Wait, What?

Although I miss my cats, Grumpy and Dopey, I do not want the commitment of being a slave pet owner for the foreseeable future. I do however, have a permanent reminder, courtesy of Dopey, in the form of a scar on one of my feet.

I'd returned home from work around lunchtime one day, and as it was summer time, the first thing I did was to open the kitchen door and the door to the conservatory to let some fresh air into the house.

After changing out of my uniform into shorts, t-shirt and flip flops, I sat down to chill out for a while with my iPad, catching up on the news, Facebook, emails, yada yada. Then I heard Dopey making the uh-oh-I'm-going-to-chuck-up noise.

I jumped up, ran into the kitchen to grab the kitchen towel, saw her crouching in the conservatory and moved swiftly to place the towel on the floor in front of her.

What I didn't see, was that she'd already thrown up in the doorway. The reason for this oversight was due to the disgustingly patterned kitchen flooring that had came from an era that taste forgot. I can only think that the previous owners of my house were either a)colour blind or b)got the flooring on the cheap and thought, "Meh, that'll do". It was truly vile (and I lost no time in ripping it up after the demise of both of the cats).

My flip-flopped right foot slid on the pile of puke, causing me to look like something out of a cartoon with arms windmilling. I then bounced against the side of the kitchen worktop and my left foot shot forward and wedged itself underneath the lip of the door.

An aluminium door that sliced my foot open a treat.

The only way to remove my foot was to pull it backwards, which opened up the wound further - and yes, there were a copious amount of obscenities uttered.

I realised I needed to get to hospital so it could be stitched and that I needed help to get there, but as it was a Saturday, was Youngest Daughter at home?

Of course not.

So I looked for my phone. Was it in the kitchen with me?

Of course not.

With a fair amount of, "Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck," to be heard, I sort of hopped to the living room, dripping blood all over the place, grabbed my phone and called Youngest Daughter. Did she answer?

Of course not.

I lost count of the amount of times I tried calling her, getting more and more irritated that she wasn't answering.

So, Plan A had to be abandoned, therefore I had to turn to Plan B: Phone A Friend.

Thankfully, I managed to get hold of my friend, Blunt One ("Fuck me, that looks awful!"), who drove me to A & E and stayed until Youngest Daughter eventually turned up.

After being triaged, watching the raised eyebrows after explaining exactly how it happened ("Cat vomit? Cat?! Vomit?!"), x-rayed to make sure there were no bits of aluminium door in my foot, I then got shown into a room where a doctor was going to stitch it up.

He was quite chatty with Youngest Daughter and I while he was cleaning my wound and during the course of our conversation, I told him I'd never had stitches before. He had to pop out of the room to get something or another, but as he stood in the doorway, with a grin on his face he said, "Don't worry, you will enjoy it!" And then he swept out of the room, with the door closing behind him.

*Blink*

What?

Youngest Daughter and I picked our respective jaws up off the floor, looked at each other in stunned surprise, in a wtf? sort of way, then burst out laughing.

I can't say that I actually enjoyed getting four stitches in my foot, but every time I look at the scar I hear the words, "Don't worry, you will enjoy it!"

And it makes me laugh.

Dust Bunnies... and some

I thought it was about time to blow all the muck off this blog after letting it languish for so long and goodness me, there was a lot of it – I’m still coughing up dust bunnies. Ugh.

What’s prompted this return? Well, I’ve recently spent a while reading through my previous posts and it made me realise how much I actually miss writing. So, although I feel somewhat rusty, part of my brain is shaking off the dust shrouds, my fingers are limbering up, and my keyboard is saying, “Hold on, you want me to actually DO something? Wtf?”

As it’s been so long (sorrynotsorry), naturally there have been a few changes around these parts, so I’ll bring you up to speed on some of it.

Eldest Daughter still lives in Australia – this year is the tenth anniversary of her moving there (ten years! Ten! Where has the time gone?). In addition to my granddaughter, Twinkle, I now also have a grandson, Honk – named because instead of saying Hulk smash! he says Honk smash! 

Youngest Daughter is all loved up and engaged to Skywalker. They live in a house not too far from here with their mad cat, Nutjob, which means…

I have an empty nest.

And…

I LOVE IT!

It took a little adjusting to, but after ooh, I don’t know, a couple of days about a week or so, I was deeply appreciative of no washing up waiting to be done (I do not have a dishwasher to load, I am the dishwasher), not queuing for the bathroom, not tripping over shoes/bags/any other shit paraphernalia, not watching weird crap on the tv, and not coming home from work to find Skywalker’s used Calvin Klein underwear on top of the kitchen bin (me: Wtf?! Ewwwwww!)

I could go on, but I’m sure you get the picture.

Not having been truly on my own since about the age of sixteen (by which I mean relationships and children), I’ve discovered that I am happy and content with my own company. I can do what I want, when I want.

It’s now just over nine years since Significant Other died, and while my official status is still classed as widowed, I tend to think of myself as single these days. And comfortable to be so. Having said that, my thinking about friendship and love still holds true.

And so on to Grumpy and Dopey.

Four years ago Grumpy sadly took a one way journey to the vet after reaching the grand old age of twenty, followed, equally sadly a year later, by Dopey, aged seventeen. Although they were much missed, I decided not to get any more cats, partly because of my job and partly because I just don’t want to. At some point in the future I might, but I’m not quite at the crazy old cat lady stage. Yet.

I think that’s enough for the time being, I don’t want to overdo it, besides, dinner is in the oven and my book, my gin and tonic and my sofa are calling to me.

Just call me Lady Muck of the Sofa.