Narrowboat Alacrity

My favorite slippers are no more………………………….

Jo had bought them for me at Christmas, very expensive and oh so comfortable a Rolls Royce of slippers……………

Having had quite a hard day at work and had eaten more than was probably good for me at dinner, forty winks were in order. Kicking off my slippers I settled down for a doze on the sofa. I can’t have been asleep for more than ten minutes when something woke me, reaching down to put my slippers on I noticed that one was darker than the other…………wet in fact…………. Jo mentioned that she had seen Katie (one of our cats) in the room for a few moments…………normally she puts her head in one slipper and goes to sleep, (Jo says it’s the smell that knocks her out) but what made her pee in one God only knows????

When I looked out of the kitchen window this morning it looked like the garden was covered in white blossom except it wasn’t blossom……………..on closer inspection it was feathers, almost as if someone had emptied a pillow out.

Then I saw it………………….. do you remember the film About a Boy starring Hugh Grant, the scene where the boy had tried to feed a duck with his mum’s homemade bread and killed it, the duck was floating upside down in the lake………….well it wasn’t a duck it was very fat Wood Pigeon floating feet up minus most of it’s feathers in my garden pond.

A quick spanish inquesition followed with my two cats Rosie and Katie both denying all knowledge and blaming the moggie next door.

I must admit they are getting old and lack the killer instinct spending most of their time indoors, but then i’m biased……

With holidays looming I was just checking the cats vaccination certificates and found that Katie was due for her booster, I dutifully booked her in to the vets………………..

Katie is a small cat, and has been ever since we got her from the Woodgreen Animal Shelter she is active and eats like a horse.

The vet prodded and poked her and said “shes lost some weight since you were last here” I explained that she was always small “mmm we had better do some tests they won’t take long” said the vet and rattled off something that was out of the script of Holby City with a price tag that would feed a third world country.

The vet told me to wait in the waiting room and they would get a blood sample and give Katie her booster.

That’s what she thought…………………..a yowl rent the air……..  it sounded like Katie was objecting to giving blood, normally she doesn’t make any noise unless she’s killing her stuffed mouse.

The vet appeared a mite dishevelled and bloody  ”she’s a bit feisty, can you give us an hour to calm her down and take the sample”……………………………….

An hour later I went back to pick Katie up…………. well the vet looked worse than Katie ” we got a blood sample but we haven’t given her her booster yet she’s too upset”……………”Upset” looking at Katie sat quietly in her basket having a wash………….no you don’t say……..

Leaving the vets with a smug cat and the “Call us on Monday for the results” ringing in my ear. and a wallet £76 lighter and still no booster……………

Groundhog Day………………