Well it made me laugh......

Enjoy. The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Syria and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.The French government announced yesterd...ay that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France 's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability.Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides."The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose."Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels ..The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be right, Mate." Two more escalation levels remain: "Crikey! I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!" and "The barbie is cancelled." So far no situation has ever warranted use of the last final escalation level.Regards,John Cleese ,British writer, actor and tall personAnd as a final thought - Greece is collapsing, the Iranians are getting aggressive, and Rome is in disarray. Welcome back to 430 BC.Life is too short

Ziggly Wiggly Cat.... no more pain or discomfort

Today is a bad day for us. In fact it hasn't been a particularly good week.

Monday, Clare had to take Zig to the veterinary hospital to have an ultrasound.

To put some back ground to it. I can't remember why we had to take her to the vets in the first place, but the best part of 2 years ago, we found out that she'd developed 2 problems. The first one was reasonably easy to sort out, she had thyroid problems and it meant a course of tablets.

The second problem was that it seemed that she'd got some sort of hepatitis and it was affecting her liver.

Over time, they'd prescribed god knows how many different types of meds to try and either cure or at least stabilise it.

Recently, she'd become quite skinny and when we put her on the scales, we found she only weighed fractionally over 2 kilo's, which meant she'd lost half a kilo or 20% of her body weight, which might not be much, but when you're a small cat, it's quite a bit.

So mondays' ultrasound was to see what was going on, as the blood test she'd had a couple of days before was inconclusive.

The result of the ultrasound was that her liver had got progressively bad, plus she'd developed some other liver related issues and that there was nothing else they could from a veterinary point of view for her.

We had to basically decide when, not if, she was put too sleep. Arrangements were made for it to happen this morning.

I still don't understand why it affected both of us so much. Whether because she was our smallest furry friend ? Or maybe that we'd invested so much time, money and other efforts to try and halt the worst of her health problems. Or maybe that while she wasn't really "my" cat, she would visit both of us for pets etc, I just don't know.

She was a very pretty cat, the picture above doesn't really do her justice. She certainly wasn't a "lap cat" either, but she'd sit quietly on the cushion she'd chosen as her seat. Between us on the sofa.

I'm still not in much of a mood about this, but I'm posting this for me really. I don't understand how I've ended up being so affected by the death, albeit euthanasia, of a very ill, small cat.

This is her looking at our "cat's television".......

She will be greatly missed, despite us still having Tiddles and Flo, Charles and Stanley Ninja Gutbucket, and Zig's brother Zag (who I call Trevor when he's being a pain, which he does often).

This is Zag, a.k.a. Trevor, Zig's brother.

Given todays mental torment that both of us have experienced, we hope that we won't have to have another "final visit" to the vets with anybody else, at least until they're very old.................