Inappropriate?

I don't know if it's just me but I find that teenagers are so much more open and confident these days.

Miss Mac and I discuss almost everything, things I certainly would never have talked to my own mother about (and still wouldn't) and many of her friends seem to share the same kind of relationship with their mothers too.

It's a good thing, in fact, it's a GREAT thing and I love the fact that she feels she can talk to me about anything, I like that as well as being mother and daughter we really are friends, that we can laugh together and be silly, that we can discuss the deeper issues that trouble her.  That I can give (although she doesn't always accept) advice, help her think things through, give her the benefit of my own experiences that hopefully help her to make informed decisions.

I love it!

Today Miss Mac is sitting her English GCSE early.  She is going into the exam knowing that she only needs 8 points to secure a C grade, she can practically do that by just writing her name at the top of the paper.  She is predicted to achieve an A* and I'm fairly confident that she will but, if for whatever reason, she doesn't get the grade she wants then she will have the opportunity to retake it again in June.

I like this exam system, I think it's far better than when I took my exams and EVERYTHING depended on that 2 hour slot when if you had a bad day, well, TOUGH!

I have many thought and opinions on the exam system and perhaps one day I will write a post on them but today I wanted to share a conversation that SD, Miss Mac and I had last night and a conversation I saw on Facebook.

Miss Mac came out to the farm with us last night to see the kittens.

YES, there are two more kittens at the farm!  Gorgeous little black bundles of fluff with blue eyes.  In a few weeks they will come home to us and we will find them new families but for now they snuggle up in their newspaper lined box in the porch of the farmhouse with their two Mums.

Yes I did say TWO Mums!

The kittens belong to the black cat.  She disappeared for a few weeks presumably to give birth.  I don't know if there were any more kittens, two is a very small litter so who knows.  Anyway, she reappeared a couple of weeks ago and brought her two babies with her.  She was looking very thin and tired and one of the tabby females took her kittens.  Now the tabby cat has been spayed (as the black one will be soon) so obviously we were worried.  The black cat kept her distance for a few days, hanging around but not trying to take the kittens back.  We kept a close eye on them hoping that from time to time she would be able to get to them to feed them.

We were amazed to see that the tabby cat seemed to be nursing the kittens.  Given that she had been spayed it didn't seem possible but it WAS, she had started to produce milk and was feeding the kittens as though they were her own.

Obviously we were pleased that the kittens were being looked after but it seemed so sad the the mother (who was still spending a lot of time hanging around) had effectively been usurped until last night when we got to the farm to discover both the black mother cat and the tabby AND the two kittens all curled up in the box together.

It seems like the two cats have decided to share the kittens.

I don't know, maybe the tabby sensed that the black cat wasn't able to care for her kittens properly at first.  maybe the black cat had brought the kittens to the farm door looking for help and found it in an unexpected way.

I really don't know ...

But I do know that the kittens are thriving.  They are clean and warm and putting on weight and both the tabby and the black cat seem perfectly happy with their arrangement.

So far, due to it being dark when we got to the farm, I haven't managed to get any photos of this unusual little family all together but hopefully I will at the weekend so that I can share them with you.

And now this post has been taken over by kitten talk so I think our conversation will have to wait until another day but I WILL share the FB one with you.

Someone had posted on a selling site that they had bought something and it turned out not to be as described.  They had lost £80 and were, understandably, very unhappy and, as they had not had any joy getting their money back decided to 'name and shame' the seller on the site.

Reading down through the comments I came across one that said (roughly, it looks like the post has been removed so I can directly quote from it).

'I bought a horse from this woman - it turned out to have Aids and I had to have it destroyed!'

Very sad but I couldn't help thinking that FB was a very odd place to buy a horse and wouldn't you have it fully health checked first ....

The next comment said:

'Do you want a horse Simon?'

Don't know if they actually HAD a horse or were just curious

Simon replied:

'Not one that has an incurable disease I don't!'

And then he commented again:

'But I don't mind if it just has a heavy cold or something'

I was possibly totally inappropriate of me to find this quite as funny as I did ..