Poor Thom-Cat

Poor Thomas had to be rushed to the vet yesterday. He ws absolutely fine - or appeared to be - in the morning, but then early after lunch he started being very weird, limping and sitting on the shoes next to the hallway radiator, but keeping his bottom up off them, then he started wailing. I carried him to the sofa to try to investigate (thinking maybe he had a sore back leg or something) and he lay there trying to keep his back leg up off his tummy. I rang the vet and they said he should come in immediately but the emergency vet is at Heworth (across the river and miles away) conveniently :-(

When we got there the vet said his bladder was very full and there was a gritty substance coming out when she investigated his nether regions. So she reckoned he might have FLUTD and his urethra might be blocked by crystals in his bladder, and she said they would do a small procedure to unblock and flush it out then keep him in overnight. Awwwwwww,poor little kitty!! But she also said it was a good thing I noticed immediately because this can kill cats if it is not treated; their bladders can rupture and they end up with fluid in their abdominal cavity, which leads to infection, shock etc. The thing is,it is so easy to notice when Thomas isn't himself, because he just lies there and forgets about terrorising the other cats and the home!

Well, he is back now and wearing a rather fetching transparent cone-shaped collar to prevent him licking his little winkie where they had a catheter. He does have FLUTD and the vet said his bladder was full of these stravite crystals and they had formed a plug, blocking the urethra, and so preventing him from peeing. He is now lying in front of the fire looking decidedly pissed off because instead of looking funky in his usual highly fashionable black and white skull and crossbones pirate design collar, he possibly knows he looks ridiculous in the veterinary collar. I have to take him to the vet on Tuesday to see how he is doing and to get some special type of cat food which is low in minerals (as normal dried cat food such as Iams actually has too much and this can be a major cause of crystals in the urine) I also have to give him more canned cat food. (The vet said to introduce him to it,but as he already has this sometimes it will be easy enough to switch over to that and the special dried stuff) It isn't just for cats with that condition and so it can be given to the other two too. At 7pm I have to give him a dose of this anti-spasmodic thing, which is because after having a catheter up his tiddler all night it will be a bit sore and the little muscles can spasm, which will make him think he needs to go to the litter box (which I notice he has been doing the past half hour or so.)

So...an evening of knitting with Thom-Cat sleeping on my lap I think. I'm knackered - after failing to sleep last night,then having to go on the bus and Metro to collect him then bring him back (he weighs almost 6 kg, plus his carrier, which is an aircraft-safe heavy duty one, weighs a ton too)On a more positive note, I have ordered this gorgeous limited edition Botany Lace from Wild Fire, to replace the BFL in 'plum' which when I received it just wasn't right colour-wise; the customer service is fantastic and I plan to buy a lot more from Vikki in future, as the quality is brilliant and of course each skein is unique. I am going to ask Dad to buy that fab Arctic Lace book for my birthday and this fabulous yarn will become a lovely scarf either from the book or the 'Iceland' wrap from KnitLab.

What I'd love to do is design my own patterns, very geometric, like Cold Mountain and Iceland, but I know it can be frustrating. I think I'd like to design it first on squared paper then work out which stitches would work best. There are obvious 'rules' such as needing to have an increase stitch for every yarnover if you aren't reducing stitch numbers....and so forth.It never ceases to amaze me what can come out of such simple stitches.

5p.m: I have given Thomas his painkiller via a syringe (not with a needle though) into his mouth, and also used that very convenient method to make him drink some more water. The other two kitties are very wary of him; a) he smells weird - of the animal hospital - to me, so to them he must smell really odd - not like himself at all; b) he looks very scary with his collar contraption on! I'm going to have to get a bigger one at the vet's on Tuesday because when he tries to lick/pull at his bandage the edge of the collar is right next to and actually rubbing against the very area it is meant to stop him licking on the back of his front paw, and it has been bleeding again. I remember one of my childhood cats pulling her stitches out after she had just been spayed, despite a similar collar.

LAZYBONES - 12.57 pm

This is me at just before 1pm,having just woken up (can you tell?!)
I do not think I look too bad for an early-ish 40's year old who has just got out of bed, do you? also, you cannot see the silvery hairs that have begun creeping in. They are easily covered up by Lush's Caca Noir which is obviously the same colour as my hair so doesn't make a difference to the color, but does make it really shiny and also make it really stand out in strong light and does cover the grey bits HA! Mind you, the last time I did it I decided to see what would happen if I covered it with clingfilm (that's Saran wrap to you Americans) - as I have seen people suggest it would turn red. Oops....it came out a murky brownish colour, um a bit like expresso and I didn't like it one bit. I think it only makes a difference if your natural colour is lighter.

I think I look a bit pale today, could be the light - blinds are not fully open - could be the end of my flu thing which I had last week, or could be just that winter lack-of-sun thingy. But if you notice, I look particularly pleased (well,my default mode is content anyway) and this is because the postman brought me my lovely Limited edition Lace lambswool/cashmere yarn from Wild Fire Fibres....and it is even better than the photo suggested.

The yarn also looks a bit light in this photo (so it must just be the camera not dealing with the poor light in this room - it is a bit of a dull grey day, but what do you expect this far north in November?!) The yarn is so gorgeous and soft....and so I have ordered more - this time BFL laceweight yarn in the shade Plum but she is going to overdye it to make it even darker. What a star!!

I also received some balls of Twilley's Freedom Spirit in the colour Desire, which I got on eBay for about £2.00 and which will do for a pair of gloves. I took this photo from a different angle and it has made a difference to the outcome - look at the difference in the colour of the tissue paper's purple colour in the two pics; the bottom photo shows more like the true colour, and the yarn shade is practically spot-on here too:


It is Thursday and I have a meeting at 3pm at the women's hostel where I am starting voluntary work next week. I'm going into Newcastle afterwards to replenish some essentials at Lush and Fenwicks. For the bathroom, we need some shower gel and shampoo, we normally get something like Happy Hippy and Tramp because they smell nice enough for me to find them acceptable but without being feminine because obviously Rob and Josh use them too. I desperately need some conditioner for my yak-like hair, which tends to coarsen up in the winter. While I am promoting Lush here I may as well mention that it is possible to buy old favourites which are discontinued for the stores but are available online. It used to be the case that they would only make a batch once enough people had put in an advance order, but they were so popular that they are now available all the time. My favourites are Narcotik and Happy For S.A.D. both shower gels, and Reincarnate, a sort of hair treat for dark hair. I need some ink for my proper pen too, as I am sick of using crappy little biros which make one's handwriting look like a school child's.

As I have spent so much time waffling on about - and looking up the URL's for - Lush products etc. I no longer have any more time, so I will have to leave it here and get a move on, as I am not even properly dressed yet! How blogging sucks your life away!

Oh....and it is 'Bonfire Night' this evening so we will have to put up with the noise of loads of fireworks.

LATER......I was right about the noise.

And I wanted to mention something that wants me to put my foot through the TV....it is the advert for the new album by 'The Soldiers'...something about this is somehow wrong. Serving soldiers basically taking advantage of the 'War Against Terror' (as governments of the United States of Amerbritanica call it) to sell records. Is it right to make money out of the fact innocent people are dying just so the West can control the oil reserves in the Middle East? Is this somehow hero-worshipping men who have chosen to do a job which involves killing and maming and destroying in the name of 'Peace'? The actual advert itself is so...what the Americans call schmalzy....it makes me want to pick the TV up and throw it through the window of No.10 Downing Street. It just shows how thick the majority of the conformist consumerist British public are, that they would disagree with the War yet still buy the album, which raises money for 'the wounded' (presumably British wounded rather than Afghani or Iraqi wounded?) The album I called 'Coming home' and I won't go into a psychological explanation about how this title in itself would be cathartic for a target audience consisting mainly of people who are unfulfilled and who use transient objects and material gratification to feel a sense of contentment and 'rightness'. Unsurprisingly it has its own website and the fact it is top of the list when you run a search for 'The Soldiers' and 2nd top of the list for 'soliders' basically says it all for me and makes me feel that there is something very very wrong with the world and that we have our prioroities completely skewed.

As I write I am watching Dragon's Den on TV, and I am absolutely gobsmacked to see one of the people pitching for money to develop a product which you attach to the bottom of a pram and which rocks the pram foryou.....um, isn't that what we have arms for (I don't mean to rock the pram but to hold the baby!!) How much time and effort is devoted to contraptions to save parents from having to hold or even touch their infants? I'm sure this is directly proportional to the number of children being treated with drugs for depression, ADHD etc. I'm sure there will be a future post dedicated solely to this on my blog soon, given that I am now going to be working with women who have - many of them - grown up in 'Care'.

I went for my visit at F.House today and my god, I knew it would be grim but I wasn't counting on being able to pick up so many of the vibes from those poor women. Yes, it is a 'safe place' for them, but although it is, essentially, their home, it is still, whichever way you dress it up or paint the walls a trendy colour or put a nice rug in the lounge, institutionalising them. Nicola, who I will be working with at first, said there is a real problem of getting the right balance, i.e letting them stay there long enough to try to get themselves sorted and for some get their heads together, but without them staying so long that they become dependent on the place and the staff and wouldn't be able to cope without it. I met a few of the clients, one woman about my age (but looking fifteen years older) and another who had only got out of bed to get her medication...and another who looked about 14 (but had to be over 18) who just looked completely shellshocked and bewildered at being there. But the staff are lovely: like me, down-to-earth and realistic with an (appropriate) sense of humour. I think it will be okay there and I might even apply for a full time position after my training in the New Year. Well, I was told the rules etc. and I start next Wednesday evening and will be doing Wednesday/Thursday alternately at first while I am still having to be 'shadowed' (due to CRB check not through yet as it has only been a week or two)

I am wasting valuable yarning time again!

I am not liking the Baktus

I just bought a gorgeous skein of laceweight lambswool/cashmere from Wild Fire Fibres - on Etsy - at what is actually a very reasonable price comparable with, say, Araucania. I'd rather support smaller businesses and have yarns which come in amazing colour schemes. I couldn't resist the colour, a rich deep bluey purple, and its name - Atlantic Ocean. It is so me.

After knitting halfheartedly several rows per day of my Rowanspun Batus, I have decided my heart isn't in it. I don't think it's the Baktus itself, although I do prefer triangular scarves to be made of thin, brightly coloured and patterned cotton or silk fabric rather than yarn. No, I have decided I just don't think that Rowanspun is right for this particular scarf. Also, I think the problem is, since I discovered lace, I need to have charts, charts, CHARTS!!!

So...unfortunatey the Baktus will be frogged. The rest of the Rowanspun is headed for eBay. I am gradually de-stashing my brand name yarns to make room - and cash! - for gorgeous handpainted stuff on Etsy and a few tiny yarn businesses.

I'm almost finished the first of the Mirasol Hacho Express Lane socks. Easy pattern to remember. I added an extra purl stitch at either side of the chart to make 16, as I needed to cast on 64 for a cuff-down sock (I HATE toe-up socks) I am not following the pattern but simply using the chart. The generic sock pattern is adapted from Monkeys. Hacho is turning out to be quite thick for socks, I like Chirapa for ideal-weight socks,but since it is now cold here I reckon I'm going to need thick socks, sheepskin boots or not! Time to put the sandals away. I live in them from April to September - when I go outside, that is, as we are very much a barefooted household.

Tomorrow is Saturday,a very gezelig kinda day, with late coffee-drenched breakfast and the Guardian. I will finish the socks then do a bit more of Kernel - I can imagine making something similar with my Atlantic Ocean yarn....oh,so much yarn,so many patterns, so little time!

I am re-reading "The Road" partly because the film has at long last come out. Not here - yet. But I can't wait. I've seen some trailers and am a bit disappointed,partly because the Boy is older than I imagined from reading the book - just the way he talks and so on should make him about 7, but in the film he looks like 10-ish. And one major difference, which I feel is important, in the book the Father never actually points the gun at the Boy he wonders whether he would be able to do it if the time came - and he does tell the Boy at one point to use it if he has to,and tells him what to do. But it is a major theme in the book that he possibly does not have it in him to do so himself. also, in the book they get out oif the cannibals' house before they come back - in the film they are stranded in the house (leading to the gun-pointing incident) and have to sneak out undetected. Well, it's always the same when you read a book - and particularly when it is a favourite and much read and re-read book - then it is made into a film (or 'movie' - CRINGE) and the film doesn't live up to your images from reading the book.

I have just put a dent in a bag of toffees.......