Guffy has not yet ceased to be.
She is not in the least recovered from her dreadful squirty difficulty, but she is at least eating, and the vet, whilst not exactly optimistic, has not despaired of her yet.
I would not despair of a determined little cat either, certainly not if I was getting seventy quid for every ten minutes I spent sticking a thermometer up her back end.
Oliver and I took her to the surgery this afternoon. Guffy does not like the vet.
I mean she really does not like the vet.
She sat on my knee in the waiting room, shivering convulsively and burying her head in the towel we had prudently brought with us in case she lived up to her name.
The vet gave us the same speech that the last two vets gave us, about bringing her in a cat carrier, because her educated veterinary opinion was that a cat would be happier in a cage. I explained that Guffy does not like cat carriers, although really I have no idea, since we haven’t got one, and have no intention of remedying this, since she does not even like sitting in an open cardboard box. In any case I would not be so cruel as to shove a terrified kitten in a cage by herself instead of letting her dig herself underneath my jersey, which was where she actually wanted to be. The vet said crossly that it didn’t matter if the cat liked it or not, before catching my eye and realising she was digging a hole for herself, so she changed the subject.
Guffy has not put on any weight at all since her last trip to the vet. The vet gave her an injection of B12 and prescribed a different wormer, so we will see how she fares.
We got back home to find Mark there. He had been over at Elspeth’s, still glueing bits on to her van for its MOT. Halfway through this operation he had made the infuriating discovery that the tool he needed was over at the shed, some half an hour’s drive away. He chugged all the way back to collect it, but then recalled an appointment at the dentist, and had to come home instead of going back to Elspeth’s to get the tiresome van finally bashed back together.
He went dashing off back to Elspeth’s to finish it as soon as the dentist had finished poking him, only then to discover that Autoparts had sent the wrong bit for fixing it, and so instead of finishing the van tonight, it would all have to wait until tomorrow.
This was more infuriating still, because he does not in the least want to be faffing about fixing other people’s vans. We have only got a very few days left before he has got to go away again, and we wanted to spend them faffing about with our own van.
He came home, in the sort of mood that involves swearing and scowling, and was only slightly mollified when I suggested that since it was very quiet at work, he might like to spend the evening installing his latest solar panel on the shed roof.
Mark likes solar panels. He found this one in a skip, and despite being cracked, he has assured me that it still works very nicely indeed.
He called me a little while ago, to tell me rather more cheerfully that it is done. He has wired it to work alongside the windmill. It will power up the immersion heater, which helpfully heats the central heating as well.
He does not at all like the idea of forking out actual cash for hot water and hot radiators, and so we never do.
Having a new solar panel is almost as good as being able to do the van. It will mean that we have constant hot water, instead of occasional hot water, just when the fire is running hot.
I am very impressed, what a splendidly economical measure it will be.
It is almost June, which is when we usually let the fire go out.
This June we will still have hot water.
I am looking forward to it very much.
