5.15 Woken up by Big Ted wanting to be out. Should have been the work of less than a minute, but instead the pungent odour of cat poo wafts from the corner litter tray on the little landing, so down to the kitchen to empty, clean and refill the tray and let more cats out. That done, hands washed, and back to bed to try to catch some last minutes of sleep.
5.45 I'm just entering a light doze when Susan shouts for me to clean the cat litter tray in the front bedroom where Lily the grey cat who is bullied by some of the others sleeps. Lily won't crap in the same box she pees in which sometimes results in crap on the floor, or rather on the paper Susan puts down. So, downstairs, empty, clean, wash hands, go back to- Oh sod it, I'm wide awake now. Go back downstairs, put several dishes of cat food down and microwave some porridge, watching News 24 while I'm eating it.
6.10 I'm back upstairs and on the computer, checking for emails -someone might have ordered something from me overnight, which does happens and I do have an order to post. I periodically weed out my collection of books, graphic novels, CDs and DVDs and put them up for sale on Amazon Marketplace. Nothing, so I check out a couple of newspaper websites.
7.00 I'm supposed to be going swimming in half an hour but as I have to be back home by 8.15 to transport furniture from the charity's van which is parked outside the house to the shop and then get to Carole's and on to the vets by 9.00, I decide to skip the swim and have a bath instead, cleaning out another smelly litter tray first.
7.30 I'm just about thinking of putting down the book I'm reading when there's a knock at the front door. Obviously I can't answer it and neither can Susan who's still half asleep. Two minutes later, there's an even louder knock, however, while being out of the bath, but wet and naked, I let Susan get it. Not unusually, there's someone with a large wagon who needs to make a delivery down the back lane but can't because our van is sticking out. So I hurridly get dressed, tell Susan I'll go to the post office at the same time. Susan then tells me to unload the furniture back into the garage as the shop is full of stuff. Muttering under my breath I do as I'm told and skip the post office.
8.45 I arrive at Carole's expecting to collect two cats for neutering, but there's a third, Ed, which needs checking out and she's coming with me. So, to the vets where a problem is found with Ed, a friendly one year old who been very sick several times, who has to be left as well. After dropping Carole off home, I head back to Grangetown to post the order and return home. I need to get food for Carole (well, the cats she looks after) as she's run out, which is okay with Susan who doesn't need the van until later. So off to Asda to buy about a hundred tins of Kit-e-Kat and empty the donated pet food bin we have there. I'm pleasantly surprised about how much cat food is in it and surprised again at Sainsbury's a few minutes later for the same reason. Ten minutes late and I'm unloading it all into the garage and tell Susan that the van's all hers except that she now doesn't need it until three o'clock.
10.45 Coffee and a light very early lunch. Potter about on the Internet for a while.
11.50 And I'm reloading the cat food back into the van and set off for my dentist's appointment. I've gone private recently because I was sick of new fillings dropping out after five minutes. Costs a lot more but the dentist is excellent and everyone else in the family uses him. The surgery is only a couple of minutes drive from Carole's, so I go there next and drop of the cat food. And then I take away lots of black sacks, all full of soiled cat bedding and used litter, to the council tip. This is not one of my favourite jobs. It's not all a life of glamour rescuing cats you know. On the way home I call in at Asda again because none of the cats will eat Asda's own brand of dried food, which is the only brand of dried food we get given, and only settle for Go-Cat. (If anyone from Go-Cat is reading this then I would be delighted to publicise your excellent product in this blog in exchange for donations of it.)
1.45 A couple of hours to myself (translation: nap time).
4.15 Off to Carole's who's taking another cat for neutering and leaving it there overnight. The two now-neutered females are fine, not happy, but fine. Sadly there is bad news about Ed. His blood tests have shown some kind of imbalance in his liver and an x-ray has shown it to be severely enlarged and the vet recommends an exploratory operation. After some discussion, I go along with it but stress that we don't have the funds for prolonged treatment. At the back of my mind is what happened to that other poor cat after an exploratory operation recently (see recent posts for details).
5.45 Home.
No comments:
Post a Comment