I love May it’s my favourite month of the year as it heralds the arrival of Summer. The farm looks wonderful at the moment, all the trees have their new brightly coloured leaves and our hay fields are a delightful mixture of different varieties of grass. We cannot tell if our resident deer have had their baby yet as the grass is too long but we do see the adult deer most days.
Well, the Marathon is done – thank goodness! I definitely won’t do it again as it became to all consuming and the training took me away from the farm and Cat Hotel for too long. It was a bit of a drama as unbeknown to me my chip, which registers your time and lets people know where you are on the course, wasn’t working. My Mum, Brother, Tim, James, Lucy and the charity didn’t know where I was or even if I had started. Tim was panicking as I have a reputation for getting lost and getting on the wrong buses etc and thought all sorts! It was only down to a friend watching on iplayer for hours who suddenly saw me finish who saved the day. She immediately sent the photo around much to my family’s relief. It took me 5hrs and 38 mins. My hamstring injury started niggling at mile 12 and by mile 18 it was agony. I hobbled the last 8 miles and boy was I glad to finish. On a positive note I managed to raise over £2200 for the Celia Hammond Animal Trust, so I know that I have helped a few deserving cats to have a better life. This alone makes all the pain worthwhile.
The Cat Hotel is so busy at the moment. Most of our guests are regular and we adore them all. This morning I was watching a pair of young cats trying to entice the squirrel who was on their bird feeder which is right outside their window, to come in and play with them! I so love what I do and it makes my heart sing to know that my guests are happy and content. We had a lovely old boy come to stay on his first ever visit away from home in 15 years. Jack settled in so well right from the minute he arrived and was just the sweetest boy. Whilst I was making his food he would tap my hand with his paw to make sure I was hurrying! On a sad note we have heard that two of our lovely guests have gone over to Rainbow Bridge. Dylan only stayed with us once but stole our hearts completely. At twenty years old he was one of our oldest guests but was so fit and well for his age. I know he will be very sadly missed by all who knew him. Florence was a regular guest here since we opened and both she and her brother Ravello were always cats that we really looked forward to seeing. Sadly her Mum and Dad were given the awful news that she only had six weeks to live last Nov. She managed to defy that due to both her strong, stoic nature and the love from her family and passed away only a couple of weeks ago. Again she will be sadly missed but never forgotten.
The donkeys are all really well and still shedding their coats like crazy. I have entered Percy into a class at the New Forest Show in July, goodness knows what he will think, but I imagine he will love all the attention as he is such a show off! Tim and I were putting the cats to bed last night and were sat making a fuss of the cats whilst watching the donkeys sleeping in the barn, I don’t think anything can top that, it’s certainly better than tv!
Time I was back entertaining my lovely guests,
Jackie x