Monday 3rd February 2025

Quite a day for a Monday.

Jools's shoulder had been bad all weekend, but we didn't think for a moment she shouldn't drive to work, even when I had to help her get dressed.

Maybe we should have been more realistic about it, but she went to work in the car, leaving me with Jon's car, as Scully was off to the vet.

I had put her in the porch the previous evening, and she stayed there all night, as she wasn't to eat until I dropped her off at the vet's so her blood sugars could be monitored.

The other cats were wary, what with one of them in cat prison and making a heck of a lot of noise about being banged up again.

I worked for an hour, then scooped Scully out of the porch, popped her in the box and loaded her in the car for the quick run to Whitfield.

Thankfully, not much traffic about, and I got a parking slot just outside the door to the surgery. We had to wait 15 minutes for the nurse, and after signing a form, Scully is taken from me and Jools was to collect her about four.

Back home for breakfast and down to work, getting stuff done until about half twelve when Jools messaged me to say that her employers would not let her drive, and that she was being taken to the physio in Canterbury, but would be stuck.

She would get a bus back, then to Whitfield but then how to get Scully and Jools back from there.

Once Jools was on the bus to Dover, I called a cab, and for £38 took me to Hythe to the factory to collect the car.

The taxi came, and we had a pleasant twenty minute chat as he took me up the A20, then over the downs into Hythe, dropping me off outside the factory gates.

Some twat had parked their Audi so close to ours, the driver's door would not open, so I got in the other side and climbed over, just glad that my shoes were clean.

Out the gates and along the seafront, past the Imperial, down and past the swimming pool before getting back onto the main road, then up and over, back over the downs to the motorway.

It was just before rush hour started, so easily turned to take the Alkham Valley road, no sign of the Drellingore flowing, so into Temple Ewell, then up Whitfield hill to the vets.

Scully was ready. A day in a cage, monitoring and ten days insulin came to £260. This is the new normal.

I took her to the car, along with the supplies, then back home in the gathering gloom of a winter's dusk, and to home.

Jools was back. She has done something to a tiny part of her shoulder, too inflamed to have much done, but she has extra ice packs, and hopefully that and stronger drugs would help.

I warmed up some ragu and cooked pasta for dinner, all done in half an hour. Scully was fed and I gave her an insulin jab. She didn't complain.

However, from now on there will no food left out, so no grazing, so that Scully eats as hours apart so the insulin is delivered equally.

This brought some complaints through the evening.