Back to the outdoors

After a difficult week, yesterday morning I managed to get out for an hour or so in the sunshine. All the hawthorns (above) are now ablaze with red berries and we await the arrival of the fieldfares and redwings from Scandinavia who will eat them up over winter.
My other reason for getting out was to pick these pears. There are a couple of trees growing wild near here, they don't fruit every year but mostly every two years. They are just ripening and starting to fall off the tree, so I got a big bag of them. I will bottle them after letting them ripen indoors for a bit longer.

I was hoping to get out to the vegetable patch this morning but we have had unexpected rain. Perhaps this afternoon will be fine. The runner beans have now finished, we have had more courgettes this week though, the tomatoes and raspberries are still going strong and the cabbages are finally bulking up. Now it's just weeding and soil preparation for next year.
And a final word on the subject of cats. This is Rosie, my remaining cat and sister to the cat who died earlier this week. Many thanks for your kind words of sympathy on this blog and on Ravelry.

Losing Jim was a wrench. He was a high maintenance cat, prone to anxiety and consequent behavioural problems. But I learned to manage his issues and he became a very happy cat - the time and effort required for this is probably one reason I miss him so much. He had a vast range of vocal, facial and other physical expressions which told me how he was feeling and what he wanted, which is why his death was such a shock as he gave no indication he was seriously ill, just a bit under the weather from time to time. I miss him padding into my office every morning in his never-ending Quest for More Food, which was his mission in life.

Anyway, life goes on and we are adjusting to his absence. Rosie has times when she is very unsettled, as she was earlier this morning. She spent her whole life with him, so life is very different for her now. As Jim's scent and presence gradually fade from the house into memory, she is slowly becoming the Top Cat here, and making the place her own. Changes of this nature are never welcome, but happy memories of the past are enough to help us move forward into whatever the future brings.