Ah…. Le Weekend…

Well, if Friday was a busy day faffing about with Shadow and a bit of a chore, Saturday and Sunday were delightful. Here’s three days’ worth, folks….

Friday….. Shadow

I took Shadow back to the vets on Friday morning, having been instructed to give him a ‘doping’ draught. He had other ideas and although I got most of the tablet into his mouth, it wasn’t before he had bitten me rather hard. Despite blood leaking from my finger, I wasn’t giving up and, with a bit of a struggle, I finally managed to get the tablet down his neck.

Regrettably, there wasn’t sufficient of the tablet inside him to have calmed him down and the vet was unable to extract even one single drop of blood from him. She came out of the surgery and said ruefully that we’d have to come back for another go. Luckily, she had a couple of appointments later on in the day, so she said she’d give him the tranquiliser at ten to four, and then try and get blood from him at ten to six. Two more trips…. In the meantime, she’d given him pain relief as she’d found a bit of blood in his mouth, suggesting something might be going on in there.

Of course, the visits to the vet scuppered any other plans I had for the day and, not only that, the vet suggested that if my finger swelled up or went red, to contact the doctor’s surgery for some antibiotics. Ha! Of course it went red and swelled up!

There’s another hour or so wasted……… first, phoning the surgery in the morning to see if I could get an appointment. Had two goes at that. Then, when I did get through (there are 5 other people waiting before you), the receptionist said all the ’emergency’ appointments for the morning had gone so could I phone back at 2 o’clock? I did, of course, with a similar repeat of the morning.

The receptionist wants to know why I need an appointment. I tell her. “Oh, do you need antibiotics for a cat bite?” Well, I don’t know – but I think so, that’s why I am phoning the doctor….. Anyway, “Can you send a photograph for the doctor to look at?” Yes, yes.

The doctor did phone me about half past three. He was the registrar and wasn’t quite sure of his ground but agreed with the vet that antibiotics were in order. “And how about your tetanus?” he said, “Is that up to date?” Funnily enough I was going to ask you that! “Ermm…. could you check my records, please?” It transpired that I’d had my last tetanus injection in 2002. But, he wasn’t sure whether I’d need another one. He’d check with a colleague and phone me back.

At 5 to 5, the doctor phoned to say ‘yes’ to the tetanus jab. But here fortune smiled on me. It was late on a Friday afternoon wasn’t it? “We normally send you to A&E for a tetanus jab….” my heart sank, “….but as it’s Friday and the weekend coming up, our Nurse Rosie will do it for you here at the surgery if you can get down here asap.”

I got there asap and had the jab before hot-footing it back up home just in time to collect Shadow and take him back to the vets. Fortune smiled again – the drug had worked and Shadow was dopey enough not to object too much to having blood drawn from him this time.

“I’ll phone you this evening,” said the vet “with the preliminary results that we can do in-house. We’ll have to wait until Tuesday morning to get the full lab result.” At 9 o’clock that night she phoned to say nothing untoward had shown in the preliminary results – but take him to he surgery again on Saturday morning for more pain relief. Lovely. I had been looking forward to a lie-in.

Saturday…. at the Kenilworth Sleaths

Duty done at the vets on Saturday morning, we were just having a little potter about when Paul phoned to say did we fancy going over for a barbecue? Oh, and did we want to stay over? A nano-second to think about it and the answer was ‘yes’ and ‘yes’. How very delightful.

Michael and Danielle had been invited too so, as always, it was our pleasure to play with the grandchildren whilst keeping an eye on the FA Cup match. Paul is a Liverpool supporter so he was a happy bunny – but, I mean, how many shots at goal do you need during play? Each team had loads but neither could score – and I hate penalties. Couldn’t watch that bit.

The food was fabulous – Paul is ace when it comes to cooking barbecue food – and we had a few beers to wash it all down. After Michael and Danielle left, we had a little hot tub session accompanied by a little glass or two of prosecco. Lush, eh?

John declined the hot tub experience and had a snooze on the sofa instead until it was time for bed.

Sunday….

One of the loveliest things about staying over, or having the family stay over with us, is the warm little body that comes wriggling into bed with us early in the morning. Although, to be fair, Freddie had already been downstairs, had his breakfast and watched a bit of TV before he come snuggling in. That suited us rather better! We spent a blissful three-quarters of an hour chatting and being shown how to play a particular game on his tablet before we got a group phone call from Harriet to tell us that there was coffee brewing and ready on the patio.

That got us all up! We sat outside in the sunshine enjoying brioche and posh jam with our coffee. More lushness, eh?

Before long, we had to say our goodbyes though, as we needed to be back to check on Shadow and dole out more pain relief. He was actually looking much better this morning. I popped the pain relief into his food and hoped he’d eat it. I think he did – he was still looking better this evening when we got back from Michael’s where we’d been this afternoon.

John went over to Lichfield with Michael to look at a car while I stayed and looked after Danielle and the children. We had a very good afternoon and the children were very well-behaved and delightful company. I was, however, concentrating so hard on getting food sorted and tidying round that I totally forgot the time, thus failing to attend the Yin Yoga class I’d booked onto this afternoon. Ah well, maybe next time.

Take care everyone. God bless