Changes!

A list of changes over the weekend:

After the wettest May, June and July, the UK finally has a few days of a heatwave!

My lovely next door neighbours - who loved loved loved Charlie - have upped and moved out. We are so sorry to see them go and are very nervous as to whom we'll get living next door!

Charlie no longer has any teeth!

Charlie says: I check my carrier for any stray molars!

Pic taken after his surgery last Friday evening.

He was very disorientated and a little worse for wear! But he perked up over the weekend and I cleaned him up and now he is getting used to his mushy food. We'll be seeing the vet's today (Monday) and I hope it's going to be a good prognosis!

Thank you all so much for your purrs and healing hugs for Charlie! Let's hope this virus is put to rest for now.

Enjoy the Olympics!

Slowly and steadily

Bloggie friends!

Heeeere’s Charlie!!

Pic taken yesterday (17 June), six days after his dental surgery, minus three teeth!

Apparently he was “very grumpy” at the vet’s! Yay!

Thank you all so much for sending purrs and healing hugs!

You – especially lovely Kim of Fuzzy Tales and gorgeous Theresa Milstein – ROCK!

We’re not quite out of the woods yet.

The vets are testing Charlie for the “calici-virus” (a type of cat-flu) even as he is up to date with all his vaccinations and boosters. These only suppress certain viral strains of cat flu, not all. I won’t know the result for another 18 days.

So to keep my mind positive, I have been writing like crazy and have re-written 10,897 words of my current manuscript - one I started in 2006! Yikes!

I swear, in a previous life I was a giant tortoise. Or a sloth! But these fabulous creatures always got to wherever they needed to go to in the end, didn’t they? :-) Slowly and steadily. Like Charlie's recuperation!

Have a great week, everyone!

p.s. Happy Father's Day to all dads!

Molars and Morality

Bloggie friends!

I’m slightly on edge this week as Charlie goes in for some major dental surgery tomorrow (Tuesday)! I’m sure he’ll be fine (minus a couple of teeth) but I doubt I will be until I have him home!

Charlie says: I sleep now.


Pic taken yesterday, 10 June.

Have a peaceful week everyone!

p.s. I’m also saddened by the death of Barry Unsworth. I will never forget how I found myself sobbing in a packed train on my way to work while reading his Sacred Heart. It’s still the most heartbreaking, most moving, most profound of historical novels I’ve ever read. It's a book that questions the morality of profit especially when profit is to be had through the exploitation of human beings.

So, RIP, Mr Unsworth and thank you for your gorgeous prose.

The Cat's show must go on

The Cat's chemo blast, scheduled for tomorrow, has been postponed.

Tomorrow I will still take her to the vet but only so that her weight and general health may be checked.

Tomorrow she and I can unwind a little.

For the Cat, it won't be the usual shaving of fur, sticking needles into paws and neck, drawing blood and intravenously administered chemo drugs.

For me, it won't be the usual waiting to hear whether she has pulled through, crashed or is about to.

If I could find a way of telling the Cat about this maybe she might even allocate me a few minutes on her throne - formerly known as the computer chair.

If I could find a way of telling her how it took all my courage to speak to her vet to insist that the chemo be postponed, maybe she would find it in her already enormous strength to feel a little better.

Tonight, I think I'll just give her a languid grooming session.

She likes that, next to her cooked chicken, best of all.

Quick, quick, snow

Ok. Normally this is what happens. I bring the cat to the vets at the ungodly time of 8.30 am. I stay home by the telephone and wait for the vets to ring me with updates. At about 4 pm I am told the cat is ready to be discharged. I spend at least 20 minutes with the vet talking about the cat's progress and prognosis.

Today, things are not normal.

First, it is snowing - (but it's winter so of course it should snow!) Swirls of snowflakes pour down from the heavens. And it settles and it's lovely!

Second, the nurse at the vets ring to say that the cat is ready to be picked up. It is only 10.30am.

Third, I am given my cat - literally. The nurse takes my empty cage away and returns with the cat in her cage. Nurse then opens the front door for me and says "bye!". No 20 minutes with the vet to talk about the cat? Apparently the vet will ring me instead.

Meanwhile the cat has made a beeline for her water bowl and her plate of cooked chicken from whence I hide her medication. She's not silly though. She eats the pink tablet because she likes that one. She's a girly cat, of course she likes pink! She shakes off the white tablet that I not so cleverly hid in another bit of meat before wolfing that down. She's not silly. She's got brains and likes pink.

She sits up and cleans the paws where the needles have been inserted. Then she starts to clean the places only cats can reach and humans only wish they could.

At least that's normal.

p.s. I've just spoken to the vet. Things are not looking too well, but I don't think the cat cares very much for that diagnosis. She just wants to sleep.