I'd done a fairly short morning runaround but, having had a poor night's sleep, went for a lie down. Except Susan had gone out and the phone kept ringing. I do, I confess, ignore the phone when I'm trying to have a nap but with the fourth ring I gave up and answered it.
Ten minutes later I was on my way to pick up four 10-day old kittens. A lady had taken them in when their mother, who belonged to a neighbour, fell ill and rejected them. She did her best but lacked any experience and so called me. I rang Carole to confirm she'd take them and then set off. Apart from being hungry and flea-ridden, they seemed in decent condition. They were certainly noisy and cried all the way there -actually a good sign; I'd have been worried if they were quiet.
Here they are after having been syringe fed a special formula milk by Carole.
In the next photographs you see them after they've been sprayed with flea killer -you can see the fleas if you look closely. They look a mess, poor things, but they'll be better for it. They are now with Liz who helps Carole with kittens as Carole herself couldn't keep them because of an infection in her house.
After that it was time for my favourite job of the week -hauling a van-load of sacks of soiled cat bedding and used litter to the council tip and tossing them in the skip- in the rain.
Don't worry, in a couple of weeks they'll start to look irresistibly cute.
There were more fleas in the afternoon when I took an elderly lady and her dog with a skin infection to the PDSA. The infection turned out to be a flea allergy with the fleas brought in by her three cats. The dog got some pills and when I got them them home dosed the lot with Frontline.
