Wednesday 27th December 2017

Wednesday, and the day on which Mulder was to go back to the vet to have a tissue sample taken. I may have said this already, but we had monitored a slow improvement from a time on the 23rd when he could not stop dribbling, to the 24th when he could eat, but only wet food if you chopped it up small, to the end of the 25th when he was eating the food unchopped. But that meant nothing of course.

We had to drop him off at half eight, so we didn't get up until nearly eight, because we could not feed the little fella as he was to have an anesthetic. So, as soon as we were up, we popped him in a basket and waited until it was time to take him. Once he was gone with Jools, I fed the other cats and we settled down to wait for news. And thanks to the dreadful weather, we could not even go out for a stomp, as the rain hammered down for hours on end, until it turned to sleet and snow.

Jools came back, and so we waited.

An waited, but no call came. No news. Nothing. Not sure if this is a good thing or not.

At half eleven, we had to go out as we had an appointment at the bank, so we dress up like eskimos to walk to the car from the back door, and from the car to the bank. About 100m in total.

Dover was quiet, we had our choice of parking spaces, then walked to the bank to wait for our appointment

We left half an hour later with the intention of walking up Biggin Street to Boots and to find a baker, but after no more than walking twenty yards into the teeth of an arctic gale filled with snow and sleet, I said, we could do without rolls for lunch after all, and I returned to the car to wait for Jools. She wanted a battery for her film camera, and hoped Boots would have none, but they didn't. She did get some rolls on the way back though.

We go back home in a blizzard with the wind driving it horizontal. Had been a couple of degrees colder, the snow would have laid, and travel would have been dicey. Along the Deal road, the snow as so think it was like fog, quite pleased to get back home to be honest.

After eating salt beef sandwiches for lunch, I put the radio on, while looking at the snow come down outside. It grew dark, and gradually the snow and sleet stopped. I went to collect Mulder at quarter to five, and it was during this that we would get the news on what the vet thought about Mulder and his ailment. I drove in hope along almost deserted roads, parking outside the vet and waited.

Mulder was brought out in his box: I was told he had just escaped. They were taking him out of the bank of cages, and he was supposed to be groggy after his operation, but in one movement he had wrigged clear of the burse's grasp, on her shoulder and jumped up onto the tops of the upper row of cages. He was bouncing.

We waited 5 more minutes, and then the vet called us in. She said that she had looked at his "tumour", and she is not convinced it is, that is not to say it is definitive, that would have to wait for the results of the tests. But, it was softer than it was four days back, and smaller. When she cut into it, the structure was mostly fluid. He was given another steroid and antibiotic shot, and indeed, was bouncing. Don't take this as good news, rather than not bad news.

Fair enough.

Back home he was like himself, except on speed. He ate three bowls of food, was in and out in and out, running up the stairs, down the stairs, but settling down into a pattern where he followed Jools about. He dotes on Jools, which is fine, as Scully dotes on me, as does Molly, in her way.

Anyway, with more positive mood in Chez Jelltex, the mood lifted somewhat. We should know more in about a week.

We have snacks for dinner, and fresh mince pies I made once I brought Mulder back. There is nothing better than fresh sausage rolls or mince pies. We ate well.

And as Mulder calmed down, we relaxed though the evening, listening to yet more football until it was ten, cold and frosty outside, but time for bed.