Activity packs fpr children

should be more widely used - even if I do say it myself.
The weather was not "swimming pool weather" yesterday afternoon.  There were varied things for the parents of the kittens to attend to so 
And the whole clan was going out for a meal that evening. The kittens were tired and hungry and could, I suppose, have been very difficult but the activity packs were put to use.They arrived at the venue their brightly coloured bags in their paws and a certain eagerness on their faces. 
We had a room to ourselves at one of the local hotels. This is something we did once before and it worked well. It meant everyone could talk to the Senior Cat - allowed out of hospital for a few hours - and the kittens could spread themselves across the far end of the very long table.
I had included some notebooks from the supermarket. They have bright coloured covers and pages you can tear out. I included pens. They got to work.
It was not quiet. The kittens chattered constantly about what they were doing. That didn't matter though. They were busy. They were not tearing around making a nuisance of themselves. 
There were other children nearby. We could see them running up and down the passage and heard the noise they were making. It didn't seem to bother the kittens. Pens continued to scratch on paper. 
Great-Nephew was nicely distracted by Youngest Nephew who showed him how to draw a racing car.  Great-Nephew is the most restless child...he must be a horror to teach as he is highly intelligent but far too easily distracted most of the time.
Eventually food arrived and they consumed it like small vacuum cleaners before returning to other activities in their packs. Great-Nephew was trying to work out Rubik's cube. Youngest Kitten was trying to read something. She starts school next year and is determined she will know how to read before that...she may just succeed too.
I went to use the facilities. There were two women in there talking.
   "Those kids are driving me mad. I wish they had something to do."
   "Yes, a bit out of control. Did you see the others though - in the room on your right as you come through?"
   "Didn't notice them."
   "Not surprised. Have a look on the way back. They are all busy doing something."
I wonder what the woman who had not noticed the kittens thought  if she bothered to look.
All I can say is that "activity packs" need to be used more often.

I met Clive James

once - quite by accident.
I had no idea who he was at the time. He certainly wasn't famous back then.
I was living in London at the time. My paws were mostly on my books - unless I needed to go and visit a school or a child in a family setting. 
It was on one of those latter occasions that I came across two people who were looking for "Neal's Yard". This was before Neal's Yard was anything like it is today.
Quite by chance I knew it because of the "Whole Food" shop. Students who were self-catering, trying to eat sensibly, responsibly and cheaply knew the Whole Food shop. There wasn't much else in Neal's Yard at the time.
I explained how to get to the general area and how I came at it from the other direction.
And there was someone listening as I told them. He looked at me. I looked back warily. He asked how a "Downunderite - or are you a Kiwi?" - came to know where it was. It was a place he had just heard about and thought he should visit. 
I kept prowling towards Charing Cross station rather wishing this man would leave me alone. He asked what I was researching "I probably won't understand a word of it but it is useful to know people who know things". I told him. There was no reason not to tell him. I was in a street full of people and safe enough.
I carefully didn't tell him my name or where I was living. I thought he had been given enough information. If he was ever really interested he could find me. 
He didn't of course but I often wonder whether he used the term "visual perception" or - more importantly - if he did visit Neal's Yard.

The hordes descended yesterday

and the next three days will also be busy.
I will be forever grateful to the friend who knocked quietly on the door yesterday afternoon.  She stood there with a large, square, white plastic box in her hands. When I opened the door and invited her to come in she said, "No. I just thought this might be useful."
The box contained a large fruit cake - enough to feed the adults as well as the kittens over  the next couple of days.
A.... was gone - almost before I could hug her and thank her. I didn't burst into tears but I came close to it because I have to admit I am feeling tired. 
Having the Senior Cat in hospital is not a holiday. It is surprising how many people think it is. 
    "It's giving you a break Cat," people tell me.
    "Are you catching up on some sleep Cat?" they ask me.
No, it isn't giving me a break. There is all the watering to do - something the Senior Cat has been doing. He has been doing it slowly. It has been taking him four times as long as it takes me but he has been doing it. It isn't something he will be doing quite as much of in the future but gardens do need watering in summer. I want to keep his precious plants alive for him.
And I am not catching up on sleep. I suppose I am too used to sleeping with "one ear open" listening for him. I wake in the middle of the night - and then lie there wondering how we will cope when he comes home. 
But it will be easier when he comes home because visiting him each day involves Middle Cat collecting me and a car journey through roadworks and other assorted hazards. Middle Cat can park in one car park without needing to pay but it is a long walk from there to where the Senior Cat is incarcerated. Middle Cat and I are getting a lot of exercise!
So, the cake? The mothers of the kittens do not make cake. I suspect that they have never made cake in their adult lives. Birthday cakes get bought. They don't have home made Christmas cake. 
We rarely had cake when I was a kitten. My maternal grandmother made cake - although both she and my maternal grandfather were seriously overweight and should not have been eating it. We were not there to eat it though. My grandmother would send my mother descriptions of the cakes she had cooked. It did not encourage my mother to make cake. She was too busy. If something like that was needed my mother would make a batch of Anzac biscuits (oatmeal cookies to those of you in the USA) or, even more rarely, "afghans" or what we called "patty cakes" (cupcakes). 
After my mother retired she bought and read a good many cookery  books. I gave away a pile over a metre high when she died. She did experiment with the occasional cake then...sponge cakes, "ginger fluff", and recipes given her by friends. It was fine if we had visitors and they could help to eat it.
My paternal grandmother rarely made cake apart from Christmas cake. Although she came from a farm she wasn't a cake eater. My grandfather didn't much care for it either. He liked rich fruit cake in very small slices but he preferred cheese and apples with salt. 
I have made cake. I still make cake. I make cake to take somewhere else and, once in a very long while, I might make cake for us. 
Right now there is need for cake making. The only thing I wish is that my friend could see the kittens devouring it with such pleasure.

The invasion is coming

today...indeed as I write this all those but one from one state should be in the air. My nephew from there arrived last night. He had meetings yesterday. Another nephew lands this evening. The Black Cat does not arrive until late tomorrow night.
Today may not be as chaotic as in previous times. The kittens are all a year older. They are still enough that they need a lot of attention.
And the Senior Cat is still in hospital. They will however allow him "day release". We can also put him into a wheelchair and wheel him down to the garden in the centre of the  hospital. There is a place to buy coffee and space for the kittens to play - indeed that is the intention of the space.
The Senior Cat really isn't ill. Now that he is no longer being given a particular pain killer he is as alert as ever. It is his mobility which is the concern. He still isn't allowed to move around on his own there...after all they have a legal responsibility to see he isn't injured in another fall. I only have the legal and moral responsibility to care for him. How we are going to manage here unless he can get to the bathroom himself - especially at night - is another matter.
Brother Cat phoned last night and we made some tentative arrangements for today - the most important of those being that of course he wants to see our father.  It will depend on whether nephew and niece decide their families descend on me at some point what else will happen. I have the "activity packs" for the kittens all lined up. I think they may be needed.
This year I managed to find some cheap "Rubik's Cube" toys - in the supermarket  of all places. That should occupy them for five minutes. They have "Where's Wally" books for when the adults really need them to be a bit quieter. There is an "activity" book each and some crafty bits and pieces, including some cheap toy go-kart kits that they can make and race at least once.There is paper and there are multiple pens in multiple colours. And there is food. I am a great believer in food for kittens. They need stoking at regular intervals.  I consulted Niece about this some time ago.
What have I left out? Someone tell me quickly - before the invasion begins!
 

Chinese spies are everywhere

so the present media headlines should come as no surprise to anyone. That the Chinese should attempt to infiltrate the Downunder parliament by putting a member of their choosing in does not surprise me in the least. Should it?
I have been reminded by my years at various universities. I have attended three in my time and worked in more. At all of them there were students who were on "government scholarships". The students came from countries like China, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Egypt and more. Almost all of them were there for a dual purpose. They had been sent to study but they had also been sent to spy on their fellow students. 
Everyone knew it. Nobody commented on it. You knew simply because some students were always cautious about what they said and did, especially around students on "government scholarships". It added immeasurably to the stress some students were under. It still does. That your parents are paying for you to be there is sufficient stress for some students but most of them are also under extreme pressure to do very well indeed. The pressure comes not only from parents and family but from others in their country of origin. Some of them have come here because,  under their extremely competitive systems, their marks were not  considered quite good enough. They may work hard, very hard but they still struggle. Some of them need part-time jobs in order to eat. That adds another layer of pressure.
I tutored a lot of students under that sort of stress. They came to me on both a group and a one to one basis.
    "I am in trouble," one of the girls told me once, "S.... saw me talking to a boy." 
She was close to tears. The boy in question was not a Muslim and she was. That they had been standing in the quad with people right around them and the subject matter of their conversation had been strictly academic made no difference.
The would-be candidate for a seat in the Downunder parliament failed and he has since committed suicide.There is no room for failure in the game he was playing. 
It is easier now than ever to spy on such vulnerable students. All of them have mobile phones. They are expected to keep them switched on at all times.
Of course it may not happen to everyone but it does happen to people  whose governments are "concerned" about them for one reason or another. 
I was tolerated by the spies - just. I tutored some of them too. I made no secret of the fact I knew why they were there. One of them has recently been incarcerated in his own country - for spying.
 

Social workers are not

a breed of which I am particularly fond. No, it isn't because I regard them as "prying" - although some can seem like that. It is because they seem to me to do less good than the old fashioned sort of woman who managed to raise a husband, six children and a dog or two  - and still find time to help when it was needed.
Middle Cat and I had a phone call from a social worker yesterday. Yes, he was working on a Sunday. There was, he said, nothing wrong. He just wanted to check a few things.
It is all part of the hospital paper work, work that needs to be done before they will allow the Senior Cat to come home. Middle Cat and I understand how the system works. 
I am not sure the social worker really understood us.
   "The Senior Cat is coming home," we told him, "He would hate, loathe and detest aged care and unless we absolutely can't cope he is staying home."
It was very clear to us that this attitude is not usual. The hospital would like more people to go home but not all families can or want to put the effort in. Some elderly people live alone or with elderly partners who can't cope even if support services are put in place. Once in the "rehab" (rehabilitation) system they will almost certainly end up in aged care - often somewhere far away from family and friends. One of my former "old dears" eventually had a fall. She was in hospital for a while and then, because it was impossible for her to go home, she ended up in a nursing home about sixty kilometres away. You needed a car to get there. Nobody went to visit. I explained to the woman in charge of the nursing home that I couldn't visit because I don't drive. We arranged a regular time for me to phone but the arrangement didn't last long. She died within four weeks of arriving there. 
On visiting a nursing home I have been more than once by staff,
    "You're the only visitor s/he gets."
All that does is make me feel more guilty about (a) not going more often and (b) not staying longer when I do go. Often I need to sort out paper work. It was only two and a half weeks ago that I no longer had the actual legal responsibility for anyone other than the Senior Cat. Some of those people had family, family who didn't live that far away. They kept saying they were "too busy" to help. 
(The last son told me, "I hope you aren't expecting anything from Mum's estate." My response to that was, "I made sure I was a witness to her will so she wouldn't be able to leave me anything."
I don't think he liked that answer either.)
The Senior Cat is nearly 97. He is old and he is not very mobile but he is still able to walk. While he can do that we can cope. At home he has his garden, his books and little projects he has developed and can still do. The surroundings are what he has made for himself. They are familiar. He has a routine. I cook what he likes to eat and in the when and how he wants to eat. We don't socialise a lot. We never have. But we do have visitors. They come in and out by arrangement or because they happen to be passing. The two small boys across the road love to come and talk to him and get him to help them make them origami boats and boxes.  He's been going to church on Sundays because someone picks him up. It's a social outing and "we want him there" I was told yesterday, "there's always someone who wants to talk to him over coffee after church". 
All that is important - and not just for him. It is important for other people too. The little kittens need to learn about the very old cats. His great-grandchildren have known more than one of the very old. They actually like to visit the nursing home in which my brother's MIL lives. She is much the same age as the Senior Cat and very frail. They talk to her and then they talk to other residents. They take drawings and tell them about school. My SIL says, "Faces light up when they go rushing in." 
They will almost certainly grow out of it as they get a little older but, for now, they are willing. Later they will remember the experience - and go back to caring about the elderly.
Social workers need to understand all this, that caring for the elderly is not just about having somewhere to live but someone to talk to and something to do - people you want to talk to and things you want to do.

IV poles must not be used as skateboards

IV poles must not be used as skateboards...nor must those small oxygen trolleys or...
There are endless things around hospitals that can be misused I suppose. Sometimes it can be fun - if you think nobody else is watching.
It is a long hike from the car park to the hospital ward in which the Senior Cat is at present. Middle Cat and I have had to avoid the usual beds being pushed past us, the trolleys with an oxygen bottle or two, trolleys with meals, trolleys with empty meal containers, trolleys of clean linen, trolleys with mysterious medical items and more.
And then there are the IV poles. I don't know what it is about IV poles. I remember the notices in the children's  hospital with the kill-joy statement, "IV poles must not be used as skateboards". It is perfectly understandable of course. They really should not be used as skateboards. It isn't what they are intended for but....oh the fun of at least pretending for a moment that you are not sick, that life is normal and that you can do that triple twist or whatever it is. 
The corridors in this particular hospital are long. They are often empty and deserted as you move from the "private" to the "public" side and then back again. The lay out is confusing. Middle Cat and I got lost again yesterday because we went up in the wrong lift. (There seem to be lifts all over the place. The problem is that they don't go sideways as well.)
And it was that little adventure in which we came across two young porters. The temptation was obviously too much. One of them was sneaking a ride on an IV pole - urged on by his mate.
    "Go on, yeah that's right...you got it mate!"
They saw us. They tried to look innocent.
     "You won't tell?"
I looked around.
     "I can't see the notice."
     "What notice?"
     "The one that says IV poles must not be used as skateboards. They are all over the place in the children's area."
      "We don't work there."
      "I can see that."
They looked at each other and then back at me.
      "Look, it's hospital equipment - it could be hooked up to something to save someone's life. You were being idiotic but I don't think you are idiots," Middle Cat told them.
They sighed and followed us to the nearest lift.
      "Does it really take two of you to get one?" I asked as they pushed the button.
      "No, I sort of met him on the way," one of them said of the other.
      "Convenient," Middle Cat muttered to me as we left.
While I was waiting for Middle Cat to finish a conversation with one of the many members of staff she seems to know I saw them again, this time wheeling a bed. They were talking to a very elderly and very frightened looking woman.
I couldn't hear what they were saying but a small smile appeared on her face. As they waited again for the lift to take them somewhere one of them saw me. He gave me a "thumbs up" and said,
     "We're telling her not to use her IV pole as a skateboard."