Our local stray, Random Cat, has been accused of having problems with his left eye. Wednesday, it was seen to be leaking pus and ickiness, so this morning he was escorted to the V - E - T.

Now, since I’d had a conversation with my mother-in-law about transport and such, which Random overheard, he hadn’t been back here for food. It got to 06:50 this morning (his appointment was booked for 11:10) before he turned up at the restaurant door. He just cat-loafs outside the back door until someone feeds him, it’s quite endearing.

Anyway, I ceased to leave for work, and assisted in the cat-napping of the tabby individual. This picture shows how terrified he is to be Inside and trapped. It was heart-rending to hear him cry and see how scared he was.
He was duly examined by the Vet and pronounced to have a grass seed wedged in his left eye. Ouch indeed. With the application of a local anaesthetic and the skilful wielding of medical pliers, a removal was attempted. Sadly the seed remained lodged. Should this continue to be the case, an operation will be performed on Monday to remove the offending article. Poor Random.
A bottle of eyedrops was prescribed, with instructions to instil them four times daily. So far, he has one drop administered, and he took it without a whimper. I was impressed.

The decision was made to keep him in the spare room for the weekend, as attempting to locate our Littlest Hobo four times daily would be impossible. He actually seems comfortable and contented, which is a far cry from the expected situation. He is currently happily and purrily curled up in a cat bed and looking ridiculously cute.

I don’t think he’s a stray cat any more.

..are now over. Well, they were over at about 11am on Wednesday, but it has taken me this long to get round to saying thankyou for all the kind wishes from my friends. Thank ye muchly, you lot, it cheered me up no end.

I’ve spent the last couple of days whining and complaining about discomfort and being full of Carbon Dioxide (you get inflated so the surgeon can have a really good look). It is not an experience I wish to repeat.

I’m thoroughly disgusted with myself for being such a wuss - it wasn’t nearly as bad as my imagination had assured me it would be. When I came round I was severely dizzy - worse than my vertigo episode of a few months back - and thrashed around insensibly for a while. Most embarrassing. Once I’d thrown up, I was fine.

Result of the operation was cheering though: all is well in the internet department (my series of tubes is fine).

Had a slight panic today when I realised that I had a temperature, and according to my leaflet from the hospital, this is a Bad Sign. I trundled (very very slowly) to the doctor, who gave me a script for some antibiotics, as an infection would be a Bad Thing.

I’m hot and dizzy now, and have thrown up what I ate for dinner. It’s unclear whether this was the antibiotics disagreeing with me (it wouldn’t surprise me), or just a temperature artifact.

Hopefully all systems will be fully operational shortly, and I can stop feeling sorry for myself

Yet again I’m stealing wi-fi in order to foist my opinions upon the world. I’m perched upon the sofa of my mother-in-law, fretting and eeking about the fact that I have a very minor operation scheduled for 07.45 tomorrow. Not that I want it to be a major op. I’ve just never been operated on before, and to be perfectly frank, I don’t really want to start.
I’m due to have a laparoscopy to attempt to understand why the manufacture of later versions of philb is failing. And I’m scared stupid.
On the plus side, I’ve just read ‘Some Lovely Islands’ by Leslie Thomas, and the urge to traverse the Wild Places has returned with a vengeance. I miss the loneliness of Mull and the friendliness of Mull, all at the same time. Coming back to Holyport felt like leaving home. But it was good to see the Mogret again.

Much to Mogret’s disgust, I have given her the Wrong Food to eat this morning. What is wrong with me? Can’t I see that it is clearly inedible? Am I trying to poison her?

It’s amazing just how many expressions of digust and horror she manages to wrangle her little splotchy face into.

Sadly, for Mogret, no amount of prancing and wailing is going to make the slightest difference this morning. That can of poison was the last cat-feeding material that I have, as I have not been shopping this week.

I expect I’ll come home tonight to find her chasing an albatross around the room. Or a small pile of stomachs sitting on the garden path. This probably requires explanation: she consumes mice and baby birds and neatly leaves the stomach on the path. She won’t tell us why.

This week has been the longest,emptiest week of them all: philb is living at his mum’s house while she is on the Isle of Mull. His mum has two cats, one of whom requires medicating with accuracy and timing. We have one cat (and a half, I suppose as Random still treats this place like a restaurant), who requires the world on a plate, and subservient humans available at all times for reassurance purposes. Therefore, the Braggs are temporarily parted in the interests of cat-maintenance.

There has been a small spot of excitement though, in the arrival of my new Nokia 9300i. I wanted something suitable for reading pdfs on the train. I was not bothered about the lack of a camera, seeing as I generally carry my optio s4 around. I was mildly intrigued, and philb twitching with excitement about, the possibilities of a wireless LAN connection.

I have been most impressed so far: the interface is nice, the screen is glorious and all looks promising. I have crammed it full of my Open University textbooks in pdf format (the entire reason for the purchase) and will give it a thorough test on the train today.

We were rudely awoken by a cat this morning. This is a normal occurrence; what made this morning different was that it wasn’t Mogret that woke us. It was Random Cat.

There was a tinkly shattering noise from the kitchen at about 05:10 this morning. The alarm clock was not due to summon us from sleep until 05:40. That fact alone was enough to warrant grumbling but we both traipsed blearily downstairs… to hear a miowing that is truly distinctive.

For reasons best known only to Random, he had busted his way in through the cat-flap (we lock the Mog in at night as she is impossible to see and has no road sense) and was now yelling frantically from the middle of the living room.

I let him out the back door and he shot gratefully down the garden path to freedom, only to return seconds later when I put some food into the outside cat-bowl. He let me stroke him, despite his traumatic imprisonment, and all is well.

Given Random’s fear of being trapped inside anything, I’m a bit confused as to why he would break into our house. It shouldn’t have been for reasons of hunger: he was fed yesterday morning. I’m pleased to report that there was no antagonism between the two cats: what woke us was the mug he broke when trying to escape the kitchen, not the normal yelling you get when two cats meet.

Still, he’s a nice cat, if a little shrill, and it would be nice if he adopted us permanently. Once has has conquered his fear of being Inside Things.

Today we went to Swansea. And back. To pick up a broken synth from a very nice man.

We left our house at 8:20 this morning, and arrived in Swansea at 12:05. Which isn’t too bad, seeing as there was a rail replacement coach between Cardiff and Swansea.

We spent the afternoon bimbling around Oystermouth and the Mumbles. We had the nicest icecream ever, at Joe’s Icecream Parlour. Seriously, if you happen to find yourself anywhere near one of these parlours, do indulge.

The journey back was nowhere near as pleasant: we left Swansea at 16:45 and arrived home at 22:02. Again, the journey was lengthened by the Swansea-Cardiff section being traversed by coach. Just outside Didcot in Oxfordshire, there was a long wait whilst a trackside fatality was dealt with by the British Transport Police. We should have been home by 20:45. I suppose, in the circumstances, we should be grateful that we were able to return home at all. Someone didn’t…

Mogret, of course, was most put out: she dislikes changes in routine and we were not there to open the cat food for her. I swear she was on the verge of reporting us to the RSPCA for cruelty. She has now eaten and flounced off to sleep on our bed. Which we should also do. Minus the flouncing: I’m too tired to flounce tonight.

Words cannot describe the sheer elation we feel right now. Random cat has been found and safely relocated back here.

About 20:15 this evening, we had a phonecall from the vet to say that Random had been spotted in their car park and that they would try and keep his attention until we could get there. I have never cycled 5 miles quite so fast in my life. By the time we got down there, they had managed to trap him and he was in one of their cages.

I asked the vet to scan for RFID tags; he has none. Not that this necessarily means he’s homeless, but it’s unusual for a cat not to be chipped.
We then had the problem of how to get a cat home on a bicycle, but luckily Phil’s friend Paul drove us home, with Random yelling all the way.

I feel very very lucky right now.

Random Cat has eaten more food, purred and been stroked (so he doesn’t hate me, at least) and is now wandering the streets of Holyport. We were going to keep him in, but he was so distressed at being captive, that we thought it best to leave him outside, where he is happy.

I wish more than anything that I hadn’t tried to take Random Cat to the vet. He escaped from the cat box in the car park, and is now lost and alone in a strange town. Words cannot describe how awful I feel. He’s such a timid cat that even if anyone sees him, he won’t let them near. We have been scouring around the area for the last two hours. The very worst thing is that we didn’t know for sure if he was a stray or not, so I may have just lost someone’s cat.

I wish life came with an ‘undo’ button.

Well, there’s a thing. In this post I mentioned that we had received an Easter card intended for another set of Braggs entirely.

I was kindly directed to a Rhiannon Bragg on friendsreunited by ShadowTail, who posted a comment on my blog.

£7.50 later and I sent off a message…

I received a reply, and bingo! Owner located!

Weirdly, they live about 100 metres away, round the corner. So we popped over with the card..

Thank you lazyweb! That seriously made my day.

I mentioned some time back about having to have a tooth extracted shortly. Well, the day of DOOM was yesterday. I spent most of the previous night, and most of yesterday, in a state of wide-eyed terror. Luckily one of our directors had a (home) PC full of nasties that needed cleaning out, so I didn’t have to do any actual think-work. Just as well really, as my brain was too full of “eeeeeeek!” to actually do anything useful.

The whole tooth-removal process took half an hour, as the tooth was reluctant to leave me, and I spent that entire time crying like a baby and shaking. It was pathetic. I’m not actually afraid of the pain, I think it’s more a case of the lack of control, and the fact that I have a vivid imagination and sit there imagining all sorts of horrible dentistry accidents. One slip of that drill…. *shudder*

The net result was a tooth-count-decremented, ghostly-pale, teary, wobbly heap of a woman. I was deemed unfit to cycle the four or so miles home. So, my dentist bundled my bicycle into the back of his estate car, and drove me home. You certainly don’t get service like that on the NHS!

Seriously, he is a fantastic dentist and does his best to reassure the nervous (terrified) client. He’s so patient and comforting that I almost feel guilty for being so scared. I shall write and thank him, as his excellent customer care was most appreciated, and people don’t get thanked enough, I find.

In other news, I’d like one of these please.