Sunday 19 April 2009

Evil cat's health check

Evil cat has been taken to the vet. Poor man. She did not go gently into that cat basket but fought and hissed and spat (but not scratched, bless) while little bear watched with amazement. I saw dear heart take her off in the car with some trepidation.

Well, the vet was very pleased with evil cat as she is doing really well. She has put on a very small amount of weight and her urine is appropriately whatever it is (I believe it's density is good - which makes a change from her fur).

She has yucky gunk on her eyes, due to her kidney condition, and apparently her stiff left fore leg is actually stiff because it is over compensating for the problem with her right fore leg where the problem actually is and the problem is again due to her condition.

Now, because of her leg, she has to now go back to the vet for the next three weeks to have an injection. Can you imagine what it will be like on the fourth Sunday in a row, trying to coerce a maddened tabby explosion into a cat basket? It may not take until then for her to work it out, but even she has enough brain cells to think things through eventually. It could be worse, it could be every day. I shudder at the thought.

The vet, according to dear heart, was astonished that evil cat was not on medication, merely on diet. Well, evil cat is obviously traumatised any time she is exposed to little bear who always shrieks twice the decibel level of Concorde when he sees her. And she has no furry playmates to make suffer. But she does have good grub, good kipping spots and is not expected to do anything energetic.

I am going to be worrying so much. Even when she is perched across my throat and I am missing the vital clue in the detective film. Even when she is trying to feloniously extract a piece of fish finger from little bear's plate. Even when she deliberately moves away from vinyl flooring to carpet to vomit with a theatrical performance that would make Olivier green with envy. I have known her for nearly fifteen years, and there are far too few characters around. I hope I get to be tormented by her for a long time to come.

People can be strange

Today a man on a bus took a card out of his pocket and asked me if I recognised what was on it.

I admitted that I recognised the Robinson's golly from the marmalade, though I felt like I was admitting that I was a member of the Nazi party, as it was all done so furtively. The man, up to then, had appeared quite pleasant and normal.

But I have no idea why he felt it necessary to carry around a covert copy of old advertising, not why he felt it important to ask me, though I believe there was alcohol involved. At least, after this episode I felt I needed a stiff drink.

Wars and rumours of wars

There is trouble on the street again.

Apparently, according to rumour, 'they' are going to tarmac the street. 'They' are going to tarmac it soon. The nice man next door has been rushing round trying to clear stuff away and be braced for when the tar wagons arrive, working double speed on the cars brought to him to sort out. Regrettably it appears that the rumour has come from a tainted source.

We part own some of the land (it's too complicated for me) which means we would almost certainly be asked to cough up for the road, which would almost certainly wipe out our savings.

And 'they' are going to have to remove the controversial bollards because 'they' never told the council that the bollards were being put in and it's a conspiracy.

If it is a conspiracy it's a bit lame. I mean, compared to UFO's and a secret heir to the throne and Hitler's clone and Elvis on the moon, it is a bit vanilla, 'they' are conspiring to put bollards up at one end of an unadopted road.

Well, I think it is merely at the planning stage as the people who own the greatest of the percentage of the road have a head office at the Isle of Mann, so I am confident that they would probably get in touch before they started unloading pneumatic hammers, if only to try and squeeze a contribution to the cost out of us.

It is still, however, deeply unsettling.

Little bear is not chicken

We went out to an ice cream parlour this lunchtime. It is relatively near, just about fifteen minutes away, and it has a handful of animals and home made dairy ice cream, the dairy being supplied by the cows in the surrounding fields.

Well, little bear was quite impressed with the donkeys and thought them splendid. He wasn't too sure about the sheep or goats. He was fascinated by the pot bellied pigs who were peacefully snoozing, oblivious to little bear. He was indifferent to the ducks. However there were some chickens.

A little while ago we took little bear to a farm type place and a rooster crowed really loudly and very close. Little bear was not impressed. And he is still not impressed. He looked at these chickens and then he looked at us. The chickens looked like a rare breed type, and were not particularly big, but little bear was not sure he wanted to walk past them. He screwed his eyes shut and held his teddy in front of his face.

But bless him, he still walked past these dangerous, frightening creatures after watching his mum go all the way up to them. It didn't help that the chickens were roaming free and not behind any wire. But he still walked past them, holding onto dear heart's hand. At one point he was less than three feet from them and he wasn't crying or anything, even though he was uncertain about the whole thing. I was so proud of him.

Then he went and had a portion of banana flavoured ice cream. He approved of that a great deal.

Friday 17 April 2009

First signs of additives

Little bear's back teeth are coming through. He is poking the back of his mouth, not a happy chap, slightly warm, and the tell tale nappy rash. In two hours it went from normal bottom to a horrible red and sore unhappy place.

Well, Medised is definitely out of bounds now, so I used some Boots Own Strawberry children's painkiller, suitable from 3 months.

I am not used to little bear having tantrums. He will try civil disobedience (he can wriggle better than a boa constrictor with hiccups when I try to wash his face). He will try distraction techniques (look, I know the sign for chair when I am trying to persuade him up for a nappy change). He will try selective deafness (hmm? Sorry, I was so busy with this car, did you say anything?). Yesterday was screaming, crying, looking at his hands in fury (no idea) and general grumpiness. Well, I'm just not used to it.

I decided that it was the additives in the painkiller. So I went with an extremely hyper little bear to the local chemist to get some official calpol. That in itself was a nightmare as the chemist was having a long and involved (and official - can't blame her) conversation on the phone so I couldn't buy the dratted calpol for what seemed like hours and hours and was at least five minutes, and I had my hands full trying to stop little bear dismantling the stand of cut price shampoo. I came home a wreck.

Well, he had calpol last night, and he is hyper this morning. I think it is going to be a very long day.

Wednesday 1 April 2009

Let there be light

We have a hole against the wall of our front yard.

The council, in their wisdom, have decided to replace the elderly lamp post outside our house with something that is not only more energy efficient but also is brighter with less light pollution. It doesn't make sense when I see it here, but the argument held water when they explained it to me.

Well, a man with a van came along our street and sprayed a lot of markings around. I felt reservations about this, but it isn't the first time someone official looking has made a mark and disappeared without trace.

Then little bear and I came home one day, and there was an extra lamppost, about three inches away from our elderly but reliable lamppost.

Then the day before yesterday two men and a van tried to come in the wrong end of our now dead end street, then after a 357 point turn woke little bear by drilling a big hole right next to the new lamppost.

Today, we have light. Instead of familiar orange we have the sort of white light that is special effects on crime shows. Also I keep expecting aliens to land. The electricians came.

However, they didn't fill in the hole. Electricians do not fill in holes, that is the job of skilled council workers. So I still have a stonking great hole, next to our wall and in the runway of a multiplicity of kids bikes and scooters. And no doubt it will be filled in the near future with one of those pneumatic hammers just as little bear has gone down for a nap.