Farewell Isis

This was supposed to be a post about me doing a really good time in the Askern 10k. I didn't do that. When I got up on the morning of the race (12/AUG/2018) I got one of those horrible surprises that's more horrible than surprise. I found my cat, Isis, several hours' dead at the top of the garden steps. I'd been mentally preparing for her death for a while. She'd lost a lot of weight and was getting wheezy. She was about 16 years old. But I wasn't ready at all.
She'd become quite ill over the couple of days before, which I put down to a mild stomach upset. I'd assumed I'd be taking her to the vet Monday to get checked up and maybe an antibiotic shot. I was worried when she wasn't there on Saturday evening when I got home, but she'd been in and eaten during the day. 
I didn't have pets as a kid, and although a couple of cats my ex and I owned have died (one while we were together, the other recently), this feels all a bit over the top. I can only do a few minutes of clearing up her stuff before I have to take a second, and every thing I no longer have to do (leave a light on downstairs, shut a particular door) sets me off. I hadn't realised how attached I had become to her.
She was a very sweet-tempered cat, and although she'd become less willing to play in recent months, she was always happy to curl up next to (or on) me, and she had been increasingly active outdoors, charming the neighbours by sunbathing in their yard. She had the name well before the Islamic State did, although she went deaf a year ago so it didn't matter what you called her. She'd been through a number of owners before I took her on from a couple who were moving to Kuwait, and when she arrived she seemed a bit insecure, but she settled in pretty quickly and got on well with my temporary housemate. I wasn't really in the house enough to be a great cat owner, and I was quite distant generally. I feel very guilty about this.
There's a massive Flickr album of her at https://www.flickr.com/gp/georgey_boy/0LB070
I didn't really know what to do, so I tore up a load of plants, dug a hole, put her in it and filled it up. Then I just wandered about the house for a bit. I needed to do something, but I really couldn't face racing. I knew that a man called Ben Davis was running a lap of the boundaries of Yorkshire to raise money for CALM, and that he was inviting anyone who fancied to join him for a bit. I'd half-planned to run a couple of kilometres with him after the race, but it occurred to me that running with a group of people who I knew would be friendly but I didn't know well enough not to keep it together around would be a good thing to do.
It turned out to be correct. I arrived outside the Days Inn at Woodall M1 services just before 10am, and was joined by two other runners. Ben emerged soon after, all smiles and with a big backpack and a Yorkshire flag, and we were off.
I only took two pictures during the run. The one that isn't this one is of a really far-away kestrel sitting on a pole. Ben is at the front. He was cheery and chatty. Just what I needed. The woman in second was training for her first marathon and the guy in third had come up from Oxford the night before especially. We met a couple of other runners with their alsatians, Eddi and Kevin. They were all lovely. I ran almost 10k with Ben, and then turned back and ran to the car. I saw the kestrel on the return leg.

I did make some bread on Sunday. There were tears in it from where I cried while kneading.
(Correction: Askern 10 Mile not 10k)