The animals who joined our family in January this year are turning one.
And so that means we’ve almost negotiated a year of not having Pete.
In fact, after the events of the last week or so we are finally seeing daylight of getting ourselves onto a normal life.
For the first time since Pete died 9 months ago, we have four weeks in a row with nothing other than our daily lives.
No birthdays, events, anniversaries, memorials, first time things ... nothing... for four whole weeks.
So we can now enjoy what normality might look like - and that means spending time with the pets who entered our lives 8 days before, and 3 days after, Pete left us.
He knew about them, helped chose them, name them, but he never got to meet one of them.
They are and have been the most welcome addition to our family in the most trying of times.
But I’ve been asked for an update:
Albert - the Maine Coon cat who shall grow as big as a dog has turned 1. He now tips the scales at a bit over 5kgs after a recent stay at a cattery that he was none to pleased about saw him drop some weight.
He sheds fur like its going out of fashion. We have had to invest in a new vacuum cleaner to cope. He wakes me up at 6.30am every morning sitting on my chest to tell me he is hungry.
He shares his love of napping in comfortable places (read: beds) equally between everyone in the house.
He is so loved and special that if the kids do a round of the house and cannot find him in his usual haunts there is actual panic and and entire family cat-hunt must be undertaken immediately (sometimes with fretful tears) until he is found.
Murphy - the Jack Russell - still does not come when he is called all of the time but he is getting better.
He wails uncontrollably when we depart for school and work and when we return if he isn’t instantly added to the people activities that the neighbour from around the corner appeared a few weeks ago to check he wasn’t being tortured and to check he was being cared for.
He is equal parts intelligent and naughty and he is very trainable as Pete would expect him to be but we possess not the dog skills to have worked out how to get him to bring the ball back like he should. Although some people have said as a Jack Russell, he’ll do all the things we want him to... just when he wants to.
So loved is he that the kids rarely like to let him off a lead lest he not come back, run across the road, or get hurt.
Hugo - the fur child from our lives pre-marriage and children - continues to keep on keeping on, however his body is starting to let him down with staggering walking and the incapacity to walk long distances.
So loved is he that the kids insist on taking him for a walk and when he looks tired or slow they carry him, sometimes just a short distance until he can dance and run in the open spaces, other times the whole way just so he can enjoy the outing.
Any mention that at 16 he hasn’t got long to go induces tears - they are not ready to say goodbye to another family member just yet. Thank goodness for vets & their medicine.
The animals continue to be the in-house medicine the kids need.
Their unending patience for children who want to cart them round, sit with them, ignore them, whinge about having to feed them, run with them, complain about having to walk them, cuddle them and love them cannot be measured or underestimated.
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