I think we can universally agree that getting engaged and getting a new job in the space of two days is enough to make anyone go a little insane.

It was so nice to se the different reactions to the news of the engagement – all were very positive, although from people who know me there was quite a lot of ‘What? Bec? Engaged? Is the world ending?’ and ‘Giggling and happy and being girly? That’s not Bec! When is the real Bec coming back?’

The real Bec is here… she is just happy.

I got so (happy) stressed that my blood pressure went up and my finger swelled. We thought I was having a reaction to the ring, but, no, it seems to be a stress thing.

So, I am calming down.

Don’t get me wrong. I am still ridiculously excited and have gone a bit mad with getting hold of wedding brochures for every local hotel (I think I have chosen my reception venue) and have discussed colour schemes (I have pretty much decided that) and the pros and cons of getting married in church and… oh a thousand and one things. We have come up with a mad and wonderful idea for our invitations and, therefore, the rest of the stationery. I am going to pick up some craft materials at the weekend and try it out to see how great it looks…

The thing is the we have decided to hold off on an immediate wedding to give us enough time to save up the money we need to do it properly. We want to give each other the time to give each other the kind of day we may never have hoped to be a part of. There is certainly a part of me which is considering grabbing Neil and running for Gretna Green but then I stop and calm down. I hope that I am right in thinking that this is forever, but I am not naive enough to believe that time and all the laws of nature will leave us alone.

I am just enjoying every day that we have.

The job though. Oh… I can see some late nights just trying to understand the complexities of the nightmare that I have subjected myself to. It will all be fine, and what is life without a few challenges!

This is the one day of the week that we will spend together whether it be going to the cinema, having dinner, or just cuddling on the sofa watching Gilmore Girls it is the one day we… well, put it like this, there has to be quite the major emergency to stop ‘our time’.

Today, though, we were going to have a cleaning day.  The last few weeks has meant that we have been a little ‘lapse’ with the whole housekeeping thing.  We currently live in a four room flat – a kitchen that has no storage to speak of, a bathroom that is never warm, a bedroom that needs more storage and places to put girl things and a living/dining room that is very very full of furniture…but still needs more storage.

One of the things that I never realised about moving into a man’s flat was that… a man has lived there… for a while.

Stupid? Me?  Yes.

None of the furniture matches, and when I moved in, he had 2 armchairs but no sofa.  There is a red wall in the living room, and the bedroom is painted blue.  The rest of the flat is in man colours

Now, there is a table, and the joyous sofa, clothes are hung up and the bathroom has girly things in it.  Neil is awesome when it comes to girly things…  He has no problem with going to the shop for Tampax and completely understands the need for chocolate and chick flicks (yes, I even have him watching Glee -  his favourite character is Sue)… and he is coming round to the idea of fresh fruit.  He now steals my Strawberry Activia Yoghurt.

We were having a cleaning day but…

The best laid plans…

I got some awesome news about work and then we went on a mammoth conversation about the news and how things might change (all in a good way)  and… we got lost in the land of what if.  So I proclaimed a moratorium on the topic until the news becomes news.

Today was a very good day.

It was the kind of day where you define a word that you made up to entertain the dog.

Kasplootle (verb): to correct somebody else’s grammar for no other reason than for humorous purposes.

Since then things have quite dramatically changed.

I have moved in with Neil.

This is Neil

.

and the other addition to my life, Jack, doing their favourite weekend activity – watching football.

Jack is a Chelsea supporter.  No comment.

As some of you will know, and the rest of you are about to be told, I am a cat person.  I like cats.  They are low maintenance, easy to understand and… sigh… I like cats.

The thought of moving in with a dog.  It just felt wrong.  I did it July 1st.

Jack and I had an ‘interesting’ relationship from the start.  I couldn’t understand why he needed constant entertainment and he couldn’t understand why I got upset when he ate my handbags; I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t do anything I said and he couldn’t understand why I got upset when he ate my Skechers (only my Skechers mind…); I couldn’t understand why he insisted on drooling on everything and he couldn’t understand why he insited on eating my good bras.

Neil couldn’t understand why the pair of us couldn’t just get along.

Part of me wishes that I had blogged during that period of my life but I am actually quite glad I didn’t.  I got over my stupid prejudices (cats are still better) and decided that if I wanted my relationship with Neil to work I would just have to accept Jack and his fur…

It was a very good day.

Since then everything has been more peaceful.

Last night, however, I realised that I had gone beyond acceptance and had drifted over (potentially) into (dare I say it) like.

Last night Jack was attacked by a small yapper type dog, he got a bad bite on his tail.  I turned into mama bear.

Yes, Jack, I now think of you as family.

On February 14th Neil and I will have been together in ridiculous happiness for 9 months.

We have had a lot of terrible things happen to the pair of us during those 9 months.  We both lost a grandparent, I have had swine flu, we have stumbled from mini crisis to mini crisis but we have stumbled together.

I love my Neil and I know that I have never been happier.  This is one of the many stupid reasons I wanted to start writing in this blog again.  I wanted to let people know how happy I am… at last.

So, deep breath.  Let’s see what happens next.

Today was a proud moment in this house.  Today was the day my Mum, my dear wonderful ‘so to forward an email I click reply?’ Mum, learned to use iTunes.  There was a brief moment where I nearly brained her with a mouse but she can now drag and drop tracks to her iPod, and import tracks to the library… We’re going to work on playlists and the rest tomorrow.

It was odd seeing the look of pride on her face as she listened to her iPod and discovered the tracks that she had ripped herself playing.  It made me happy.

And that’s pretty much it – I mean I could sit here and write about the ‘preview’ of the Christmas Doctor Who but it would just be a lot of whiney crap so I’m not going to bother.  I’m just going to stay proud.

But, I am just casually going to drop in a World Diabetes Day mention and link back to the post my Mum wrote last year on the subject (mostly becase she couldn’t think of anything for this year!)

Happy Birthday to the most under-appreciated Mum in the World.

But at least it is now the weekend and I get to spend all my time doing the things I need to do… and all the things Mum usually does.

Which is a lot.

Almost too much…

Actually, it’s a lot ‘too much’ and probably the reason she is tired all the time.

So, making her relax – although tiring for me – is deeply rewarding.

Now, if I could just get her to sleep so I can spend some time doing the things I need to do!

The rain is pounding and nothing I can think of nothing except running out there screaming in… something or another.  The barely repressed pain of the last couple of weeks is starting to bubble in rage and I don’t really know how to deal with it anymore.

I just want…

It sounds stupid (and I know I’ve been going on about it a lot and I’m sorry…) but I can’t believe how badly I am feeling about this.  Hilly was right in her comment when she said Izzy was like my kid.  She was a total child substitute and my arms feel empty.  Everything feels empty.  And I am working all the hours I can to avoid the void.

And I’m keeping it all inside, putting the mask on from morning to night, pretending everything is fine while stumbling over my words and tripping over things.  We went to the supermarket the other day and I picked up cat food as part of the weekly shop.  It took all I could to not fall apart in the store.

Everyday is like that.

God, I am so boring.  Sorry

A small box, about 6″ x 4″ x 3″.

Heavier than it looks.

Wrapped so tightly and never to be opened.

Izzy came home today.

I’m sorry, I just don’t feel like talking today.

All the petty annoyances of yesterday – spraining my ankle as I rushed out of work, the slow bus, the driver who stalled his bus, the temporary road works that ate into precious minutes with Izzy – these things don’t matter.

Mum, Adam and I coming together and showing our grief together, the tears never seeing to stop, eyes raw and throats hoarse… Every little thing starting us off again.  The sight of her bowl, her litter tray, her food, her blanket, her basket, her area for sleeping and then things not normally associated with cats – the sound of Robbie Williams on the tv (she used to sit up and listen when he was on – no accounting for taste), a strawberry yoghurt (her favourite) and even my MacBook (she loved to lay on it and warm up her bum) make my throat close up.

All today I have been staring off into space (I had to go in – can’t afford to lose this job… which is what would have happened had I not gone in) and just one image has been popping in over and over.  The very first time Izzy and I met.

She was a rescue cat – a friend of Mum’s had told her that a cat had been abandoned by her neighbours and after much discussion a decision was made and we agreed to take her in.  She was called Isobel but we knew that would never stick witha long standing family tradition that every cat we have has a name ending in ‘Y’.  It was a hot day and I was at school in rehearsal, for once desperate for it to finish so I could go home and meet the new cat.

I walked in to shouts of ‘close the door’ and saw her sitting halfway up the stairs staring at the front door.  She was tiny and we had her age down at about 6 months (Turns out we were wrong – she was at least 2 when she came to us in 1994).  Bright eyes and the most beautiful black fur you ever did see.  Ears standing straight up.  She shone in the light.  I put my bag sown, went over and stroked her head which she pushed up into my hand… and I fell in love.  And then the most glorious sound came out of her.  This long and loud miaow.  The cat we had before, Smarty, didn’t miaow but squeaked so the full vocalisation of Izzy was a surprise… but a welcome one.

The sound got louder and more frequent over the coming weeks as she grew more confident with us… The fear that we had the first time we let her out was unwarranted. She returned after an exploration of her new kingdom with a shout to be fed… and then she went out again.  Apart from the last 3 or 4 years she has been an outdoor cat, only coming home to be fed, have her ears and chin scratched and has overly decadent belly rubs – if you stopped to do something as selfish as have a cup of tea or turn over a page (or type a sentence of your blog post) she would bring out the claws and drag your hand back where it should be and then hold it in an almost armlock until she was sure you got the message.

She has run our lives for almost half my life and I really am not sure what I am going to do without her.

Today was difficult – answering questions and accepting the very sincere condolances has been hard.  I have had to be logical and almost cold about it.  Holding back tears and then disappearing off to the loo to let go a couple of times when something reminded me of her.  Mum had a similar time at work with people offering new cats to fill the void.  Too soon, far too soon.  It took us 2 and a half year to get over Smarty and he was hlaf the personality of Izzy.  The temptation to say never again, to avoid the possibility of this much pain, is huge… but we are cat people.  We will always be cat people.  How can we not be?

I dreamed last night that she was lying in my arms, head rested again my chest – the way she used to sleep like a baby and I cried.

Izzy

She lived with us

22 June 1994 – 24 September 2008

She will live in my heart forever.