Happy 4th Birthday Princess Aurora Tigerlily Rose (a.k.a. Beth)

On Sunday it was Beth's fourth birthday. We spent the weekend with grandma and grandad and had lots of fun. Given the chance Beth's ideal day would be spent on the beach and her favourite person to spend it with is Adam so that's pretty much what we did Sunday morning. The weather was fab (for April) and the kids all loved running along the beach, digging and in Toby's case, falling in (an easy one to predict!). The beach we went to (Saltburn) is the traditional British beach resort with a pier, donkey rides and a 'lift' from the cliff-top to the beach.

Just before lunch the weather began to change so we had a wander along the beach back to the car with a stop at the playground on the way. Back at grandma and grandad's we were just in time for Beth's party with all the family. Both kids got spoiled with attention, Beth spoiled with some great presents and the rest of us spoiled with great food. Unfortunately it started to rain so we couldn't turn under 5's out into the garden but they weren't too boisterous.

Today (Tuesday) we had a party at home with a few new friends from the village. Beth was very excited though thankfully she didn't ask what had happened to all her old friends who she requested me to invite . . . I was inspired by two things to bake her a cake; first was that I couldn't find a Princess Aurora one and second a friend who is much busier than I managed to find time to bake her daughter one so I thought that really I didn't have much of an excuse. Thankfully it didn't take too long but it was a bit fiddly and looked rather dicey at one point. The end piece doesn't look bad for a first attempt at birthday cake baking though as you can see, I believe the Princess had one too many birthday cocktails as she started to lean rather alarmingly! I think Beth liked it and she loved the rest of the party so birthday number four can be classed a success. :) One last thing, here's Toby making a new friend.

Goodbye Sweet Mog

Poor Mog fell ill last Monday and spent the week at the vet. They had problems finding what was wrong with her but eventually narrowed it down to her intestines (all rather vague!). By the end of the week she wasn't looking good and we were getting rather worried about her but thankfully she 'rallied' and got to come home on Saturday morning for the weekend - spending her time lolling in the sun and keeping us company in the garden.

Unfortunately when we took her back to the vet on Monday for a check up her breathing was poor. During an x-ray it got worse and they couldn't sort her out. It seems she probably has had cancer for quite a while without us knowing and it finally got too much and her body just couldn't cope.

We're going to miss our little Californian friend who adopted us back in 2004. Originally she was found by our neighbours having been dumped in Signal Hill. They named her Dumpling but we thought that she suited Mog much better as she looked so like Mog from the series of books by Judith Kerr.

She made herself known by coming and sitting on the tailgate of the truck with Steve while he was taking a break from clearing out the garage. She started coming in to the house to see us and always seemed to make herself comfy! It got to the point where she didn't leave.

We thought that perhaps with the arrival of Beth she might have second thoughts about her chosen home but it turns out that they got on pretty well together and Mog 'joined in' many games, most involving dressing up!

When we decided to move back to England it wasn't too hard a choice to bring her with us. Getting her passport was rather a labourious task involving test after test and rather more money than we'd have liked but thankfully everything was sorted before we moved and she got to fly cattle-class back with British Airways. It seems Mog was rather laid back and suited to traveling as she behaved impeccably and staff at the London handling centre had only praise for her.

Again with the arrival of Toby and the challenge of British weather we thought Mog might have had enough but still she appeared to love being part of the family though did give Toby a wide berth.

With this last house move we were looking forward to being settled and in the same place for a long time, glad that Mog along with us could relax and get to know the area without being whisked off again. Unfortunately in her case it wasn't to be and she did indeed get whisked off far sooner than we were ready for.

We're glad that she adopted us as her family as she brought a lot to it and we're thankful she had a relatively peaceful end, we all loved her dearly. It's sad to think that Beth probably won't really remember her little friend, and strange that she doesn't seem to miss her much (yet) - the reality of death thankfully isn't fully understood yet but I suppose we should be grateful for that. Mog was definitely a positive presence in all of our lives, something that Beth knows since she is already asking if we can go and get a new cat!