It's Christmas!!!

Which means I have a week off (I always schedule annual leave to get pressies). So I thought it was about time for an update.

Let's see, what's happened since I last posted... Well, I lost my poor Tilly cat in January, she around 23yrs old so had a very good innings - even if she was only treated well for the last three of those years. It all happened very quickly, she had a heart attack so I'm gratfull she didn't suffer for long. Unsurprisingly I have since got another cat - not to replace Tilly, it just happened - we couldn't stay a four cat household for too long! Olive came to me with her brother and sister after I heard of someone giving them away at only four weeks old to anyone that would have them. I couldn't have that so I took the three of them and got their mum speyed with a view to them going to the cattery eventually but as there was no room to admit them I ended up homing the brother and sister together and kept Olive (she's the tabby and white kitten in the picture above). I also lost my bunny Willow as she had gotten to a point were she was in discomfort and it wasn't fair on her anymore so I had to make the tough decision and had her pts :(.

We had the big family wedding in September and I was a bridesmaid, it all went very smoothly and nothing went wrong - apart from Liz saying 'I don't know what the hell I was thinking having such a big wedding - learn from me you lot [bridesmaids] - elope!', I think in the end she did enjoy it though but still I can'treally see myself doing the same - hell no!

Wedding Bells

No, not my wedding, lol, my sister, Liz, just got engaged to her boyfriend of two years, Mark. He only proposed two weeks ago and yet everything's been sorted already - the date is set, and the church and the reception are booked! I wouldn't mind but it's still 18 months away!

I've been asked (told?) to be a bridesmaid alongside Vicky (sis), Cathy (sis), and Sam (Mark's sis), and today we were dragged to the bridal shop to pick out what we're going to wear. I don't know if you've ever been in a bridal shop but they have one of every style of the dresses so you have to try it on regardless of the size. I, of course, ended up with a size 14 so I had to keep my top on as it would not stay up - I could step into it without undoing it! Eventually a dress was chosen for us but we cannot order now as there's a possiblity it could be discontinued so we have to go through it all again in a years time.

Now, I'm happy for the both of them, don't get me wrong, but they've been engaged for 15 days and all anyone will talk about is the wedding. I keep getting told off for not being more enthusiastic but hello people IT'S STILL EIGHTEEN FRICKING MONTHS AWAY!

Which brings us to the engagement party in a couple of weeks - I very possibly have someone to go with me - 'Mo' the underdog has come through.

Shopping - woohoo [/sarcasm]

So I went to Lakeside shopping centre yesterday - did I tell you I hate shopping? I did need lots of new clothes so it wasn't all bad except all I bought was a pair of wellies. Seriously we had a good time, the pasta I had for lunch was only slightly stodgey and there was just about enough sauce to cover the top of it (insert rolleyes icon). Nah, it was ok and the icing on the cake was when the boot suddenly opened when we pulled away from a roundabout on the m25! Cue me running along the verge to retrieve the boxes that had fallen out in front of the car behind, eek!

All in all, it was a great day, when I got home Liz arrived with a newly shaven Leo who bloody pee'd on my bed while I was trying to take a pic of him looking all cute. Little bugger!

Before I Forget - Meet Leo

So here's Leo - aka Little Shit! I mentioned him in an earlier post. The bugger has learnt to only respond to us if we call him Leelee, which is embarassing if you're out with him - everyone thinks he's a girl! Well, I suppose that even things out a bit as everyone automatically think Bailey's a male (even when she's wearing her pink harness, lol).

Full House Again

So work has been crazy busy over the last week, lots of highs and lows. Sadly we had to have one of our older cats PTS. Roxy was 15yrs and had hyperthyroidism and a bad liver but she died of a completely unrelated tumour by her pancreas. Although she was a bit of a madam - especially when it came to taking her meds - she will be greatly missed by us and her sister, Star, who has been acting a bit lost the last few days. RIP girly. Another low is that we have a full house again, just when we were doing so well with rehoming, nevermind though as we've got plenty of friendly moggies we just need to get the public in to see them! Luckily we've been swamped with volunteers lately so us staff members have had a lot of time with our feet up, lol.

At home we've discovered a mouse problem in our shed - who'da thunk it! - I mean we have 3 cats out of 5 that spend a lot of time in the garden and one or two dogs running around so god knows where they're hiding! So today we've had a mass clear out and you wouldn't believe how much crap we had in there - litter tray covers, cat carriers, garden chairs etc. I think they'd taken a fancy to the bags of cat/dog food we had stored in there. Fortunately they have now been removed so no more mices.

And lastly, Bailey went to a Tennington Touch class today which is a holistic treatment to calm an animal down. My sister phoned me to say she was wrapped up in bandages but completely fine with it - I can't wait to see the pics!

Time For An Update

It's been a while since I've updated this blog so I thought I'd give it a go now. I've been so busy since I last posted and yet I've not got a lot done. Let's see; in addition to the two cat's below Liz adopted a puppy back in october. At around only four weeks old he was thrown out of a moving car probably because he was covered in mange and she picked him up, on a speedy decision, I hasten to add, when he was 8/9 weeks. As she got him so young and suddenly he's kinda had to make a second home with me - which isn't as great as it sounds. He's a little terrier cross breed who is cute until you catch a whiff of him and he has no manners at all - he's untrainable, and I swear it's not through lack of trying! Now he's six months little Leo comes to mine at least twice a week and winds the household up. Bailey puts up with him to a degree and the cats will definitely give him a swipe if he gets too close, I sticks his head in the water bowls then dribbles it around the house and he doesn't eat normal either, I'm always finding food everywhere. At least he's housetrained now, though he still pee'd on my uggs last night!

Bailey's doing well now after she had to spend the day at the vets in november, she was throwing up constantly and almost collapsed so they admitted her and put her on a drip. The poor thing stressed so much she needed to be sedated after pulling her IV out three times. It took a week for her to get back to normal and she lost so much weight. She came home with four different types of tablets which weren't easy to give at all, more than once I got so frustrated I shouted at her when it wasn't her fault at all. We still don't know exactly what was wrong but thank god for insurance!

My oldest bunny, Willow, still isn't that well, it got to the point where I had to get her her own hutch as she pees on everything still. I think she's got a tumour pressing on her bladder as antibiotics didn't make any difference. She's ok for now, I don't think she's in pain or discomfort, but I don't know how I'm going to cope when the weather gets warmer and the flies come out. I've been on a few rabbit forums and everyone says to bring her indoors but she nearly five and has always lived in the garden, she just gets stressed if I bring her in and I don't want to do that, I'd rather she live out her days in her own hutch. I can't believe it's nearly a year since I lost her sister days after having a tumour removed.

My cat's are all well, Tilly's getting younger by the day. The other day I risked my life trying to groom her and in the end got the scissors out. I didn't realise how much I'd cut off until she stood up - her whole left hip is now bald! It's 'cos all she does is sleep she gets 'bed head' all over. And after only 18mths she's more tolerant of Max who now spends most nights under the duvet with me - I don't have a choice! Oh yeah, Millie had an abscess on her tail in october so I had to take her to get it flushed out, that was fun! She had to have the base of her tail shaved, I still wonder what the neighbours thought of it (I live next to a block of maisonettes where a lot of elderly people live and she visits them in their gardens, one lady calls her the cat with all the whiskers).

Work's been so busy, what with the credit crunch people aren't hesitating to leave their cats, in some cases literally leaving them outside the building. One day I found an empty box outside but fortunately the little old lady cat inside had gone between our two buildings so we got her in safely. We've never been so busy, we're licenced for 46 cats but lately have had 60+! We've had to resort to putting up some temporary cages as well as using our three kitchens and two offices as housing.

So that's basically what's happened the last few months, I realise I've only spoken about my pets but then I guess they are my life. I've recently gotten myself a laptop so I vow to post her more often and I'll definitely be adding pics at some point.

New Cats!

I can't believe forgot to post this; my sis has new cats. You may have noticed my earlier post about her ear marking a mum and two kits that were born at the cattery I work at, well, she didn't get them but instead got these two handsome devils:

Alfie (formally Buzz):


And his brother Woody:

They came to the cattery after they had been given to an elderly lady who passed away only months after having them. They're so friendly and affection and get on well with the neighbourhood kitties - they've even brought some cats home with them that I've got to find new homes for, lol.

Writing

Something I've always enjoyed doing is writing and I do it for fun mainly because I get easily embarrassed but also because I'm crap at it, lol. I've got a whole collection of things I wrote when I was younger all hand written and hidden in a box that no one has ever seen. I think it's because it comes from the heart and purely my imagination (ok kinda slightly influenced by the tv shows and films I watch, but mostly original ideas). I like to think of myself as a very imaginative person - hell I don't have a hell of a lot going for my in real life why not live in my on little world, lol - even my dream are exciting, last night I dreamt I was locked up in some sort of detention place and it was almost like watching a movie so I thought I'd use this and create a little story of my own. I've only ever written on paper before so I thought I'll have a shot at writing on my comp - it'll definitely be easily to edit, lol and who knows, it could turn out well though it's unlikely anyone will ever see it.

Not been Around

So, as usual, life's been busy lately. Work's crazy and god knows what I've been getting up to at home but I've just not been able to find the time to do anything after being here there and everywhere. Here's a few highlights:

Willow, my oldest bunny, isn't doing so well at the moment. After having a urine infection and a week of washing her everyday and giving meds twice a day she definitely hates me. If that wasn't enough the fly spray I was using on her has caused an allergic reaction so now I've got her in my bedroom in the indoor cage and I have to apply sudocrem daily. This morning she really scared me as she wasn't running away from me which isn't a good sign but after a clean up she's perked up a bit. Fingers crossed she'll get over this as she's only 4 1/2yrs (buns live at least 7 yrs).

I got a new computer in the week. It was funny as my mum told us we had to move everything in a file for the comp guy to transfer it over, it took me less than a minute but my poor mum who is not computer literate moved all files one by one taking nearly an hour, lol. Typically I had to forget to move something and it was my Favourites so it's taking me a while to remember what I'd bookmarked and not only that I've got to remember a load of passwords too - why I don't use the same one everywhere I don't know! Still I love getting new things and for the time being I don't have an outdated system, lol.

My boss has been doing better (if you see an earlier post you'll see she wasn't great) but since then her husband has had a stroke and has already been in hospital for 4 weeks with at least another 4 to go. It's a shame as he's such a nice bloke, me and a colleague call him grandad Geoff as he treats everyone like family. I popped in to see my boss at home yesterday and met her cats for the first time, one of them's 24yrs old and he looks it bless him but he's still got aways to go. The other one's 17 and looks about 8yrs!

I'm sure there's a few things I forgot to say, I know no-one reads this but it's nice to be able to vent so I'll always pop on here every no and then.

Week off from Sat, woohoo!!!

ARGH!!! A Day In My Life.

I had such a mad day yesterday and I really need to vent. It started a little before 9am Friday when I got to work and found a cat, Misty, was giving birth and had chosen her litter tray to do it! She already had two kittens and had cleaned them up but she hadn't broken their umbilical cords which wouldn't have been so bad if the afterbirths weren't covered in cat litter! Firstly my colleague Jenni and I had to get them out of the tray, not so easy with an already protective mother, then I had to handle the very gooey mess of kittens, afterbirths and cat litter. Once in a bed we had to clamp the cords and cut them off. An hour later she had had two more and fortunately looked after them a bit better. All this caused us to be late with our usual duties and we had appointments booked for the afternoon and just the two of us to deal with it. After an interrupted and rushed late lunch we had to catch up quickly with giving vaccinations and chipping all the while answering the door and dealing with calls. At about 2.30 we were almost done when a woman brought a cat to the door - now we had nowhere to put it but the woman wouldn't take the cat away so we had no choice but to admit the poor cat we named Sushi. The problem is we are completely full up with up to six cats in one (large)pen, not to mention two of our three kitchens being used and now, due to Sushi, we had to use an office too - not good. Then disaster; we realised Misty and her kittens had to be moved as they were born in one of our outside pens and couldn't get to the heated section where her partner, Felix, was! Luckily we were having a kitten adopted which would free up a pen so we had to have a quick change around bringing Misty, Felix and the kittens indoor. During the move the washing machine repair guys decided to finally turn up and supervised by Shelford (our resident cat) they proceeded to pull the washing machine apart - eek! At this point everytime I thought of what still needed to be done I added new things to the list. Taking a few deep breaths I carried on and eventually managed everything with out stopping, my mind was buzzing so much I had to concentrate hard to think clearly but we were done. Phew!

At home I was greeted by the smell of my dad's cooking - I could tell it was his cooking as there's a distinctive aroma of things we don't usually cook with along side very minimal seasoning. It was minced turkey and Ebly on pasta, needless to say I only ate the pasta which was fortunate as understandably the Ebly was out of date by a few months. Everyone seems ok today though Bailey (the dog) did have bright yellow poo this morning.

Later on I went into my garden to find Honey(bunny) had escaped! After using the cats (Tamba, Max and Smudge) to herd her I managed to get her back into her run and only got a few scratches for my efforts. The trouble was after letting them out of their hutch this morning it wasn't long before Honey got out twice more so I had to shut them in their smaller enclosed run while I had a few bits to get down the town. When I finally got home I modified their outer run and it's now like Fort Knox, with one very unhappy bunny and two very pleased bunnies as they have slightly more space than they did before.

Going back a step, I had to go into the town as it's my younger sisters' birthday tomorrow (yep, they're twins) on my way down (about a 20min walk) I got a call from work; a man was trying to leave two young cats and Jenni couldn't get through to anyone else. We made the decision to admit the cats but that means they have to go in a large nursery pen, not good.

So tomorrow I look forward to another crazy day, a colleague is leaving, I'm training up two volunteers and we're having issues with another member of staff all the while having to care for the cats and kittens. Wish me luck...

Keeping It In The Family

My little sis is finally moving out so she made me reserve her any kittens born at the cattery in the last few weeks so she can give them a new home once she's settled in. Two and a half weeks ago Daphne gave birth to two boys and they're already huge. What's more, Liz and her boyfriend Mark have fallen in love with Daphne so they're taking the three of them! The downside is Liz wants to give them crappy names - Rosie, Alvin and Theo - but at least they'll all be together. She does need to have a home visit, which she isn't too happy about, but from what I've seen so far the place looks safe and secure.

In other pet news I took my young buns to be neutered on Tuesday and what a palaver that was! Getting them there was no problem, my vet wants them there at 10ish, as there was a few people already in the waiting room I left them with the receptionist and went home expecting a call around 2pm. They're usually so quiet everything's done nice and early so I figured I'd have time to keep an eye on them after their ops and settle them home ok - how wrong was I! At 4 pm I still hadn't received a call so I called the receptionist who said they probably be done in half and hour and would call, by this time my mum, my lift, had to go out so I had to call my sister who had my car and ask her to pick them up when she finished work at 5pm. The only thing was they still weren't ready at 5pm so she had to wait another half hour. Then when they were finally home they were still very wobbly so I had to set them up in my room for the night - that was fun! I've got an indoor pen for emergencies which I set up in the corner and everytime I got up (it was a hot night) they got spooked and thumped. Tilly liked the company though, lol. Now all's fine and you wouldn't know anything had happened.

Animals! Who'd have 'em?!

Week off...

... week on more like! I've taken five days annual leave this week and I'm not back to work until wednesday. It's been good but I've not really had much chance to sit still - it's just as well I probably couldn't due to the amount of coffee I've consumed over the last few days! At least I've managed to have some sort of lie in most days (it's physically impossible for me to sleep past 8.30) but it's made such a difference not having to rush around to get to work.

I managed to find the time to sort out my old receipts, pay slips and bank statements - I hadn't touched them for nearly nine years so I was brutal and chucked out everything I didn't need -there's going to be one huge fire when I get round to burning it all! Not only did I have a clear out, I also ORGANISED everything! Now if I want something I know exactly where it is - no more sorting through drawers and shoe boxes, I even dug out some ring binders and filed things!

On the down side it I've spent too much this holiday, the priciest thing being a huge wardrobe (hence the clearout) which my dad helped me put together on saturday (it was too heavy to do myself) but I payed him back in rabbit poo which he loves me to save for his garden so he's happy, lol. Ooh, and I bought my first ever tool - some wire cutters! I've never had (or needed) a tool before. Obviously there was a reason for this, with the help of my younger sis I've built two panels of a rabbit run from scratch.

Here's Liz modeling one:

So that's been my exciting week, lol and now I'm slightly bored, I can't wait til wednesday!

p.s has anyone else ever noticed there's always a guy wearing a hi-vis jacket whilst shopping in supermarkets, I swear I can guarantee seeing one in the fruit and veg section, lol.

Highs and Lows, Ups and Downs

The last two weeks have been crazy, I've been rushed of my feet both at home and at work and for a day or two it got to the point I couldn't sit still for more than two minutes, in fact, if I tried I got really twitchy and had to be doing something constantly - Bailey's never had so many walks!

Last week my colleague was on holiday so I was covering shifts for her, working six days and was sole in charge and not just of the cattery - I was running the Branch! My boss has been seriously ill and has been in hospital for nearly a month now and the Saturday before last she suffered a heart attack. Since then she's improved but has contracted MRSA. Until then we never really knew how much she did for the Branch, she's getting on a bit and liked to do everything from home so the shit hit the fan the moment she was out of action. Luckily with the help of the committee members and volunteers I managed to keep it going, whilst dealing with the 'she's out of the way, lets change things' people (they wanted to send some of our cats away which my colleague and I have really worked hard with to make them homeable).

If having to deal with all that wasn't enough some of the cats decided to get ill and one of my favourite cats, Danni, died literally minutes after our vet gave him the ok to go home. He'd had diabetes for years and was rehomed a year ago with his sister, Mandi. Because of his health problem I was cat sitting when his owners were away and they'd only just gotten back from Holland. I mentioned that Danni seemed a bit quiet and should probably visit the vet so they took him the next day and he kept him in on a drip overnight. The morning he died the vet said his was well enough to go home but less than a minute after walking out the carrier he collapsed. His distraught owner was in such a state he didn't know what to do so I had to go over, 'pronounce him' and take him for cremation. Danni was such a character and will be missed by so many people.

That's not even breaking the back of my problems but it's too depressing to go on so I'm now going to switch to the highlights. Work wise we managed to home loads of long-stay cats and it was all I could do to stop myself from jumping around as they went! I was that happy.

Back at home on my one day off last saturday I was dragged along to a dog show my sister's college was hosting. It was only when I got there my lovely sis told me she's entered me and Bailey into the Best Crossbreed Class which was judged by one of the trainers of that TV show where 'celebs' trained dogs, I think it's called Underdog. Needless to say we didn't win anything but Bailey did come first in the agility competition. Here's me and the ugly mug being judged:







BTW the guy sitting down in the last pic has a ferret up his tshirt! It just seemed so random I have to point it out, lol.

So that's been my mad few weeks, now I've got a week off work and I'm slowly catching up with everything. I really miss the days when I used to come online everynight.

Bunny Update

I've had my new bunnies for two months now and they're getting big - they're four months old, I can't believe it!


In this picture, from left to right are Fern, Honey and Willow (Willow's never been very photogenic bless her) and they're getting on great together, so well in fact that they now live together 24/7! Before I had the separate and it was a mission and a half to clean them and put them in for the night, now it doesn't take two minutes (putting them away anyway).


I'm so happy with them all, they're really sweet natured, love a fuss and are so entertaining to watch. I gave them a football and they pass it among themselves - so cute!


The other day I caught myself considering another one, I couldn't, could I?...

Playing Tourist

One of the things I love doing in my spare time is going into London and playing tourist. It's almost like being in another country. I live about 30mins from town by train/tube so it doesn't take long to get there but usually something comes up and I never get round to going and it's been over a year since I last went there. So today I hopped on a train and was having a coffee in Covent Garden at 10.45, what's more with the exception of lunch/coffee everything I did was free! I visited Leicester Square, Picadilly, Trafalgur Square, saw 10 Downing St, Big Ben, The London Eye and Buckingham Palace. I also spent some time in The National Gallery, making a point to view Monet's Waterlily Pond and Van Gogh's Sunflowers. It was a nice day too so once there I walked everywhere enjoying the 'fresh' air. On the way home I stopped off at Kings Cross station (by accident, lol) and happened apon platform 9 and 3/4! I didn't even know it 'existed'!

So overall I had a good day. Everytime I go I promise myself I'll visit more often but I'm sure something will come up.

Holiday and Bollywood Comes To Town

I've not been around much lately as I went away for the first time in 3 years. I joined my sister down in Dorset in an old flat literally on the seafront - the sea came up the front path! So I'm now feeling very fat as my diet consisted of fish 'n chips, cream teas and Dorset apple cake.

We had great weather, the day before I got there there had been a snow blizzard but I must have taken the sun with me as I was able to wear just a t-shirt for a lot of the time - I wasn't brave enough to go for a swim though. What's more is we didn't have a tv so evenings were spent down the, arcades, then the pub and playing a game of Monopoly before bed, thank God for DTRs!

Since I got back on saturday I've not stopped, after a quick hello to the family and my menagerie I was out again to an Indian disco hosted by my vet who'd kindly invited me to celebrate the opening of his new surgery. Luckily it was just around the corner so I wasn't too late and I had a fun evening being entertained by a dodgy DJ (from Slough, which he had to say every 10 minutes), a badly dancing trainee vet and the best Indian food I've ever had. Unfortunately I'd had three glasses of wine before I realised most of the people there were T-total but hopefully I only embarrassed myself once when I danced to Saturday Night by Whigfield with only my tipsy friend and a receptionist trying to remember the moves. After 'changing lightbulbs' and 'sweeping floors' (the basic moves in Indian dancing) I excused myself and fell into bed as I had to be up for work the next day.

So today I've been catching up with a few chores around the house and slowly getting through my emails. No doubt I've probably missed a few antics on the sites I frequent.

Like I Need More Pets!

Anyone that knows me knows I like animals - I work for the RSPCA so I kinda have to, lol. Currently I have 5 cats including one 20 year old girly with only three legs, one dog that somehow ended up here and one rabbit who's sister died just over a month ago. I thought that was enough until my sister brought two baby bunnies home yesterday, supposedly to take to work with her (she's an animal technician at an agricultural college), so I had them in my room overnight and off she went with them this morning - only to come back at lunchtime saying her boss didn't want them! So today I spent an hour dragging out a very old, tiny hutch from the bottom of the garden, cleaning it up and making it home to the two bunnies. It's not ideal but it'll do for a while.

It's kind of up in the air about whether they're here to stay or not, rabbits are very sociable so they should get on with Willow ok (although there was a bit of a scrap earlier but i think it was just a dominance thing).

Here's one of them, her name's Honey and her sister's possibly Treacle.

Easter

It's Easter, the holiday with lots of chocolate! Unfortunately (or not) my taste for choccie treats has changed since I've gotten older but I guess that means they'll last longer. One of my work volunteers brought in a huge Easter cake yesterday, it was gorgeous but it filled me up for the day - I nearly had trouble eating the mini eggs and creme eggs later that afternoon!

On the subject of work, we were discussing Easter a couple of days ago ie what the meaning of it is and where the idea of eggs came from. My colleagues and I have concluded that on Shrove Tuesday Jesus ate a pancake before setting out into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights. When he returned he was hung (I'm ashamed to say this was my input) and buried but woke up a few days later and God knows what happened next. Sadly out of all of us I was the only one who went to church every sunday(note the very past tense), went to Brownies then Guides, was a member of the St John's Ambulance and went to a C of E primary school.

Back to today, my sister just handed me an easter egg, which was a huge surprise as a)we don't usually bother and b)I don't have any intentions of going out and getting her - or anyone else - anything. I think she wants something.