It was raining quite heavily overnight in Cornwall, well to be honest it was chucking it down! Wind, rain, loads of noise, cold and horrid basically……. I was awake about 4.30, so I truddles off into the front room to do a bit, as you do, gave the cats a few treats on the way…..a bit of stitching,
I’m in the middle of hand quilting a sample for next years workshops around the shows, my bight idea, new templates, beginners hand quilting, make a small drawstring bag using ribbon. Lovely. Well, it should have been.
After about an hour I’ve got to the point where I need to threadle the ribbon around the top edge of a hand quilted circular piece of work, I didn’t have the right bodkin or the right safety pin, they being in my Therapy Cupboard, so I’m thinking I’ll do that later and packs my stitching up into a little heap, hides the threads and ribbon within my work as usual.
I then sit wrapped in a fleece and dozed in the chair. Lovely…….. until I hear this real weird sound in the dark, it brought me out of my doze in a bit of a fuzz, what was it? Sounded like the most almighty dripping, it raining and such, I immediately think, here we go, the roofs having a moment. (we live in an old bungalow)
I’m in the habit of having my mobile phone to hand at night, I use the torch facility on it to aid my wanderings so I don’t wake people up. I grabbed the phone, turned the light on, pointed it in the direction of the dripping to see one of our cats looking at me, swallowing hard in a regular motion, about 3″ of bright purple 6mm ribbon hanging from his mouth and disappearing fast!! By the time I’d launched myself at him it was gone, as was the cat, rapidly out of the door into the kitchen, he’d succeeded in waking me and was very pleased to be asking for more breakfast!
Well, our ‘little’ Grey cat is a bit of a toad really, he chews things, rips and spits just about anything, he particularly likes card & paper (he’s disposed of bills before now, useful until you get a copy in a pretty red print sent to you) Plants and flowers, well, lots of them are poisonous to cats, so there hasn’t been any in our house for at least 7 years now.
Ribbon is a first for him though as I’m absolutely hyper about threads and string and long lengths as if ingested, they can get trapped in the gut, undigested they pass on through and can cause ruptures and death of small furry friends. My friends cat passed away to a length of polyester thread like a cheese wire, I try only ever to use cotton because of this.
So, what to do, well my first thought is how do you make him ill, off to my animal medical volume, apparently peroxide at 3%…… google, peroxide at 3%. Well that’s not happening, because I haven’t any and I really wouldn’t trust myself if I did. (did I mention this ribbon is about 20″ long?!!!)
6.30am I’m on the phone to the vets, 6.50am we’re at the vets. Poor hubby has been woken from a jolly snooze, ordered about and directed in the plan I’ve hatched for the capture of Grey to be put in a carry basket. Then made to sit and talk nice noises at Grey as I drove to the vets in the aforementioned wind and rain and noise and idiot drivers. (me being the idiot driver as I’m on a mission, I’m so glad the roads were really quiet!)
The vet is blurry eyed with a Grey cat growling at her, he’s taken offence to the needle in the back of the neck to make him feel really rather ill. It didn’t work (hubby is fussing Grey and crooning nice calming sounds at him…..me? I’m feeling ill…..). Another needle of a different variety in his bum this time, now he’s growling, hissing and spitting at the vet…….didn’t work. I dread to think how poorly Grey must have been feeling by now, but he steadfastly refused to be ill, he was keeping his purple ribbon to himself.
At 7.40am we had to leave Grey at the vets to have an operation to remove the purple ribbon forcibly…. I’m sure the vet didn’t believe me when I’d told her how long it was, but had decided better safe than sorry, apparently it takes 2hours for it to start passing into the small intestine…….
11.30am and I’m just so relieved to be speaking to the vet who’s astounded how long the ribbon was and that yes, it was purple…… and that it would have killed him had they not operated……..
I get to go and pick him up in a couple of hours time, I have to pay the bill beforehand, £900+…..
Warning, I’m going to swear, that’s a bleddy expensive workshop sample!! (please come to class as you see me around the shows next year, I have to pay off the plastic!)
So, ladies and gents, make sure you put all of your sewing threads and such away securely, not just out of sight! It being Christmas with decorations and parcels and elastics and ribbons everywhere, please, please, please put everything away!! I’m never going to forgive myself and I thought I was hyper about such things, just goes to show……
I’ll be cuddling a cat most of Christmas while he recovers, but at least I can cuddle him!
Merry Christmas and a Happy, safe, New Year to you All
Abbie xxx (….and I’m still feeling ill)
