Some might have accused us of celebrating last night. However, this is not true. What is true is that every second Tuesday Chantelle is on an early shift, meaning that when the clock strikes 17:00, we can shoot out to pick up Jessica and then have a full 2 hours before we have to be back in time for the bedtime routine! And so, last night we decided to spend that time at Spur – which was nice (but expensive, which is a pity because Spur never used to be equated with pricey. So much for an affordable family restaurant!).

Anyway, Chantelle had the Surf and Turf followed by a Chocolate Brownie, while I gobbled down my usual tasty Bacon, Cheese and Gaucamole burger. Jessica just sat there looking cute… and chomped down on whatever could be brought close to her mouth – which is especially cute now that the first of her top teeth are out, meaning our little girl now has three chompers available for use!

So what might we have been accused of celebrating then?

Well certainly we could have been celebrating the fact that Chantelle discovered a fix to the oven which cost us nothing and hence saves me R3,000 in terms of buying a new unit (our interested buyer was needless to say, not impressed when we broke this news to them). Or we could be celebrating the first month in which adverts run across my sites finally resulted in some decent money being paid into my bank account. However, we would most likely be accused of celebrating the fact that Tuesday evening saw us bid farewell to our loveable ginger, Achilles the cat, as we gave him away to Chantelle’s folks – for good.

Rest assured, this was not the case. No, no, not the giving away part. Rather, that we were not celebrating the loss of Achilles, but merely enjoying a rare bit of time together. Completely coincidental.

Anyway, so now that those accusing us have been placated, I can get on with explaining why we took such a drastic step of giving away one of our cats, and why we are still in the process of looking for a new home for the second one.

The fact of the matter is that since the arrival of Jessica as part of our family, we simply have been devoting ZERO time to either of the cats, meaning that a year down the line, they have been pretty much completely starved of any sort of love or affection whatsoever. Of course this is certainly not fair on them, but unfortunately that is just how it is – Jessie really is the center of our lives these days.

In the same breadth, the cats have started to annoy us, always underfoot, always looking for attention, always getting in everywhere where they aren’t wanted, and always getting their fur, fleas and ticks everywhere! In other words, they are annoying us by just being… cats. Again, not fair on them at all. And of course, all of this means that they are just escalating their attempts to gain affection from us, which in turn just annoys us more, leading to a vicious circle which can only end badly down the line.

So after a long discussion, Chantelle and I decided that the fair thing to do would be to try and find a new home for the cats, or at a minimum for at least one of the cats. Luckily for us, Achilles is hugely popular with whomever comes into contact with him, and when we mentioned our plan, Monty quickly snapped him up, meaning that as of last night, we now only have one feline roaming the halls…

So adios Achilles, you’ve been a fantastic member of our little family up until now, and hopefully you’ll enjoy your new home with the folks. In any event, I’ll probably see you every second weekend anyway, so it’s not like we’ll never meet again…

Oh, and please don’t chase away Monty’s two other cats or kills all their pigeons – well, at least not on the first day!