there but what was that noise inside? He let himself in through the Transept Door and looked to where the manger was. There were the Cloister Cats sitting on each side of the manger. He went to shoo them away but they didn’t shift. He came closer and they still didn’t shift. What were they looking at?

The Bishop reached them. And then stopped. There was the Cathedral Cat playing with a baby. He looked at the figures of Mary and Joseph and at the shepherds. They could tell him nothing of course. He looked at the baby. He reached out his hand to the Cathedral Cat and was given an affectionate bunt.

“How did you do that?” he asked and the Cathedral Cat looked at the Cloister Cats and they smiled and went off in search of their Christmas breakfast.