Good night & God bless you LB

It's been a while - a long while.  Today has been a very sad day but one which may herald the beginning of my new phase a blipping.

Firstly, I'd just like to say that, whilst I haven't been blipping here since July, I've continued to take photos on and off during that time and I've dropped in every now and again to look at - though rarely to comment on - people's blips.  The 'catch up' will be enormous but I'm prepared to do it.  It won't be pretty - there are precious few even remotely OK images and those images will at best have a handful of words with them but in most cases, there will be no comment.  C'est la vie.  They're my records and that's fine.

Like this picture - totally unrelated to the events of the day, but a record of the abundant bird life in my garden, which I love.

Today has been wet - very wet - so it was with a very heavy heart that I watched my dear LB sit outside in the rain seemingly caring little about getting soaked.  The time was now.  His health has been declining over the past wee while......I'd taken him to the vets a few weeks ago for what I expected would be a tooth extraction.  It wasn't.  After a general anaesthetic and a few xrays it became apparent to the vets that his jaw was crumbling with the development of a cancer.  At well over 16 years old, I made the decision to buy him whatever time I could with drugs but I wasn't prepared to put him through the trauma of an operation to have half his jaw removed.  The past few weeks have been testing.  He seemed to stabilise for a while but there were no improvements.  Meal times were drug times, and his eating became progressively more difficult.  His demeanour was monitored closely and - it seemed - whilst the sun shone, he did OK.  But today's rain and cooler temperatures revealed a boy who was struggling.  I brought him inside, towelled him semi-dry then he lay and slept on my knee for an hour or so before we went back to the vets one last time.......

The house is so empty without my wee fur boy.  I miss him terribly already but I know it was absolutely the right thing to do for him.  He's with his brothers Bene and Pudz now.  When my pain subsides I'll remember what a beautiful, affectionate, loyal and smoochy wee man he was, I'll remember the way he'd sit on my knee, crane his head backwards and bunt my chin, I'll remember his big green eyes, his tattered ears and his rumbling, loud purr.

Good night and God bless you LB xx