Wednesday 14 July 2010

HARRASSED & HECTIC

Been one of those weeks.

Last Wednesday, Eric the joiner (who's been doing jobs for us for nearly 20 years) and his son Adam arrived to create a new bathroom for us and he only, not quite, finished yesterday, so the house has been chaotic and for the last three days I've been peeing into a glass vase in the kitchen during their working hours. Still, now that he's almost, but just not quite put a couple of finishing touches, finished, it's looking pretty good. Here's a picture of what it partly looked like last week.
And, yes, that is my thumb upper left.

Saturday and Animal Krackers had a stall at a local community fete in the grounds of a primary school. We had a tombola, a lucky dip with parcels for boys, girls, tiny tots boys, and tiny tots girls, and lots of cuddly toys (buy a ticket and get the one with the matching number). We ended up taking over £200.00 which wasn't bad, plus it helped raise our profile.  Here's us.
About 12.45 I wanted to take a break and pop home for lunch when I met Gordon, one of our founders, who told me a kitten had been handed in at the shop and the staff in weren't great when it came to looking after it so off I went. She's about four months old and everything a naughty little kitten should be. We've had her at our house for five days and the chances of her being re-homed are getting lower the longer she stays.

On the other hand, last week Carol asked me if I could give a young cat she had a little one to one TLC, I could keep it in a cage in the garage. So I did. Here's her picture. Sweet little thing, isn't she.
Purrs and rubs herself against you until the moment she launches an attack with her claws. My nephew Alex, who was helping put up some standalone bookshelves saw me with my face dripping blood and a neighbour with teeth buried in the back of my hand. Apparently she lived with some junkies who thought to share their habit with her which might explain her behaviour. Whatever the reason, she is actually a dangerous cat and I really don't know what to do with her.

Right this minute there is a small elderly terrier-type dog in a large cage in our dining room where she is recovering after having had an operation to remove a tumour almost the size of a football from her belly. You can just about see the tumour by her hind leg in the photo.

Just after I uploaded the photo a few minutes ago, Susan shouted for me to come down. The dog, Trixie, was on her feet and had knocked over her water bowl. It's clear she's stressed and doesn't know where she is or where she wants to be. Susan is very upset but, as I told her, there's nothing we can do except wait for nature to take its course. We've done all we could for her and now she'll either get better or she won't.

The reason she's here is because Susan saw her went she took some food to West Hall, a commercial dog kennel which the council pays to take in strays. The strays, like Trixie, get the poorest conditions. Trixie had been in this state there for nearly two months. Despite a vet saying she should be put to sleep, nothing has been done and there seems to be no documentation so we know nothing about her. We brought her home yesterday after having her checked out by one of our charity's vets. I took her out for a walk in the rain late last night and again early this morning and then she went for her operation.

There's other stuff been going on but right now I'm not in the best of moods so I'll leave it at that.

No comments: