Charlie wrote in message

Until Stan came to us, I wasn't aware of the extent of cat vocalization
either. He uses different language for different situations.
DIfferent pitches and intonations. Sometimes he "chirps" in one way
when he has found us outside, a different way when he is bringing us a
gift....I don't know.....I didn't realize the variety and subtlety to
cat communication, both in posture and vocally.

:-)) I know what you mean. The current geriatric tiny female we have is a
boring little cat but we did have a cat which had a massive
vocal/postural/expression range too. I'd not met a cat before like him till
my daughter brought him home (and the geriatric old female we have is hers
too, but lives here). Sadly the vocal interesting cat was bitten by a snake
and is no more, but I still miss him.

Congrats Grandpa! Grandchildren are such a delight (and soooo much better
than ones own children).

Amen. I can honestly say I haven't lost my cool with them ever.
And...I have found that my respect for and relationship with my boys,
which has always been pretty good, has improved since they were born.

I guess we were perhaps too caught up in the busyness of life when our
own were little. It is simply wonderous to see them learn and grow and
I am so blessed to be able to be part of this learning. And so often
plumb worn out!

:-)) Now it's all care and limited responsibility + having the time now
which we didn't have whilst earning a crust, looking after the offspring
etc.


Hope you're feeling well and life is good for you.

Yes thank you, just getting old creaky but I have to live till I'm 150 to
finish everything I want to do yet. Winter is now beginning and I suspect
that it will be a long one as it's early. May the summer be a good one
for
your Northern hemisphere bods.


I hope your winter isn't as long and dreary as ours was this year
(smack in the middle of the US, NW Missouri). Snow cover from mid-Nov
until mid-March.

Brrrrrr! I often wonder how you lot put up with it. I've never wanted to
live anywhere where I couldn't dry my clothes outside on the line all year
round.

Major icestorm that took out our power for 4 days,
others for up to a week

Yes, the US weather made the news here (and on more than one occasion, as
did the European weather). Can't say that I watched it with envy :-))

Spring is not developing well. It is
unseasonably wet and cold, nothing is greening yet and daytime temps
struggle to rise out of the 40sF. They say it is to improve a bit next
week, tempwise. Several areas of the central US are in major flood
situation and it looks to get worse.

It'll get warmer no doubt. Our Spring started the same way but we still
ended up with stinkingly hot mid summer temps.

As for the rain, I was just reading a news report that in the north of the
country, the January rain figures were 39inches and the February figure was
even higher (or it could be the reverse, but it was a huge lot of rain).

Ah well, winter is the time for books and dreams and extra time with
the younguns, depending upon one's situation.

Yep, catalogues and books and some tidying up and manure spreading.

You know, this converse with others in opposite seasons is a bit of a
headtrip for me. Things that are just the way they for me, are
entirely different for others. Like, how the hell can you have
christmas, advent, kwanzaa, hanukkah, whatever one wants to call the
season (being careful not to offend anyone ;-) ) in the friggin'
summertime? ;-)

Dead easy :-)). It's summer and thus time for parties, barbecues and
holidays (vacations). That cold stuff is not conducive to celebrating for
maximum pleasure.

Until I lived in Britain in the mid '70s I only ever knew a hot Christmas.
Cold Christmas/New Year is just plain wrong, wrong, wrong. How is it
possible to have a great time if it's cold and there is no real time off
from the normal grind?

Here Manual Workers/factories/schools stop about a week before Christmas and
then everyone goes on holiday (vaction) till the end of January -long lazy
summer downtime with parties, parties, parties for about 6 or 7 weeks.

Our family has also always done the traditional hot Christmas lunch (turkey,
roast veg, hot flaming with Brandy Xmas Pud) and then at about 3.00pm,
everyone complains how they've eaten too much and retires to the nearest
shade/bed and sleeps it off. Some people do a cold lunch (like
Lobster/seafood etc) lunch but to our family that is 'not on'.