COLLECTING KITTENS

A few miles down the coast from Sunderland is Easington Colliery. I've been there a few times purely because it's where Susan Hardy's mother was born and we've taken her mother back there for brief visits. To hear her talk you'd think it's the cradle of civilisation but it's just a run down pit village (the name is a give away) where the pit closed many years ago. Still, not everyone can come from a cultural metropolis of historical importance like Sunderland -home of the Venerable Bede and for decades the largest ship-building town in the world. We all wear rose-tinted glasses at times I suppose. 

Anyway, I'd gone there to pick up a flea-ridden kitten. Although I knew how to get there I decided to use the sat nav for only the second time in order to find the actual address. Now there's a thing about sat nav which I learned the very first time I used it -it doesn't take the shortest route it takes the (theoretically) easiest route along the fastest roads. When I set off on this trip if I'd followed the directions given I'd have gone along three sides of a rectangle avoiding a village centre but adding about two miles to the journey so I didn't. However when it told me to take the fast and busy A19 instead of a quieter route I went along with it. I also used it going back and it did save me a lot of time in the end and I managed a 30 mile round trip in little over and hour including the pickups.

So I got to the address to find a somewhat harassed lady who'd ended up with a flea-infested house as a result of taking in a flea-infested kitten. She'd tried using Bob Martin's flea treatment on it which didn't work (no surprise there) and she was going to have the place fumigated. I'd brought along some Frontline and dosed her with it which she didn't like at all poor creature. 

I took her home and put her in the cage, moving Ted (the injured cat I'd taken in) into the wider world of my bedroom. A couple of hours later Andrea and Joanna came to pick her up. She's available for adoption right now.

Before that, however, I had to collect another kitten on the way home -this time from a Sunderland housing estate- and take it to Carole's. It turned out to be tiny and young and barely old enough to have left its mother. If you're interested, contact Carole on 079777 69109.