There is no point being angry for long, I have discovered, as all you succeed in doing is getting a reciprocal anger back and Paul’s anger was always much more dangerous than mine ever was. So my up and down life went on with Sasha, Egor, Macarra and Whiskey. After a particularly difficult period, Paul suggested that we should get married and for a honeymoon go to Qld and find work. Things would be different if we did that. Why I agreed I don’t know but I liked the idea about things being different. We had to find a home for Egor as a result of this plan. I wish I hadn’t done this but I found it easiest to take the line of least resistance. We found a good home for him on a farm and I felt his life would be idyllic but there was a real hole in my heart. Paul’s mother was going to take Sasha and the two cats and we would collect them and take them to our new home in Qld when we knew where we were going.

Whiskey went missing  a few days before we were due out of our house. I frantically looked for her everywhere but couldn’t find her. The day we were leaving Whiskey arrived home, paralysed from the waist down, sodden with urine and in pain. The old woman next door had tried to get her but the cat scratched and bit her. When Whiskey saw me she started purring. Such a loud, strong purr. I took her to the vet who confirmed that she must have been hit by a car. Her back was broken and there was little that could be done except put her to sleep humanely. I held her whilst the needle was given and she purred the entire time until she took her final breath.

It was good having the distraction of travel to take away from my missing pets but a little part of me was gone. This was the start of a time of constant move and upheaval but this post about Trog and other animals is not the place to go into it. All I will say at this point is that you  can run and keep running but you can never escape from yourself.

After a few years we settled in Cowan. Although I had resigned from work to travel I soon had work again, now  working in ICU which I loved. Although we couldn’t save much on one wage I managed (with the help of my parents going guarantor) to buy a tiny fibro cottage in the northernmost suburb of Cowan in Sydney. It was run down and shack like with only one bedroom but it had a great backyard.

Paul wanted to get a dog. Sasha had stayed with his mother as had Macarra. I really didn’t want a dog at this point but I agreed to a cat. To make it easier not to have a dog we decided that a cat with dog-like behaviour was the way to go and decided on a Burmese. After perusing the advertisements in the paper we visited a litter and chose a sandy orange kitten. We did comment to the woman selling that the cat sounded like she was having trouble breathing but she told us this was quite normal in Burmese kittens and would stop as she got older. Not knowing better we believed her. We bought her and took her home; the noise of her breathing giving her name, Snuffles.