After a hiatus of several months...well...years I believe, Ms Monkey is back with her irreverent views on life and all that shizzle.
And so a quick review of what's been happening in the last year...and what a year it has been. There have been some amazing highs and some quite unbelievable lows. But, let's put those miserable bits aside and look at some of the fabulous highlights. The main highlight is that I ain't dead yet! Bits of me still keep breaking down but that's par for the course really. If our robot overlords ever do privatise our beloved NHS, I should be a shoe in for shares under a frequent flyer scheme! More trouble with my eyes, daily migraines and a bladder trying to jump ship for pastures new! But apart from that I am in rude health (that just means that I swear about my aches and pains a lot more). I have made some concessions to my advancing years; cut down my sugar, cut down my caffeine and taken up more exercise. Now that sounds a lot healthier than it actually is, I still have a cup of tea of a morning and if someone dangles the temptation of a cuba libre, or some other cola based cocktail under my nose, then I'm not going to say no...caffeine and sugar: divine decadence!
As for the exercise, well, the dog walking is non-existent these days. Lolli is decidedly ancient now and is not exactly enthusiastic when it comes to leaving the house. This includes leaving the house to use the facilities, as it were. The other day she peed on the damn sofa (thank goth for washable covers!) and I now have a mop on permanent standby. When she does go out, she point blank refuses to go on the grass (what old lady wants soggy feet?) and so our back passageway has become dog shit alley, which adds an almost Indiana Jones quality to any venture into the garden. Sadly, it's time to accept that the old girl won't be with us for much longer. I have thought about getting another dog but I'm not convinced it would be the best thing for her. Like any old lady (and doubly so because she's a Jack Russell), she is stubborn, bad tempered and set in her ways. Introducing a puppy (I want a creature that can be trained for once!) would not be conducive to the peace and quiet that she craves.
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| Lolli in her natural state...asleep! |
There have been some changes on the moggie front. Our elder statesman, Po, passed away peacefully and is now buried in the garden along with the ashes of his brother Dipsy. We had a new addition to the house, in the form of Midnight. A beautiful, black stray, who was so affectionate. Sadly, she had cancer and passed a couple of months after coming to us. And so now we are down to five, with no plans to increase that number at the moment. And so the cat mafia currently consists of our elder gentleman (too much of a thug to call statesman like), Tyson. He's now at the grand old age of seventeen, but shows little sign of slowing down. He spends most of his time asleep on youngest son's bed...along with youngest son. Spitfire; small, white, puffball, is still the arch huntress, despite her sixteen years. This summer she brought me back a couple of squirrels...not what you expect to find on the dining room floor of a morning! Now, I've been wanting to try squirrel meat for a while but these two were crawling with parasites and, bearing in mind that Spitfire normally eats everything that she catches (apart from rats...she draws the line there. Far better to leave them in a strategic place so that her mistress can step on them first thing in the morning), I decided that a wheelie bin burial would be more appropriate.
Jake (AKA The Big Black Fluff Ball of Malevolence), is still a vicious c***! Since he's had the snip, he has grown massive and could probably take down an elk, if he set his mind to it. Certainly, a puny human is of little concern to this monstrosity. He's had a recent brush with the grim reaper, after crystals formed in his urinary tract and he ended up with kidney failure. A pipe up his pee hole, a prolonged stay at the vet's, drugged up to the eyeballs, and a change of diet, and he's back to his foul tempered best. Despite my warnings of potential dismemberment, his ill health led to him being utterly charming with the staff at the vet's office. They still enquire as to his well being whenever I drop in with one of the other beasties...who would have thought?
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| Did you ever see anything so pathetic? |
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| Look at the size of those pupils, that's some drug cocktail! But it does make him look utterly adorable, think Puss in Boots! This is why the veterinary nurses fell in love with him...they don't know him like we do! |
And then there are the twins, Isabel and Sebastian. I say twins, but they are like chalk and cheese. Sebastian is a cushion loving, snooze monster, who still hates anybody touching his head. This odd peculiarity is not easily explained. We've had him since he kitten and know that he came from a very loving home. He has never been mistreated in his short, pampered existence and yet he shies away from any form of contact with his head. I suppose, like every one else in The Monkey House, he's just an oddball!
And that brings us on to Isabel. Isabel decided to play chicken with a car and the car won! She was found by a neighbour, in the bushes by the side of the road. She was unable to move her backend and was hissing at anyone who came near her. A quick dash to the vets confirmed that she was in a very bad way. She was completely paralysed from the waist down and in considerable pain. The vet told us that if she survived, she would likely have some level of paralysis. Now, as you know dear reader, we are no strangers to disability in The Monkey House and so we decided that we were ably placed to offer her a fantastic quality of life, legs or not. On that basis, the vet sedated her and x-rayed the damage. The good news was that he couldn't see any spinal damage but that her pelvis was broken. However, the vet was dubious as to whether she would even survive the night. So we left her, unconscious and attached to various tubes, with a promise from the vet to call us with any developments. The following morning, the vet rang to say that she had made it through the night. At lunchtime, he rang up to say that she was awake and seriously pissed off! She had trashed her cage and bitten through her drips...would we like to come and pick her up...please? And so she came home, dragging her back end and pissing and shitting all over herself. And so, I became an enthusiastic watcher of YouTube videos on wheeled kitties (yes, that is a thing), an avid reader of forums for quadriplegic cats (that is also a thing) and a potential DIYer of cat wheelchairs (yup, another thing). However, after a week, it became apparent that at least one of her legs was functioning and Isabel became a tripod! Within a fortnight she could toilet herself and was getting some movement back in her gimpy leg. And so here we are, eighteen months later, and she is now skittering about like a looney. She can jump up about four feet and is an agile climber, although she much prefers to be picked up by a handy human. She has not gained full use of her wonky leg and her tail is permanently kinked but she's very much alive and kicking...especially if you scratch her neck! Her nerve damage means that she instantly kicks her wonky leg like a dog in the extremis of its pleasure...not that I do that to her often (all the time)!
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| Look into my eyes...you are feeling sleepy...but not sleepy enough that you can't open a tin of tuna! |
And now the important people have been dealt with, let us move on to the children. Well, eldest Monkey obtained his BTEC with distinction and has now fled the nest to do his degree in business studies. His quest for pastures new has taken him thousands of yards away from home. He's moved to the big city of Truro. Not quite ready to flee that far from the nest then...This is not just a term time move, but a permanent one. He is now, officially, a grown up. It was a little strange, not having him underfoot, but as he spent most of his life attached to a screen, there has been little damage to the conversation levels...and I now look forward to cheaper electricity bills! He did come back for Christmas, but I still ended up mostly in the company of felines and foul smelling hound. Ho, ho ho!
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| The lesser spotted Prone Monkey, minus the surgically attached screen |
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| Champion! |
Youngest Monkey boy has had an odd year, which started with so much promise and ended in acute distress. He had been studying an NVQ in horse care at the local stables where he attended Riding for the Disabled. He was competing with RDA and swept the board in both County and Regional competitions, even winning The Challenge Cup for the best Countryside Challenge score of the year. This enabled him to compete at the National Championships in both dressage and Countryside and he did fantastically well, achieving a second and fourth respectively. But after that things went down hill when it emerged that several disturbing incidents had taken place, with Monkey Boy at the shitty end of the stick. Without going into detail, he has been left with on going mental health issues and because of the perpetrator's ongoing contact with the stables, his dreams in tatters. Possibly because of his autism, possibly because of his mental health, his love affair with horses is currently over. I'm angry. I'm angry for a variety of reasons and frustrated at the lack of support he has been given after the Social Services/Police bandwagon has gone. But perhaps this is for another post. I just hope that one day he can look back at his achievements with pride.
And so on to me...what have I been up to? Well, There's been wild swimming, celebrity encounters, hospital visits, crab fishing, foraging, decorating and a potential new business. But this post has been a little long winded and verbose, time to end. Now, dear friends, we are up to date. Let the monkey business commence!
