Whittakers Abroad: December update

Mo (5th November 2005 - 30th November 2006)

Sad news

Our cat Mo died last week. We noticed she was unwell on Tuesday night, took her to the vet on Wednesday morning, and she was dead by Thursday lunchtime. The vet had no idea what was wrong with her until after she died. He found out she died of blood poisoning caused by peritonitis, which in turn was caused by a small wound on her abdomen which had become infected. The vet said it was a million to one chance. She was just one year old.

I'm very upset, but I can take some comfort from the fact that because she was a rescue cat, if we hadn't taken her in she'd probably have been dead long ago. And even though her life was short, apart from those last two days it was very contented. I miss her a lot. Fortunately Pookie seems not to have noticed her sister's absence at all, which is a relief. She's not the brightest button in the box, bless her.

Weekend trip

Last weekend we travelled up to Rotorua to meet up with three sets of friends - Jim and Carin from Auckland, Ian and Carol from the UK who have just emigrated, and Charlotte and Nigel from Rotorua. Our neighbours reckon this spring has been the coldest and wettest since they arrived in New Zealand over forty years ago, but we were very lucky with the weather at the weekend.

We booked a room in the village of Ngongotaha just ten minutes out of town, right on the shore of Lake Rotorua and well away from the sulphur smell that can be overpowering at times in the town itself. As luck would have it, none of the other rooms were booked out, so we had the lodge to ourselves! It felt like having our own bach (holiday home) and it was great!

Unfortunately, Carin and Jim couldn't make it, but we had a very enjoyable evening out with the others, and managed to get our annual Curry Fix. Lately we've realised the only thing we miss from Burton on Trent (apart from our friends, of course) is The Spice of Asia!

We travelled back home in a leisurely fashion on Sunday, and couldn't believe it when we bumped into Ian and Carol again when we stopped off for a mid-morning coffee in Taupo.

Below are a few piccies of our trip.

I'd better sign off now and make the evening meal, and then we're going to have a cinema evening, watching Pirates of the Caribbean 2.