Yesterday evening Cat Daddy and I marked the end of Psychological Summer with some celebratory fizz in the garden, and all was going well until I wiped Louis Catorze’s weepy eyes with some tissue and discovered that one was oozing blood.

I am generally of the view that, if Catorze is well enough to eat, drink and scream, then he’s fine. But blood is never, ever good. Despite Cat Daddy’s protests that it was “probably just blackberry juice”, I rang the vet in a panic and booked a 6:30 appointment, then rang again and made a 6:50 appointment when the little sod did a runner and I realised that we wouldn’t be able to catch him in time for 6:30.

After barricading the cat flap so that he couldn’t escape back out again, cornering him and stuffing him into his pod, we took him, screaming, to the vet. Whilst…

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Voyage to California (7) – John Jackson Lewis – January to March, 1851

September 1, 2018 ~ Janet McKee ~ 1 Comment

"Greatest Generation" Life Lessons

(1) John Jackson Lewis, (2) Edith May (Lewis) Rider, (3) Marian Faith (Rider) Irwin, (4) Marian Dunlop (Irwin) Guion, (5) Judith Anne Guion.

The following are transcriptions of John Jackson Lewis’s diary and journal of his voyage to California in 1851. He was going from New York to visit his older brother William in San Jose.

Diary:

(Feb.) 8th. Started before daylight this morning. Stopped at 8 o’clock to breakfast. On starting again, in consequence of increasing swiftness of the current, the oars were laid aside, and long poles substituted. The labors of the boatmen at times during the day were quite severe. At 12:30, stopped to eat dinner, and then traveled on till night. Stopped for the night at the village, the name of which I did not know. We passed a number of villages today and saw a good deal of handsome scenery. We also saw a pair…

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