How Quickly Life Changes

On Wednesday afternoon, during my lunch break, I booked our summer holiday. We could both do with one. It has been a tough spring. My wife and I were planning a lovely meal for the evening, and everything was good.

Then my wife got a phone call. Her mum (who lives with us) had collapsed in the street, and was in the local hospital Accident and Emergency unit. We were not too worried. They said she was OK. We figured it would be three for dinner while we pampered her a little.

When my wife got to the hospital it turned out that my mother-in-law had had a "massive" stroke, was paralysed down her right side, and had lost the power to speak.

We have since learned that she has developed a chest infection. The next few days will be critical. She is in her eighties, and things could easily get worse quickly.

But in the middle of this there are still moments that bring a smile to our lips.

Tigger, one of our visiting cats, has good reason to like the old human with the white hair. She opens the patio doors for him most mornings and gives him his breakfast long before my wife and I are up and about.

Yesterday, I let him in. He wandered around the kitchen, sniffing. Then he strolled off very casually and went upstairs.

After ten minutes or so I went up to check where he was, but couldn't see him anywhere.

Then I looked in my mother-in-law's bedroom.

No sign of Tigger anywhere...

Then I saw the duvet on the bed moving ever so slightly, rising up and down with the breathing of a very contented Tigger, under the covers, fast asleep in my wife's mothers bed....