Things never run smoothly

Last week I wrote a heartfelt and serious entry about the death of my beloved cat. I didn't tell the whole story at the time because I was too upset. As with most feelings, time rounds off the sharp edges of emotions and allows us to laugh at situations which in the past made us cry.

Once I had made the decision to take Harry to be put to sleep, I grabbed the fridge magnet with the vet's phone number on, made the call, they told me to come down straight away as the surgery was quiet and they could see me right away.
Hazel and I had our last cuddle with Harry, put him in the carrier and off we went to a village about 20 minutes away (We changed from a closer vets at the recommendation of my bunny guru Agatha, friendlier and cheaper - the vet's, not the bunny guru!).
We arrived at the vet's, by this time I was in tears and could barely speak. I gave my name to 2 very puzzled receptionists. One said, "Is the cat here to have his ears done?" I burst into tears and said, "No he's here to be put to sleep." After a few minutes I realised what I had done. I had phoned the vet's we used to use and driven to the one we currently use. I made my apologies and left, they promised to call ahead and let the other surgery know I was on my way.
The rest you know.
You really couldn't make it up.

Harry Bear 2-5-1997 - 1-8-2012 RIP

I wrote this this morning before I went to work. When I came home, I realised he was not going to get any better than he is now so I made the decision to have him put to sleep. he went peacefully and with dignity.
A prince among cats.

My beautiful black furry baby is coming to the end of his days.
Harry Bear has a cancer on his neck which has infiltrated his bones making an operation pointless.
Yesterday we noticed his gait starting to become unsteady, his back legs not performing as they should.
It's just a matter of time now before the gap closes between him just being; an old cat that sleeps a lot and an unwell cat that has no quality life left. I won't see him suffer. I love him too much. I believe taking care of the end of my pet's life is as important as feeding and playing with him during his life. Don't get me wrong, I'm no hard hearted owner. I know I am going to be torn apart when he is no longer here, but I also know he deserves a noble and dignified end to his life.

He has given us so much pleasure, along with his brother, Badger. They were born on the 2nd May 1997, the cat rescue lady told us they had a grey sister too but she didn't survive. they used to run around the house like little furry trains, round the kitchen, across all the chairs in the front room, up the stairs, under the beds, down the stairs, over and over again. So funny to see.
If you were to roll up a crisp packet and tie it in a knot and throw it, Harry would fetch it and drop it at your feet to be thrown again. He and Badger loved to sit on plastic bags and newspapers. Occasionally I would make a tunnel out of a broadsheet newspaper, wait for the cats to notice it, then watch them diving through the  thin sheets, paws tap-tap-tapping blindly at some imagined prey.
Harry managed to catch a couple of birds in his time, despite being fitted with as many as 4 bells to try and save the local sparrow population, the only evidence he was a killer were little bird legs on the dining room floor.
Once I remember we lost him for about 2 days, hunted high and low, walked the streets, put notes through nearby letterboxes. I had resigned myself to the fact he must have been run over, I was in the garden having a cigarette, tears in my eyes. Out of habit I whistled the special whistle which all my children (real and adopted!) and pets respond to. Then I heard his meow response. it took a few minutes to pin point where the sound was coming from, eventually we realised he was locked in next door's shed. He was a bit thin but fine. A couple of weeks later, he did exactly the same thing again!
I remember when Nelly was a baby, strapped into one of those harnesses you hang from the door frame to let baby have a bounce. Harry was so tall, he reached her shoulder and took great pleasure in walking past her spinning her round and round, which she of course loved!
So many happy memories, most of all I think I will miss his meow and stroking his thick silky fur.
I love you Harry Bear.

Can cats cross their legs?

Last Saturday, we went off to Cumbria for a week's holiday in my aunty's caravan at Haverigg. You may have heard, that morning, our old black cat, "Harry" showed up with a huge abscess on his back. I took him to the vet while Mr Fink and Little Fink were packing the trailer. The vet fixed him up, cleaned the wound and gave some anti biotic. The poor old cat couldn't wait to get back in the carrier. then I asked the vet if she would give him something to protect him from worms and fleas, we dragged him out of the carrier, gave him a squirt of medicine and back into the box he went. then I realised I had the cat box upside down, so he suffered the indignity of being turned upside down in the box too.
We went on holiday, Mrs Cat-Sitter did a marvellous job of making sure Harry took his tablets and fed him regularly (even though he is going senile and seems to forget he has just been fed and starts meowing for more immediately!)
Any how, we returned from hols today - Harry was very very pleased to see us, he was also looking in the rudest of health.
Mr Fink went up to have a shower to discover a tall pile of poo in the corner of our shower stall. He mentioned it to me (I told him it wasn't me, I've been on holiday all week!). I realised what I had done.
On the morning I took Harry to the vet, I locked the cat flap to stop him getting out and missing his vet appointment. In the rush to get away, I forgot to unlock it. For a whole week, he has been using the shower as a latrine. What a clever, considerate cat. Not so senile eh? (not so sure about his owner though?)

Flip flops in the Snow

This morning I planned to get up, feed the cat, make a cuppa and go back to bed with Mr Fink. I started down the stairs, called the cat to come too. He did, raced me down the stairs as usual, got under my foot, I slipped on him and crashed down the stairs, damaging my toe in the process.

Needless to say I can't put shoes or socks on. It's just started to snow so it looks like I'm going to look a proper nutter tomorrow walking to work with flip flops on in 3 inches of snow. On the bright side, perhaps the cold snow will stop it throbbing?

Oh, and yes, the cat is fine.

Just stop it!

This morning at 6am I awoke on a beautiful sunny morning to the sound of the cat being sick on the landing and 4 young magpies taking it in turns to dismantle the safety net around Little Fink's trampoline. I cleared up the cat sick (funny how you get desensitized to things?) then checked on the magpies. They had exhausted the fun to be had in picking lumps of safety foam off the poles around the trampoline (garden looked like it had been snowing!) and were now checking out every nook and cranny for insects and grubs. I was starting to warm to their inquisitive natures when, one of them went into next door's garden, pecked at something on the floor. It was having a great time flicking and pecking this bit of wood, it picked the wood up in it's beak and flew onto my shed roof. It suddenly dawned on me, it wasn't a bit of wood, it was a turd.

The bloody magpies have been stealing dog poos from next door's garden and putting them on my shed roof. Oh good grief!

Big Bwave Puddy Tat

We're looking after The Glums' hamster while they enjoy the balmy - or should that be barmy - delights of a week in Wales.
Last night I put Cornflake, for that is his name, in his plastic hamster run around ball and off he scuttled. Harry the cat followed him for a bit and I was worried Cornflake might come to a crunchy end, but when Cornflake doubled back and ran over Harry's tail, Harry ran off through the cat flap and didn't come back for an hour. How brave? Not very!

The Rollercoaster trundles on

This week Mr Fink's family had some news about his mum's medical condition, not good news. If you know mum and want to know more, call us.

Yesterday the plumber removed the shower from Fink Mansion so the 3 of us trooped along to Shouty Grandad's house for a shower each - how happy was he? He's on a water meter!!!!

I was first up, I offered Mr Fink the choice of towels, our old blue scabby large one or the newer smaller purple one, he said he didn't mind so I took the smaller one and had my shower. Very refreshing.

Mr Fink headed off for his wash and brush up. About 10 minutes later a cry from the bathroom, "Mrs Fink, come and help me!" When I arrived I found that I had accidentally brought the towel the cat sleeps on and subsequently, as Mr Fink had wiped the water from his face, he had spread discarded cat hair all over his damp skin. Face, neck and body. He said it was like being covered in itchy cobwebs. He had lumps of cat hair velcro'd to his beard. Euwwww.

Needless to say I broke down in fits of laughter and he went and he had another shower - (sorry about that Grandad, just think, "It's only money!")

In other news, Liam the Ovenu guy came round and did a sterling job cleaning my cooker (for the third year running) despite having a bad cold. Thank you Liam! I left the oven light on all evening so i could see the cooker gleaming.

Bye Bye Badger

Badger (aka) Technocat

1.5.1997 to 4.11.2009

RIP

The Big Picture

I love chatting to Little Fink, over breakfast this morning we've covered, bullying, violence to children (after an article on the news), organised religion (the pros and cons), cults, utopia, corruption in government and how to make the world a better place!

We've come to the conclusion that the world would be a better place if people were just nice to each other.

How profound.

On a different tack, Mr Fink was relating the tale (or should that be 'tail') of his quest for edible fruit. Mr Fink finds it hard to eat fruit that has a blemish or a bruise and certainly would never touch a blackened banana. For his lunch he bought some pears, all in pristine condition, he left them on the kitchen worktop until he needed them. When he opened his lunch the next day, he noticed lots of little holes in the pears? He came to realise that in the night, the cat/s must have jumped up onto the kitchen side and sunk their fangs into his pears!!! Poor Mr Fink, no fruit that day!

How does a cat's mind work?

Mr Fink and I have just had our dinner, pasta with smoked haddock. Yum. Our two cats, Harry and Badger, thought so too. I gave them the skins and a little of the meat off the fish and they yummed it up.

Badger immediately shot out of the cat flap and was gone into the night.

Where did he go in such a rush?

I think he rushed out to find all his little catty mates and said to them boastfully, "Guess what I just ate, go on guess. Smell my breath go on, smell it."

He came back in looking really pleased with himself!

100 Entries - Wow Who'd have thought?

BadgerFink having a drink from the Fink Sink

This is a vid taken on my phone, of Mr fink's cat having his morning drink - very off putting for guests sitting on the loo, when the cat opens the bathroom door, jumps in the sink then miaows until you turn the tap on for him!

Anywho, I took Little Fink and her new friend Eddie Kidd (he is fearless and a daredevil - a lovely boy) swimming yesterday. Eddie told me he hadn't been for ages so had forgotten what to do with his arms when swimming. Before I could turn round, he had dived into the pool headfirst and came up spluttering, he can't swim!

After a few instructions he could swim (after a fashion) on his back. Anyway, both children really enjoyed themselves. When we got home, there was just time for Little fink to grab a sandwich and a drink then off to Ju-Jitsu with her dad (he is/was a green belt). She enjoyed it immensely and cant wait to go again next week. She learned how to escape a stranglehold!!!!, hip throws and body drops. Sounds like I will have to watch myself!

Sports Day today, unless it is raining, or too hot, or like a secondary school not too far from here that this week had to cancel it's sports day because the 4th years had emptied some of the drink out of their water bottles and substituted it for vodka. The teacher had to send them all home as they were drunk trying to do the discus and javelin. A bit different to our rebellions eh? My worst sports day crime was arranging with my friend that we would come last together because we were so rubbish at running. And remember having to do games in your knickers and vest if you forgot your kit - or worse, you had to get kit out of the lost property box ARGH YUCK.

It's True

When I am in a silly mood, I like to tell my daughter very important facts about the world around us.

For instance, one day we were travelling in the car on one of our adventures and talk turned to the animals of Africa.

I started to describe one of the lesser known carnivorous cats of the Savannah.

The Jagular.

The Jagular is cousin to the Leopard and the Cheetah. It is a heavy cat and has patches of dark brown on golden fur, it's tail is thick and long and helps it balance. The Jagular is the laziest predator on the African Plains. It does not run up and catch it's dinner, it doesn't even hide in the grass and ambush it's prey. It climbs up trees and waits. When a suitable prey animal comes along for shade in the heat of the day, the Jagular drops out of the tree on top of the animal, which is so surprised that it immediately drops dead from shock. (Imagine what you would feel like if a Leopard sized fur coat fell out of a tree on you in the middle of the day in Africa!)

When the Jagular has eaten his fill, he is too fat to get back up into the tree. How does he get up there? Jagular trampolines of course. You can see them, bouncing up and down like Tiggr, trying to get enough height-th to get back into the tree. When they get back up, they spnd much of their time asleep from the exertion. The next time you watch a program about the mammals of Arfica, watchout for the trampolines, there's sure to be a Jagular around.

I wonder when Mr Attenborough will make a program about them?

Oh YUCK, that's disgusting.

What is the most efficient way to wake me up and get me out of bed in the morning.

I didn't know this until this morning at 6.30am. The alarm had gone off for the first time, I reached my leg over the cover to cool down a bit. It slowly dawned on me that I had a cold, wet big toe??? My brain put two and two together and went from asleep...to "OH YUCK that is disgusting" in 0.4 seconds. I realised that earlier in the night, the cat must have been sick on the cover and I had put my foot in it. I hopped to the bathroom (didn't want to get furball on the floor as well!) and washed my foot, cleared up the mess and got back into bed. Mr Fink just pretended he hadn't noticed. (I bet he knew hours ago but just waited for me to discover it and clean it up!)

Ah well, my 3 weeks off work is nearly over, it is so hard to go back after time off. I've just checked the calendar and it would appear, because of school holidays, I don't work a full month again until September - how cool is that!

Also, I have found a groovy website "GeoCache". It's a treasure hunt type of thing, members hide a tupperware box full of trinkets and a log book somewhere, post the coordinates on the internet and you can go and find it (I get to play with my Sat Nav too!). You can swap a trinket, sign the log book and put the cache back. You can then record your find on the website. We had a quick look for one in the Car Park at Dymchurch but I didn't find it (time was tight). There is one close to where I live so, when the weather fairs up a bit, I'll be mooching about in the hedgerows looking for tupperware!