Jemima (June 2001)

Most recently arrived, surviving her brother, born June 2001 — and they were so tiny and fast at not quite 12 weeks! The other cats had just about gotten used to them by their first birthday — Smoke mainly ignored them, except when they chased his tail, when he wearily moved away; Penny squabbled wrestling with Bleys, but used either of them for warmth if they stayed still.

Jemima (torty) is a mighty huntress (taking squirrels as well as pigeons), but is still very timid about people, and doesn't like physical displays of affection (I bear the scars from my attempts), quite unlike Bleys was.

Lady May (Aug 1984 - 19th May 2001)

Named after the combat cat from Corwainer Smith's The Game of Rat and Dragon, here she is in her prime, looking suspicious at being disturbed from her beauty sleep by the flash. She was always the most demanding and crotchety of the lot, and it was rare, though not unknown that she would settle with any of the other cats near her.

She was clearly getting to be an old cat - you could feel her spine when stroking her - when she was about ten, but continued to be a feisty, wiry old lady, though her once shaggy breeches became rather threadbare, as her coat thinned with age. In the spring on '99 she went in for dental surgery [same practice as Frank the Cat of cathospital.co.uk fame] at the same time as Penny had was to be spayed, and we were told she had a slight heart murmur - so we expected that we might only take one cat home. She turned out fine (Penny took a long time to recover from a chest infection she picked up) By that autumn, when her check-up came we were told it wasn't worth giving her her boosters, as she had a growth in her mouth and wouldn't last much longer.

The growth did eventually begin to interfere with her grooming, so she needed dribble wiping up, and bathing (for which she seemed grateful), but not with her appetite. She remained a healthy eater until almost the end. Even on the last Friday, she was happy to stalk out into the garden to appreciate the fine spring weather, despite being increasingly stiff and a bit doddery. Perhaps she did not approve of Penny's attempts to play tig, and she worked herself into an apoplexy, but the next morning, we found her neatly posed in the study, but unable to move, save for shuddering. She could not walk, and showed no appetite, even for treats, still purred if stroked, but faded quickly.

Dordogne

After the Auvergne cycling in '99, I went on the Dordogne single-base holiday in the middle of July '00. The idea was that you got dropped off by van every morning and cycled back to the hotel. Unfortunately I chose the week leading up to the Bastille Day holiday, for which I was punished by rain, a spell of fine weather just having broken as I arrived. This meant that it was cold, wet, and hilly enough to be not fun. Worse, the supplied itinerary booklet was badly enough edited to be nigh useless, and ambiguously worded enough that on more than one occasion I had to exhaustively take all routes out of a village and proceed some miles along each one to be certain it was the wrong one until I found the one actually alluded to (not helped by the French habit of signing random and different habitations at each junction).

That somewhat soured me to the idea (and I swore that next time, I'd take a GPS receiver with me for just such an eventuality)

Auvergne

This tour was based from a workshop in a hamlet near Paulhaguet, itself a small village on the Clermont-Ferrand to Le Puy en Velay railway line, most of the way to Le Puy. Travel was via Eurostar to Paris, metro to the Gare de Lyon, to catch the train via Clermont-Ferrand to Paulhaguet, which has a stop which barely counts as a station. The Auvergne tour itineraries have since changed, even to using different hotels in the same towns.

The standard tours were 6 nights of either Valleys or Velay; I did an 8-nights combination, slightly customised for the fact that one of the usual hotels was hosting a wedding party one of the nights I was there. The accomodation was generally unpretentious, but comfortable with plenty of good cooking at dinner.

Taking the tour in June '99 I spent the first night in Chavaniac-Lafayette (that's Lafayette as in the American Revolution, back when the two countries were in accord about revolutions and that sort of thing), before being transported to the base workshop. The journey from Paulhaguet came back through Chananiac to Siaugues St. Romain for the night, then on to St. Paulien. From here, I took a side trip to see the "fortresse feodal" as the roadsigns put it at Polignac (see picture).

This view is taken from the minor road that runs through the village of Blanzac, which was the recommended route, but for cycling, the smoother surfaced main N102 which cuts through some of the terrain is actually a better road, especially on a Sunday when it's very quiet.

This is one of many castles in the region, which was really only pacified and integrated into France in the last couple of centuries. Polignac's castle was never taken in siege, and was supposedly run by as wicked a set of Barons as you'd ever expect to find in a historical romance. It still looks impressive, even though within the walls, apart from the one tower, there are but a few crumbling bits of masonry and open grass.

From Polignac, I headed north to Allegre, where the ruined castle has left only a grand gateway and a small tower. As I approached the town (on foot, as my chain had snapped between Polignac and St. Paulien - while I could freewheel some of the way, it was convenient that it was only a ten mile walk, though the heat was something fierce), I had wondered just what that thing that was slowly coming into view was. This view is from about a mile south of the town.

Here I rested a couple of nights, taking a day off from the road. When I set off, the weather reminded me that the town is at over 1000m altitude (1107m at the base of the archway), with low cloud providing fog cover as I headed north to la Chaise Dieu, (which was annoying at the time, and is now doubly so as the recent tour routes don't go near this side of the valleys) remaining until I dropped below the cloud base as I headed down the painfully long - 20-odd miles - freewheel to Brioude, with the brakes needing to be pumped most of the way.

Brioude is the major town in this region, and the Hotel de la Poste et Champanne where I stayed was the best on the trip (large comfortable rooms, excellent food, and busy friendly atmosphere). I would recommend this as a base for anyone wanting to do an independent tour of the region.

Now it was already time to return the bike and on the way, another magnificent ruined castle described as a Chateau Feodal, this one at Domeyrat. Alas, I passed this one during the long lunch break, so carried on to the base workshop, and waited, sipping water in the scant shade and sultry heat until my lift to that night's hotel. Given that I was travelling from Brioude the next day, that would have seemed the obvious place to stay, but no, I was billeted at a motel somewhere in between, and taxied again the next morning.

Chartres Cathedral

Various snaps of from a holiday we took in late 98 - staying in Paris, but using the wonders of the 'net to help organise a day trip by SNCF down to Chartres, where we had been briefly about ten years earlier as part of a rather ghastly (friction between a contingent from some Welsh chapel and the coach driver) Paris and environs coach trip. So we wanted to go there in our own time, rather than being chivvied about with not enough time to do one of the guided tours.

Side door at Chartres cathedral

Front aspect

Rear aspect

Detail of one statue in an alcove by the side doorway

Stained glass at Chartres cathedral

Not shown, the Amber-like pattern spiralling in the centre of the interior, mainly because it was obscured by all the chairs set out for services.

Kundalini (4th Aug 1995 - 5th July 1998)

Sadly run over during her wanderings, Kundalini was a pedigree Asian Smoke ( a Burmese variety with a black outer coat, and white underfur). She grew from this enormously cute phase into a the same sort of rough tough alley-cat hunter as Shen was; though remained ridiculously cute when she wanted to be.

Here she is at about nine months, showing off her bald patch after being spayed; and she kept the habit of rolling over to display her belly when she felt like being cute - as this later photo shows.

She clearly domesticated at least one other household, caught any rodents that attracted her attention, and any bird or insect unwarily flying past, and scavenged where the opportunity permitted. At least she didn't followed Shen in bringing home bits of other peoples' Sunday lunch; but her wanderings did take her across a fairly busy road, alas.

Homeward Bound

Pack, visit the aquarium, then catch the coach to Auckland, then taxi to the airport, to find that the plane is delayed several hours with a broken windscreen. Avail ourselves of the business class hospitality suite for the 4 hour delay - which leads to a zero-time stop-over at LAX as we just march from one plane to the next.

And so home again, to early winter and short days.

All in all a wonderful time, despite lousy weather at times. The food is excellent, and by EU standards, very cheap. I would highly recommend it as a place to go (despite the two 12-hour legs of the flight there). Just don't try to see all of it at once. We were there 4 weeks, didn't even attempt the South Island, and hardly had time to catch our breaths while we were being shown a little bit of everything.