"Life's but a walking shadow

"A poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more."
(William Shakespeare- "Macbeth")

Yesterday I was planning to blog about my neighbourhood.  My plans were derailed by the discovery of the passing of one of our cats. Himself and I had noticed we hadn't had our constant snuggler in a day or two. We've been sick this week, which probably explains why neither of us had noticed sooner. We spent an hour searching the house for him on Thursday evening, with no luck.

Thankfully, it was Himself, not one of the boys, who discovered him in the basement. the boys were devastated; we'd had him since before the youngest two were born, and our middle son (now nearly 15) was only 10 months old when we got him. He'd been a kitten.

We had a small informal burial service in the back yard; we placed him amongst the lilac trees. Those present took turns placing the dirt back on top of him.

Unfortunately, not everyone was home to participate (but, as embalming isn't an option, we couldn't exactly wait). Our eldest was at work, and our daughter is currently in Chicago with her school band.

I'm not looking forward to having to tell her ...

But I want to end on a positive note- and share with you a photograph of our sweet boy, snuggled up on the couch with our rather large dog.