Green Girl Gardener

Evening all!

We had a stressful evening yesterday because it was time for that most awful of trips! Time to take our furry girls for their annual jabs at the vet.

Unless you have a very chilled out cat like our old cat Sherry, anyone who’s ever had a cat will sympathise with the ordeal of having to install your cat in his or her cat carrier.

We did everything right. We got the carriers out a few days before the appointment to get the girls used to them, and it appeared to be going quite well.

Tink packed herself all ready to go, but unfortunately two days early! Olive curled up in the other carrier too but seemed to develop camera shyness so I didn’t manage to snap any evidence.

So far so good. However, yesterday, the day of the appointment, they knew! I have no idea how, but they knew something was going on and all of a sudden it became apparent why cat burglars are named after these beautiful furry escape artists of ours. Normally it’s no problem to pick up either of our girls but yesterday they wriggled, they stealthily slunk away and they used down right brute force!

I’m currently sporting the scars!

This was the work of Miss Olive.

Looks like butter wouldn’t melt doesn’t she? Bless her, she was just scared. We gave up after the savaging and tried Tink instead. She wasn’t at all happy with the situation, but we managed to get her in the smaller carrier without further injury.

Deep breaths! Back to Olive. We tried telling her it was for her own good but she didn’t believe us. We promised it wouldn’t be that bad and she’d be back home before she knew it, but she still didn’t want to go and kept running round the room with me trotting round behind her dripping blood as I went! Eventually I had the bright idea of putting a blanket over her and, boom, worked a treat. She was in!

See how they’re both studiously ignoring me and concentrating on something far less mean in the opposite direction.

We have to make sure they can see each other at all times when they’re in their carriers otherwise they panic and cry. The only time they’ve been apart throughout their four years was when they were spayed and had separate operations. Obviously they have times when they’re in different rooms, but they always know they could go to the other if they want to.

I didn’t take photos when we were actually in the consulting room – didn’t want the vet to think I was completely mad – but they were really brave. Olive didn’t want to come out of the carrier, having kicked up (literally) such a fuss about getting in! Not even a Dreamie could convince her! She curled her tail and legs under her and stayed that way no matter what the vet did! Tink was more brave. She came out with minimal coaxing but kept trying to seek refuge on hubby’s shoulders!

Anyway, ordeal over, they both got a clean bill of health and they’ve been jabbed for this year.

They both recovered quickly when we got home and assumed their usual sleeping and lounging activities with gusto.

It seems a real shame to put them through this every year. They’re house cats so are highly unlikely to come into contact with any nasties, and they don’t go to a caterie when we go on holiday. You never know though I suppose. We could move to somewhere in the future away from a busy road and it might be safe to see if they want to go out (although I doubt it – I have absolutely no intention of doing anything that involves a solicitor ever again if I can help it!)

I can look forward to the weekend now we’ve got this horrible event out of the way. It’s the biggest tennis weekend of the year – Wimbledon finals weekend!

I’m not going to be able to watch the ladies’ final live tomorrow so I’ll catch the highlights but I’m fully intending to be ensconced in front of the telly on Sunday for the men’s final. Unfortunately, my fave, Rafa Nadal, got knocked out today in the semi-final by Roger Federer. I took the afternoon off work to watch it because there’s a finite time left in which these two champions could meet and play and I wanted to soak it up while I still have the opportunity. It wasn’t as epic as I was hoping it would be, and the result didn’t go my way, but it was a great match all the same. I’ll be Team Roger on Sunday now. Let’s go Roger, let’s go!

Toodles.