We should be languishing on the side of Loch Ness this week. However due to a series of unfortunate events we are not!
It is not the disaster or disappointment it should have been, in fact we are having a very nice week.
On Friday I was frantically rushing around trying to get ready for the mega drive to Scotland the next day. It started going horribly wrong from the start really. The house was in dire need of cleaning, one half of me said, leave the house your not going to be here to see it! My other alter ego was saying, the very house proud neighbour is coming in every day to feed the cats, we don’t want her thinking I am a slutty house wife now do we. So I cleaned the house.
While going about the hoovering, washing and polishing I realised their where lots of patches of fresh blood appearing around the place. It could only be the poor cat Saffy who was recovering from a bad bout of cystitis. I went and searched her out and she was a very sorry cat indeed, looking very poorly. Ok, phone the vet. Yep, they could fit us in at 4.45pm.
So… I now had to visit my own Doctor at 2pm, get some shopping to take away with us. Get dog to the kennels at 4pm and then to the vets at 4.45pm. Just about can do his I thought. Until my car decided to start making a very alarming noise!
Barry called to say he was on his way home from work and was all set for our holiday week. My response is probably not printable! However luckily I am married to the kindest man in the world and he told me to calm down and wait for him to be home and we can sort all this out.
We got the dog to the kennels, except I filled out the paperwork and then walked out the gate still with the dog on the end of the lead. Graham the kennel owner suggested I had forgotten something. I passed the confused and relieved dog over. Ta-shi is the only dog I have ever had who loves the kennels, he greets Graham like a long lost friend which is great for me as I never worry about him being their.
We made the vets appointment, Saffy has a second course of antibiotics and will have to go in for some investigations when she has recovered from this bout of illness. She is a really gorgeous cat and has oodles of character, but I will never have a pedigree cat again. She is only three years old and I must of spent £500 in vet’s fees already.
The car seems to have wheel bearing problems and needs to be fixed ASAP, as I need it for work.
I lost the will to travel and on checking the weather forecast for Scotland it was wall-to-wall rain for at least five days, then gale force winds. So… do we leave here with at least three days fine hot dry weather travel for eight hours to a very wet and windy Scotland? We are still here!
We have been to the Peak district, walked around Ilam Country Park, and then over Dunster hill to Dovedale, from there to Milldale and back again. A walk of 9 miles in glorious countryside and lovely weather.
I have put a deposit down on a new car, the mechanic has adjusted brakes, which was the weird noise, but the bearings are on the way out. Nissan have given me an excellent deal on an 03 Almeira!
Saffy is recovering from her illness and is looking and sounding her usual noisy self.
Oh, we are going to a spa tomorrow for a couple of days, the house is tidy enough for Annette to come in and feed the cat’s, she also does not mind administering the cats pills. I think Saffy maybe more difficult than her usual patients though, she is a district nurse! Although maybe not.
Its still raining in Scotland!
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Friday, June 16, 2006
No More Letters from America!
I was always an avid listener of Alistair Cooks ‘A letter from America’ on Sunday mornings on radio four. So I was very happy when about ten years ago I started corresponding with a lady in Texas. It all started when Robin had a project at school to get a pen friend from a foreign country. He decided to go down the email route as we had recently got a brand new fancy pants modem! He put his details on a pen friend site and got himself quite typically a girl from Russia. I was so impressed that I asked him to show me how to put my details on as well.
The upshot was that Pat mailed me to ask if I would be kind enough to write to an ‘old biddy’ like her. I was delighted and so a long friendship started. Each week I looked forward to 'A Letter from America' of my own!
I never met Pat, except to speak on the phone several times a year, (I adored her Texan drawl, she adored my perceived upper class English accent!) but we got to know each other really well. I called her my ‘US Mom’ as she was the same age as my Mother. She was feisty, independent and very opinionated, never married but career driven, spending many years in real estate and management of large shopping malls. She adored animals and called her pets her children. I learned of Mouse (a dog) and Diablo’s antics, shared a laugh when Harry the little kitten turned out to be Harriet! Adored Little Bear a rescue cat from the New Orleans’s floods. Many a waif and stray found refuge in Pats home. In turn Pat loved to hear news of my family, she felt she new Robin and Simon and shared a little bit of family life with us. We exchanged opinions, recipes and news and views. She taught me tactics to use in the workplace with difficult people. Commiserated my bad times and celebrated my good times.
Lat Friday my dear good friend died. Thank You my dear girl, it was great to know you. I guessed you would leave us when you became so ill. Invalidity you would never countenance.
All my Love from your English Daughter
The upshot was that Pat mailed me to ask if I would be kind enough to write to an ‘old biddy’ like her. I was delighted and so a long friendship started. Each week I looked forward to 'A Letter from America' of my own!
I never met Pat, except to speak on the phone several times a year, (I adored her Texan drawl, she adored my perceived upper class English accent!) but we got to know each other really well. I called her my ‘US Mom’ as she was the same age as my Mother. She was feisty, independent and very opinionated, never married but career driven, spending many years in real estate and management of large shopping malls. She adored animals and called her pets her children. I learned of Mouse (a dog) and Diablo’s antics, shared a laugh when Harry the little kitten turned out to be Harriet! Adored Little Bear a rescue cat from the New Orleans’s floods. Many a waif and stray found refuge in Pats home. In turn Pat loved to hear news of my family, she felt she new Robin and Simon and shared a little bit of family life with us. We exchanged opinions, recipes and news and views. She taught me tactics to use in the workplace with difficult people. Commiserated my bad times and celebrated my good times.
Lat Friday my dear good friend died. Thank You my dear girl, it was great to know you. I guessed you would leave us when you became so ill. Invalidity you would never countenance.
All my Love from your English Daughter
Friday, June 09, 2006
Cat in a Flap
We have our long awaited conservatory!!! It was a smooth operation from start to finish, builders arrived on the appointed day and did exactly what they were supposed to do in the time scales we were given. Is this a record. They were all polite and charming, nothing to much trouble, consulted us all the time regarding the works and tidied up after themselves. Any-one wanting a conservatory I can recommend Planet conservatory.
What I had not bargained for was a £40 vets bill for a traumatised cat!
Saffy our gorgeous but slightly batty Maine Coone, (do cats take after their owners as well as dogs?) enjoyed having the company of the builders all week as they dug holes, laid bricks and cut pipes. She even very helpfully walked over the newly laid cement floor to check if it was set yet. They also enjoyed her antics, and each evening had a tale to tell of what she had done that day with them.
However erection day was last Friday and suddenly it was not fun any more, a large delivery of glass and frames, lots of banging and lifting of frames over fences and she was off for the duration.
Friday evening when all the builders had left shereturnedd home when she heard my voice, up onto the fence she popped. Well!Iff a cats eyes could pop out of her head in sheer shock and surprise Saffy's did. She froze on the fence at this monstrous growth that had suddenly appeared on the back of her house. It was a case of "what the hell is THAT". She stayed put for at least an hour just watching to see if the monster was safe or not. She eventually hopped down sniffed the door and frantically hopped up onto the other fence. She flatly refused to come into the house through the glass monster for two days. I finally encouraged her in with food, I decided to feed her in the conservatory for a few days so she had good experiences with the scary house. All was going well until Sundat evening she hopped onto the garage roof to investigate the roof of the conservatory, we had just had a shower of rain! She climbed onto the roof of the beast and promptly came skiing down it legs all akimbo until she landed with a plop on the ground. I have not seen anything so funny and undignified as the poor cat flying down the roof, or the expression on her face when she landed. It was pure comedy, she was not hurt in any way, but miaowed at me as if to say "Did you see that? It threw me off".
The upshot is the poor cat gets stress induced cystitis and boy has she got a bad bout. I have two bottles of pills and two bottles of drops for her, my vet is also a homeopathic consultant and recommendedd some homeopathic drops to put on her tongue, a bit like Bach's flower remedies. The problemn is it stresses the hell out of her trying to put the drops on the said tongue! So they go into her food along with her antibiotic, her cranberry extract, and the cystaid ( a pill that is supposed to prevent attacks)amazingly she still gobbles down her food with all these additives.
Ta-shi loves the conservatory and was very interested to stand in it while it was raining, he could not quite work out how, if it was raining all around him why was he not getting wet. Animals are the funniest of things!
What I had not bargained for was a £40 vets bill for a traumatised cat!
Saffy our gorgeous but slightly batty Maine Coone, (do cats take after their owners as well as dogs?) enjoyed having the company of the builders all week as they dug holes, laid bricks and cut pipes. She even very helpfully walked over the newly laid cement floor to check if it was set yet. They also enjoyed her antics, and each evening had a tale to tell of what she had done that day with them.
However erection day was last Friday and suddenly it was not fun any more, a large delivery of glass and frames, lots of banging and lifting of frames over fences and she was off for the duration.
Friday evening when all the builders had left shereturnedd home when she heard my voice, up onto the fence she popped. Well!Iff a cats eyes could pop out of her head in sheer shock and surprise Saffy's did. She froze on the fence at this monstrous growth that had suddenly appeared on the back of her house. It was a case of "what the hell is THAT". She stayed put for at least an hour just watching to see if the monster was safe or not. She eventually hopped down sniffed the door and frantically hopped up onto the other fence. She flatly refused to come into the house through the glass monster for two days. I finally encouraged her in with food, I decided to feed her in the conservatory for a few days so she had good experiences with the scary house. All was going well until Sundat evening she hopped onto the garage roof to investigate the roof of the conservatory, we had just had a shower of rain! She climbed onto the roof of the beast and promptly came skiing down it legs all akimbo until she landed with a plop on the ground. I have not seen anything so funny and undignified as the poor cat flying down the roof, or the expression on her face when she landed. It was pure comedy, she was not hurt in any way, but miaowed at me as if to say "Did you see that? It threw me off".
The upshot is the poor cat gets stress induced cystitis and boy has she got a bad bout. I have two bottles of pills and two bottles of drops for her, my vet is also a homeopathic consultant and recommendedd some homeopathic drops to put on her tongue, a bit like Bach's flower remedies. The problemn is it stresses the hell out of her trying to put the drops on the said tongue! So they go into her food along with her antibiotic, her cranberry extract, and the cystaid ( a pill that is supposed to prevent attacks)amazingly she still gobbles down her food with all these additives.
Ta-shi loves the conservatory and was very interested to stand in it while it was raining, he could not quite work out how, if it was raining all around him why was he not getting wet. Animals are the funniest of things!
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