Counting down

At 8.15am Felix had his sixth visit to the vet – the final check on progress. The limp has gone and the swelling is down. He was also in fine form last night, ‘partying’ from 4am, probably because there was no food in his plate from 10pm last night to prepare him for sedation.

I expected he would be released from both confinement and medication, but he has been given four more days of antibiotics and indoor life just to be sure. He has had a subdued day at home, seeking comfort with his big eyes – pupils dilated from the sedative, I suppose. His nails were trimmed as well. I noticed he wasn’t getting much of a grip on the carpet as he stretched his claws this afternoon. I hope the blinds will be less inclined to rip as well. He made two splits in another blind on Saturday. A most expensive few weeks.

Let me out!

I am half sick of shadows… (Tennyson)

Felix has been kept inside for weeks. The upside is that his limp is less noticeable at last. The downside is the damage he does: biting the blind cords, scratching the carpet and, most recently, tearing a blind. He briefly slipped out of the front door yesterday having worked out that I will come in that way if he is by the back door. He made a dash for it, but paused to smell some plants and I was able to catch him. Here he is by the door, waiting for me to open it again.

Open the door!
Damaged blind

The shadows of trees on the blind may have been torment for poor Felix. I empathise; not being able to open doors and windows on these lovely sunny autumn days in case he escapes. At least I can go outside and garden, or walk in the Gardens as I did today on my way to and from Singing.

Under the cork tree (Quercus suber)
All in the blue unclouded weather
…like one burning flame together
Golden Elm (Ulmus minor ‘Louis van Houtte’) It’s massive. How big is an Ulmus major?

In the meantime, Felix escaped into his dreams. Later, he took over Mum’s fireside chair.

Lots of sleep for healing his paw
Indulging Felix with home comforts

Feijoas

A few days ago I had picked up a dozen or so feijoas from under the tree and decided on a Nadia Lim muffin recipe. Before I began baking today, I checked below the tree to see if any more had dropped – and (expecting only two or three) filled my jersey hem with 33 of them. The ones I already had, plus two from a friend’s tree, were enough for the muffins. The recipe has more ingredients than the muffin recipes I usually make, but included fresh ginger and yoghurt which sounded good. The mixture is very wet, but the skewer came out clean after just over 20 minutes in the oven.

Taste test: The texture is lovely and soft, the white chocolate adds interest in bite rather than in flavour, the overall taste is a bit overwhelmed by the mashed banana so it’s not easy to detect the feijoa, but there’s a nice tingle of ginger. I think I would leave out the banana next time and substitute it with more feijoas.

There are 33 feijoas left over. What to do with them? Smoothies? Perhaps I will eat one or two every day, scooping each one out with a teaspoon.

Why did the chickens cross the room?

To get away from Felix who was chewing their feathers.

Felix needs to be entertained today to distract him from his vandalising, which includes chewing blind cords – not just chickens. I saw him looking with intent at the blind cords in the vet’s clinic last week. Here’s one he’s chewed twice recently. I try to remember to wind them up out of his way.

The string drawer keeps him entertained for a while, then he lies back to look out of the window at the places he can’t go until his paw is better.

Sore paw

Felix is hopping along on three legs. His sore paw does not seem to be improving despite antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and painkillers. He is confined to the house and spends some time looking for a way out. After his meds at breakfast time, however, he spends a long time sleeping. He uses his litter tray once a day. Such control! I’m worried about his paw. What is going on in there that we can’t see? He uses his left paw (the sore one) to play, but not so much for walking. Why is it not getting better? Will he end up three-legged?

Left paw is sore
but is still the choice for playing

Repairs

The handrail at our front steps rotted, making 97-year old Mum’s descent potentially perilous from the front door to the path. I’m fortunate to have two DIY brothers: one provided a handrail left over from renovations, and the other sanded it down, painted and installed it. I was able to supply tools and did the finishing undercoating and topcoats of paint.

The rotted handrail
Adjusting the brackets
An audience of ants turned up
Notches needed to be chiselled out to fit the brackets
Felix helped with the final topcoat
The finished handrail

Felix is back under repair too. His limp worsened and the vet determined that there is still an infection inside his metacarpal paw. Consequently, he is under house arrest for another week, with more anti-flammatories and antibiotics.

Origami rose

I saw this stem of roses among the hydrangeas and picked it for the kitchen window sill. Later, I noticed how unusual the star-shaped flowers are – reminding me of origami. I think the petals will open further, as others I have picked have been round in shape as you expect a rose to be.

It was one of the prizes in our Friday raffle at work years ago and I found a small space for it in the garden. Since then, it has been crowded by other plants and has climbed upward – like a climbing rose rather than the carpet rose which it is meant to be. Fortunately, its bright colour draws attention so it doesn’t get overlooked.

Family time

Mum met wee Georgia, her third great-grandchild, when my niece and her family came up from Dunedin for the long weekend.

Yesterday, they called in at our house along with other family. I counted eight adults (including us), two small boys, the baby, and a puppy in our little house on the warm, sunny autumn morning. (Felix had found a sunny spot on the neighbour’s garden shed.) The funniest sight was Scout the puppy heading out the door with one of Mum’s woolly slippers!

Scout, the little rascal

This morning I have the little boys’ artwork, spread out to dry, to remember them by. I will add these pieces to the archive of children’s artwork I have kept.

Here is a glimpse of the archive. – including work by the little boys’ mother. She loves that they enjoy drawing as she and her cousins did when they came to my house as children.

On the windowsill (right) are Kinder Surprise toys from back then. They used to have great ‘surprises’ inside the Kinder chocolate eggs when my nieces and nephews were little.

The artist of this oversize birthday card would later graduate with a fine arts degree.

Free at last

Felix was taking ridiculous risks as he tried to find ways out of the house this afternoon, so I let him out. He stayed close, nibbling on his cat mint and sitting on the compost bin where the mice hang out, while I was gardening, and then he went to visit my neighbours across the street. I let them know that he was about – they had seen him – and to explain his limp. Since he jumped out of the window yesterday, his limp has worsened and he sits holding his paw off the ground. The wound to his paw has healed over, so I wonder if he strained (dare I say damaged?) his paw when he defenestrated himself. There’s a lot of responsibility involved in having a cat. As I write, I can see him curled up in a favourite spot in the garden.

Escape!

I am very relieved that Felix has just come home after being AWOL for about two hours. He must have squeezed out of this gap (8cm) and jumped down. His limp is now a little more pronounced after the drop onto the concrete drive – and whatever else he’s been doing since then.