Before I start to tell you any more about my mum’s time on the Isle of Man in the spring of 1993, I must show you this lovely blanket she made for me and my brother Weg for Christmas. It’s really soft and warm – and just the right size for us to snug up together in when we’re watching the telly on a winter’s evening.
I also want to say a big thank you to all of you who viewed my posts in 2021 and brought the total number of views for the year to 88,616. This amazing number is more than twice as many as I’d had in the previous three years put together and I’m really, really pleased.
But all my plans for Mum for New Year’s Day came to nothing and, although we took the old calendars down, we never got around to putting the new ones up, or taking a walk, or starting writing again – and all for a very sad reason…
The health of our lovely grey tabby, Marly, started to fail late on the night of December 29th and he died peacefully in the early afternoon of New Year’s Day. He was at least nineteen years old and had lived with us for over eleven years – ever since his previous owner moved out of the village and left him behind.
Mum loved him to bits, so – as you can imagine – she was devastated and didn’t feel up to doing anything that day, and especially so as it was the same day as our first cat, Burnley, had died way back in 1993.
Then on the following day we took him to the Craven Pet Crematorium which is on a farm just a couple of miles away from where we live. It’s in a fabulous position, way up on the hill tops with views for miles in every direction. And there were lots of Mrs Sheeps who escorted us up the track from the road to the farmhouse where a lovely lady called Charlotte said she would look after Marly.
Even so, Mum found it really hard to leave him, but, as we got back into her partner’s car, an amazing thing happened. Although we were sitting in bright winter sunshine with absolutely no hint of rain, a beautiful rainbow started to appear in front of us, gradually building up from west to east until it made a perfect arch across the sky.
When we told our friend Ali about it later in the day he said it was a sign that Marly was going to be okay in his afterlife and so me and Mum like to think that this means he’s going to meet up with our old cat Homer, as they were great pals in this life, and also with Granny Betty, who loved him as much as Mum did.
We also wondered if he’d meet up with Bradley, our other cat that he’d known in this life, and we wondered how they’d get on if they met. This was because, when Bradley was alive, Marly didn’t live with us, but often visited to play with Homer. Bradley didn’t mind this if it was raining as we think he realised that Marly couldn’t get back into his own house then. But, if it was a fine sunny day, he’d let Marly stay for about ten minutes and then chase him out at full speed…
Sometimes the chase would involve all three cats and on one occasion Mum was on the phone by the bottom of the stairs, talking to one of her book editors, when a huge ginger, white and grey ball started rolling towards her from the top of the stairs.
It had three heads, three tails, six ears and twelve legs – and fell apart as it hit the living-room floor to reveal Bradley, Homer and Marly all looking very surprised at having got downstairs so fast and squawking at the tops of their voices…even the editor, who was far away in Hemel Hempstead, could hear them and wondered what on earth was going on!
And with that lovely memory, I’ll leave you for this week. I hope you’ve all had a better start to 2022 than we have – and I promise to tell you more about Mum’s trip to the Isle of Man in my next post. Meanwhile, take care, stay safe, keep warm – and I’ll be in touch again soon.
Follow my next blog: 181. MY MUM THE STORY-TELLER – PART SEVENTY
06/01/2022
Wilf the bear-faced blogger 