As good as his word, Stuart started packing boxes the same evening they arrived. Our house is now in disarray, with piles of things to be donated to charity shops, stacks of packed boxes and other stacks of yet-to-be-packed boxes. The living room looks very bare with all of the books gone from our bookshelves (not to mention DUSTY! - I'm no major fan of dusting, but even I am appalled by the build-up of dust on the shelves) and we are reduced to eating dinner on the sofa, balancing plates on our laps, as the dining table and chairs have been moved out of the way to make room for the stacks of boxes.
The trip to the vet on Tuesday evening was traumatic to say the least.
I was thrilled when Florence went up straight up to her travel box to
sniff the inside of the box, I gave her a gentle nudge on her rear end,
and she walked in of her own accord. What a well behaved little cat!
However, Lucca was another
matter altogether. It's unfortunate that this has all come very soon after his
recent stay in 'cat-hospital', and he absolutely did NOT want to get into
his box, or be lowered into his box, or be coerced into his box, or be
shoved into his box... It took Allison and me a good 15 minutes to get him securely in - a very stressful 15 minutes for everyone involved. I ended up looking like I'd
been in a fight with a tiger as every time I picked him up he wriggled and squirmed and tried to
get away by crawling up across my back, using his claws to gain purchase. Poor Lucca - I felt horrible
putting him under so much stress. Allison was an absolute angel (and far too polite to say whether she had taken any blows). I'm sure my back was bleeding as I finally left the house.
Once I got them to the vet everything was very
straightforward. Neither of them even so much as flinched when they were
jabbed, and then Stuart came to help take them home (the easy bit!).
On getting home, Lucca immediately ran and hid under the bed, and I had to resort to taking his dinner to him (under the bed). He cowered every time one of us went near him all evening, but thankfully seemed gradually to forgive us and ended the evening being his usual cuddly and affectionate self. Phew!
The idea of taking them to Bristol in a little over a week's time fills me with utter dread!
Today is Stuart's birthday :-) He only had a half day's work to do this morning, so has been able to have his birthday afternoon off. He hasn't been taking it easy and enjoying himself though - he's had an afternoon of more box packing and lawn mowing! Hopefully dinner at the Crown and Thistle pub in Abingdon will be a bit more of a relaxing birthday treat.
Four weeks today we should be completing the purchase of our Italian home!
(Although we still haven't exchanged contracts on the sale of our Abingdon house!)
~ Helen
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