Biting the Hand Who Feeds Him

Had an interesting day yesterday. Was having breakfast with five cats, dog and Muggles the house rabbit who, as usual, was getting rather excited as he loves eating the crust off the bread. Well he mistook my thumb as part of the toast I was offering him and took a chunk out of it. I knew the wound was bad as it began spurting blood immediately. I got Mugs back in his cage while rearranging the room which has to be partitioned when he's out. By the time I got to the bathroom I began hearing buzzing in my ears and realized I was going to faint so came back out, grabbed the phone and lay on the floor. My friend John was the only person I knew would be up at that hour so rang him and told him I was likely to pass out and began crying like a big sook. He was coming to a meeting in Hastings so told me to leave my door unlocked but after ten minutes the faintness passed and I could sit up. All this time I was pressing my thumb with my finger but the bleeding wouldn't stop.

Anyway we discussed that I should ring my other friend Judy as she's a trained nurse. She suggested pressing a sanitary pad into the thumb to take pressure of the finger which was getting tired. She rang back in an hour and it still hadn't stopped bleeding. It didn't stop for two hours!

Afterwards I put on my Homoeobotanical Golden Healing cream and nearly went through the ceiling with the stinging. I put on a band aid and after ten minutes the pain subsided. GH actually prevents tetanus so I guessed it would deal to any staph germs in Muggle's mouth. I ended up feeling so shaky yesterday but drank alot of fluids right through till evening so hopefully my hand has filled up again! ;-)

I'm going to rename Muggles Dracula.

Phones

More rain came last week causing more flooding as the ground was already sodden with water and couldn't take anymore. An unexpected twist was that it took out the phone lines and I was without a phone for SEVEN days. Since I am on dial up this also meant no internet. Talk about frustrating. Telecom will be receiving a letter of complaint as they didn't bother to divert calls through to my mobile until last Wednesday when I was in town and phoned them from my brother's place. I have missed several calls apparently as when people rang they wouldn't even get a signal which also meant my message service wasn't able to do its thing. Considering the obscene profit this company makes every year you'd think they'd have adequate maintenance staff on the job. I object to paying the monthly rental I do if this is the service I receive.

Also I've had three days in the last week and a half when I've had no water. Happened again this morning so waiting with dirty hair for the landlord to do something to rectify the situation.

Grrrrrrrrrr

Bastards of the human and feathered variety

Had an upsetting phone call on Saturday morning when my brother called to say that my car had been broken into Thursday night. Richard drives my car which is why it was parked at his house but unfortunately that particular evening he didn't hear the thieves smash the window to get in. They demolished the ignition barrel, switch and turning lock so the car now can't be driven at all and as a parting gesture emptied the ashtray over all the car seats!

The police didn't bother to come until Saturday morning by which time Rich and his friend had had to push the car round to the back of the house for protection. This meant that there were no fingerprints that could be taken so no one will be punished. I've spent time on the phone trying to organize insurance and the company arranged for the car to be towed to a panelbeaters yesterday and have said they'll try to get it back on the road as soon as possible.

The weird thing is nothing was stolen out of the car at all which I guess means I have really have nothing worth stealing! I guess I'm lucky that the morons didn't manage to steal the car and go joyriding as it would have ended up as a burnt out shell on the river bank. It just infuriates me that they trashed the scruffiest car on the street- could they not tell it belonged to someone permanently broke? I just hope my belief in Karma holds true........

Onto more pleasant topics once upon a time there were three little boys. Well three little white roosters. One was unnamed as he would be going to live near the beach at Waimarama, one was called Spiderman but he unfortunately was killed by my landlords dogs and the third was known as Bloody White Bastard. Now BWB didn't start off with that nickname but he was such a pig to the hens (hiding behind bushes to ambush any unsuspecting pullet minding her own business) that I found myself constantly yelling out "Leave her alone you b****y white b*****d!" so it stuck.

His halcyon days have passed however as BWB is now ten years old and apparently can't cut the mustard anymore. Yes the hens actually threw him out of the hen run. He now spends his time sunning himself in the garden or else hanging around waiting for me feed him. I have become fond of him as he has turned into a pleasant bantam rooster who minds his own business. No more lust in the dust for him- now he only has me his "bud in the mud".

Waterfalls, Wet Fowls and Thunder Thighs

I loathe having to go to town in the rain. That feeling of water running down your neck every time you get out of the car, having to scurry from shop to shop and the mad dash to get all your purchases into the house before they turn into pulp is not pleasant. However Thursday I needed to go to hospital for heart tests so had to brave a terrible rain storm.

The shingle section of our road is now just one long succession of pot holes. If you try to go round one you just drive straight into another. The rain had gouged great chasms across the dirt which saw mini waterfalls pouring into the paddocks. Even the sealed section wasn't much better as the water began creeping right across making driving quite dangerous. The road beneath Te Mata peak was obscured by four or five slips where the clever powers-that-be had decreed all the trees holding the banks together along the roadside be felled. Bet they're feeling a bit foolish now considering all the times workmen are called out to clean up landslides.

We didn't suffer as badly as the Wairarapa though who are still cleaning up after extensive surface flooding. Today we are expecting 120 km westerly winds but I for one will welcome them as we need something to dry up the mud.

In the midst of all this I decided to shift the mother hen and her three month old chick into "the big house". This proved quite simple as I just held the chick while Mum followed me yelling abuse. Unfortunately the chick wasn't too sure if she should be in the shed with the others and I found her standing bedraggled at the hen run gate Thursday morning. I washed out the old plastic rubbish bin that was in their hutch in the hope she would recognise it and stand in there out of the rain but she didn't want a bar of it preferring to get soaked instead.

Fortunately she's settled in a bit better now. When I let the chickens out at lunchtime I catch her and put her in the shed where I feed her. I will do this for another couple of days till she realises that is her new home so that she'll happily return there in the afternoon when I put everyone to bed.

Piper is doing well. Her "Thunder Thighs" have gone back down to a normal size so the heart pills are definitely working. She gets annoyed with me for keeping her inside at night and sits on the window sill looking out at all the mice, rats and other prey she'd normally be catching as they file past giving her the finger in defiance. It's a tough life being a cat!

Mud......but no way is it glorious

I remember a few years ago listening to the radio programme "My Music" where a panel of four wits answered questions about music through the ages. They would always finish up singing a song and Frank Muir (a well known comic writer) would often finish with a Flanders and Swan piece that went "Mud mud glorious mud/ Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood/ So follow me follow/ Down to the hollow/ And there let us wallow in gloooooorious mud!"

Well mud isn't glorious. It smells, it gets everywhere and it doesn't matter how much I try to convince myself it is actually chocolate it still just remains wet dirt. I'm not the only one complaining as a visitor yesterday said she'd never known it so wet and horrible at her property. This is exacerbated by the cats who come in with muddy paws and decide to "take the high road" along the furniture. Officially we have had the coldest June in 15 years and at this rate July may turn out to be the wettest.

The only cat not giving me grief at the moment is Piper who is fast becoming a house cat. She has finished her antibiotics and is feeling better if her frisking around the cottage at 3am is anything to go by. Sometimes I notice her breathing is quite forced but her heart pills seem to be keeping that in check. When I go outside first thing in the morning she sits watching me before accompanying me inside for breakfast. In the afternoon she spends an hour outside with Demelza before coming back in for the night. This is the complete opposite of what she used to be like.

The other news for the week is my landlord coming in to removed the gum tree branches from the backyard. What a job that was. I think the whole top of the tree had broken off in the bad south easterlies we had a couple of weeks ago. I have no idea what else to expect this winter- I just wish it were over.