Backwards In High Heels

I Must Be Wicked...

I must be wicked because I am not going to get any rest.

I woke up this morning feeling as if the stuffing had been knocked out of me. I am hormonally challenged (listening to the scurrying as the menfolk take cover), there is the cloud over what to do regarding Zuzu's illness and the general doom and gloom in so much news related to me of late.

But I didn't have long to feel like this as the phone went. Could we take three emergency hand rears born last night. The answer was of course yes and we got ready for their arrival. And when they arrived they had multiplied...to SIX! I couldn't believe it. They are very, very tiny - quite unlike Bomber and Bruiser, in fact you'd have to put two of these together to get close to size of B&B as newborns.

As you will see from the picture on the left (click the pictures for full size shots) we have an array of colours this time. Two black, one brindle, one ginger, one ginger & white and a white and tortie who is the runt of the litter.

And to give you an idea of just how tiny they are, the photo on the right shows one of them in the palm of my mum's hand (excuse the paint!)

Whether we can keep them going, well it is a matter of hope more than anything at this stage. They are very fragile.

As they are so small we are having to syringe feed them every two hours. They are too tiny to take to the bottle well and by syringing we can ensure they are all receiving a measured amount.

Yes Pete Doherty, syringes can be used for the power of good.

So more long nights and disturbed sleep...what a great excuse to watch more Big Brother...I may even enter Quizmania.

Elsewhere in my Kitten creche, Bomber and Bruiser have been promoted to the penthouse suite. It is hard to believe these little porkers aren't even four weeks old yet. They are so spritely, and are now getting to grips with their legs - hey there are four to co-ordinate all at one, you lot took months to master two. Here are my stars:

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Tech Tags: cats, kittens, hand+rearing, Big+Brother, Quizmania, lack+of+sleep, kitten+video

I Heard It Through The Penines

First of all, thanks to everyone for their kind and thoughtful messages after yesterday's news about Zuzu. She is as perky as ever, the beauty of all this being she hasn't a clue. We've discussed all the options open to us and are thankfully blessed with a great vets so we know whatever next week brings us, well we will all be supported whatever the outcome, most importantly Zuzu.

Today has been more gloomy still as Gran rang up with her morning dead and dying report. But unlike usual, when it is people I don't know, today it was the sudden death of an old school friend's brother. It appears to have been meningitis and he was just 35 with a family of his own. All deaths are inherently painful but having lost a number of family and friends suddenly at young ages myself, I can truly sympathise with how his nearest and dearest must be suffering and my heart goes out to them.

But of course in the realms of local gossip this is just today's fodder and at first I wasn't even sure Gran had the right person and it may have been his cousin. As I've mentioned before in the blog, truth and validity appears way down the scale of local gossip requirements. I am not being pious or exonerating myself from the gossip mongers as I know I am very easily one myself. I am a hypocrite, but a reasonably honest one at that.

It's not only the stars in the tabloids who hear ridiculous stories about themselves. Here are a few I've heard regarding myself and family over the last few years (even after I moved from Yorkshire eight years ago, local friends kept me updated on what I am supposedly doing). So to clarify

1 - In 1992 at university I got a panicky phone call from an old school friend KateW. Was I alright now I was pregnant? KarenW had phoned her to tell her how I was with child. Firstly KarenW couldn't be bothered to utter 'hello' to KateW in all our school years yet felt the need two years later to track down her phone number to have a full conversation about me.  As it happened I already knew (direct from the horses mouth) that another classmate, also called Rebecca, was expecting but chinese whispers had played their part.

It took me half an hour to convince KateW this was the fact. Somehow the missive of the gossip actually carried more weight than my own protests. I know I'm a bit rotund but trust me, it is not because I've been refusing to give birth for the last 14 years.

2 - I am not in a coma. About ten years ago my grandparents got a phonecall to say how sorry the caller was that I was in intensive care after a car crash. I was a surly teenager at times but they would have noticed if I was in a coma. I have had the good fortune so far in life to never have been in a car crash of any proportion yet still comes no3:

3 - I am not dead. A year after it was reported I had been in a coma, I was then killed off in a car crash. The gossips were determined a vehicle would get me. Not only was I supposedly dead, I had the indignity of being killed in a car crash in a town which is the fart from God's bottom (a place I hadn't been to in, ooh, ten years at least!).

4 - We did not move because Mum only had months to live due to a brain tumour - how the heck they came up with that one?! However, this piece of gossip gladdened Mum as she was flattered they thought she had a brain in the first place.

5 - I am not getting married on television. I have been on Bargain Hunt, but somehow this piece of news travelled the Yorkshire Dales and was represented to Gran in the form that I was having a live wedding on the BBC. I know its disgusting, we pay all that money for a licence fee and still the Beeb can't be bothered to find me a groom and pay for a slap up do, but what can you do about it?

6 - And this myth I am loathe to dispel as it is my favourite to have done the rounds. We didn't move because we won the lottery. Well not unless you count the odd ten pounds.  I do not have a secret stash of millions under my mattress. My numbers have not come up, it wasn't me.  I wish it was though.    

Tech Tags: gossip

Feeling Like Shit

I've always thought just go with the most appropriate title.

Zuzu (on the right) is a cat we rescued just over two years ago and subsequently adopted. She is a Persian and is the most lovable, loving, ditsy, fantastic cat.

In the last two days her fur has started to fall out and today bald spots appeared so panic alarms rang. This wasn't excessive malting, she had no skin complaints etc so it was a dash this afternoon to the vets.

Having done cat welfare for so long we are in the dangerous position of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. There are not many conditions we haven't come across. I got it into my head it may be a thyroid problem, she has lost a little weight but no other symptoms per se. I thought something not nice was happening, but something an operation and medication could battle - we have had a thyroid cat before.

So it has been a bombshell as the vet can feel a growth in her stomach and we have been told to expect the worse. She goes in for an exploratory operation next Thursday with their best surgeon. Until then I plan for her to have a normal week of being treated like a Princess and no doubt there will be more tears - this is the tough end of caring for pets.