We had a freak storm in Perth today. It was… in a word… freaky. At around 4.00pm, the lights in our office started flickering. Minutes later it was as if someone had switched the lights off outside, and a blanket of darkness swooped over the city. The sound of hailstones pattering on the windows made us jump out of our seats. Everyone left their desks to stare outside the windows as we watched the ice pile up on the pavement below us and on the roof of the smaller building next to us. Apparently the hailstones were as big as golf balls. Image from perthnow The hailstorm ended as abruptly as when it first started. Then came the rain, pouring down in torrents. This is so totally the wrong day to leave my umbrella in the car. But I managed to tumpang under my colleague’s umbrella up to the turn off to the busport from the terrace. The scene along the terrace was crazy… people tearing frantically down in the rain, most of them, like me, were caught unprepared. In some s...

It’s Sunday evening. I’m now winding down as the weekend comes a a close and mentally preparing myself for the start of a new work week tomorrow. One of the classic ‘water cooler’ discussions at work is the “ watcha’ get up over the weekend, mate? ” conversation. I don’t think I ever have anything terribly exciting to report. However my dad says it’s the mundane things he and my mum like to read about too… so in light of that, here is an account of what I did over the weekend, dedicated to my dear parents: Saturday 7.00am: Woke up to Mishu meowing for breakfast. Hubby gets up to feed him while I go back to slumberland. 8.00am: Get out of bed, do the usual morning bathroom routine, gather dirty laundry and dump clothes in the washing machine. 8.30am: Prepare breakfast – buttermilk oatmeal pancakes . 9.15am: Enjoy leisurely Saturday morning breakfast with hubby. 10.00am: Clear away breakfast dishes, hang up laundry, put in second load into the machine. 11.00am: Chill ou...

So what has it been like having Mishu back home again? Well we just love the little bugger to bits! We’re so happy to have him around looking up adoringly at us at breakfast and dinner time… And our little invalid is really milking the sympathy… look at him! This is his “ I’m DYING of hunger, feed me! ” pose… We also need to spoon feed him his dinner now… must be something he picked up during his stay at the hospital . Mishu is a rather distracted eater. He will chomp on a few bites, then after a while he will walk around or go investigate something. If I’m the designated ‘feeder’ that day, I’ll eventually need to follow him, coaxing him to eat some more. Makes me feel like a parent of a fussy eater kid who can't sit still at the dinner table. We have now transitioned to spoon feeding him only the first half of his meal to make sure he swallows the antibiotic pills in the food. After that we will remove the cone and let him finish the rest of the food at his own leisure. Apart fr...

Guess who’s home and gloriously happy to be done with needles and drips and tubes ? And I have my little friend back to keep me company on the couch … He still needs to wear his cone a few days more until he is fully healed. He doesn’t like it but he puts up with it somehow, the good little boy he is.

After work, we dropped by the vet hospital to see how Mishu was doing. He was definitely looking much better and appeared to be feeling perkier… a very good sign. They attached a catheter to drain out any fluids in his bladder… at the same time they also had to fasten a cone thingy around his head to prevent him from licking/biting the catheter. I burst out laughing the moment I saw him. The nurse let us spoon feed him because he doesn't know how to reach his food like this . Sheesh ... sooo pampered kan? He seems to be doing well but will need to stay one more day just to make sure the infection is fully cleared. They will do a blood test on him tomorrow to check that his vitals are improving.

Mishu is the darlingest kitty cat. It’s really nice to have a living creature who greets you affectionately every day when you come home from work – even if he’s only thinking of dinner. But after dinner, on our free nights when we’re settled in on the couch, watching TV or browsing through facebook and various blogs… Mishu will jump up and perch on the armrest, meowing gently at us for some TLC. If I’m pretty focused on the TV or the laptop to pay him too much attention, he’ll walk up along the edge of the backrest, stop right behind my head and start licking my cheek. Usually that works… it depends how exciting the scene is on the screen or how interesting the blog article is. Recently he has this new trick of nuzzling in right up next to me and putting his paw on the keyboard. Cute kan? Told ya he was the darlingest cat! Sadly Mishu is presently sick. It started yesterday. He only ate half his breakfast, barely touched his dinner and was listless all day. This morning w...

Public holiday in WA yesterday. The hot summer weather was holding up relentlessly. Instead of moping about at home complaining about the heat, we decided to embrace it and go outside. Cycling! I anticipated that we would be pretty knackered by the time we got home after our afternoon activity. So I had made advanced preparations to make some homemade pizza for dinner. With hubby’s help, all the ingredients were chopped and sliced. Just before we headed out the door, I set the timer on the breadmaker to finish kneading the pizza base dough by 6.00pm. We ventured out on our bikes with Diana’s brood. Here is Christopher all geared up and ready to go. We cycled by Swan River, stopping by three playgrounds which was absolutely essential to the little troops. By the time we decided to call it a day, it was already 7.00pm. The yeast would be working overtime by now… time to head home before my breadmaker is completely submerged under all that dough. But when we reached home, w...