It seemed like a good idea at the time

A 10 hour layover in Qatar. Brilliant I thought when we’d booked the tickets, I could maybe see my mate who lives there, except he mailed me a few weeks ago, he’s sodding well left.

Perhaps time then to go and explore the capital ourselves then? Fine if I hadn’t spent the hours before my 5am departure for Seychelles airport tidying up, so collapsed in a heap in the hotel provided in Qatar, waking up completely disorientated some time in the afternoon and deciding to go for a walk in 40 DEGREES HEAT AND WITH JEANS ON. Fastest walk ever. I collapsed in a heap on the hotel bed once more, groggily rising for food, then back to bed and up again for check in around midnight, onto the plane and asleep again, being sure I used my sticker so they knew that I wanted waking for food, obviously.

Best line of the flight, the pilot’s comment: ‘so nice weather on the way to Manchester’. If you’re from up north, you’ll get why that’s funny.

Home sweet Home.

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Minx mojo

don’t worry her freedom is now guaranteed

Thank God. The guy moving into our flat is a cat owner and happy to take on Minx. He just isn’t moving in until mid August. Disaster averted by the opportune holiday of an ex school colleague and pet lover who’s staying in our mate ‘J’s flat, more or less next door. We bought a stack load of tuna, handed her a bulging bag of drugs, some money in case she needed to get more and put in a very desperate plea to ask if she didnn’t mind taking Minx to the vet’s in two weeks time for another check up. No problem, our saviour said, and plus she said she was a dab hand with giving cats pills.

I think Minx is in better hands than if we’d been there.

 

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Re re wind and the crowd says see you later

After much ado, we decided to have a leaving do at social seychelles hangout Exiles. Always up for a party, I end up dreadfully nervous of my own, and so it was, and I spent most of the hours before it trying to create the prefect playlist rather than doing the sensible thing of packing. But then as previously established, packing is boring. After much umming and ahhing, the other one drove to Exiles and did a sterling job of staying sober all evening while I had his share of the beers and chatted inanely to most of our assembled guests who’d very kindly put aside a saturday evening to listen to my drivel. It was lovely to see everyone and weird to think that many of them I’ll probably never see again – I’m sentimental like that. I also realised that there were a few people who I should have invited and completely forgot. Sorry if you’re reading this. The other one got a good school showing, and I can say the same from my work too although I’d have liked it not to have been just the expats from my side, but I guess a lot of Seychellois are used to people passing through, or they knew ahead  of time I was going to chat inane drivel.

I also managed to inveigle myself on someone I’d never met before and extract an invite to stay with him in Abu Dhabi – this diplomacy stuff must have rubbed off on me without my knowing – and also got a very touching thank you for all my work with social seychelles, which I embarrassedly tried to bat away. It was a bittersweet evening but one I left standing up. If nothing else, I may return from Seychelles a proper grown up.

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Good job fresh fish in Seychelles is so cheap

With fresh fish Minx will never notice the 2 x pink pills, 1 x big white, 1/2 x small white pill we crush in her food every day will she?

Day 1 – success! Day 2 – Suspicion. Day 3 – Coaxing. Day 4 –  Whiskers away from getting down on all fours and pretending to eat the sodding stuff for her.

Day 5 – When do we leave Seychelles? Day 6 – Guilt. Day 7 – Back to the vets.

They think she’s getting better. One small problem, we have to leave for the UK the next day.

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And just pop it in…

The lady on the online video says, stroke the cat, ease its head back, open the mouth from the bottom jaw and just pop the pill in.

The cat Minx says you can bloody well bugger off.

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Minx jinx #3

‘Do you know why her mouth is so pink?’ the other one asked about Minx to the vet.

Ahhhhh

‘No, I’ve seen dogs with it but never cats’ the vet replied.

Being two prior non pet owners we didn’t follow up. Bad move.

Minx got injected, shaved and sprayed with blue antibiotic stuff and we for good measure bought some ‘kill the lice’ shampoo – cue the hilarious Benny Hill chase of the cat around the flat as we tried to bathe her (told you non pet people). She did humour us by sweetly succumbing to a wet towel rub, but that didn’t help her pink mouth, and it was looking worse.

We went back to the vet, which is when we found out that there are actually two vets, both very nice, but only one clearly knows what she’s talking about, and yup she was the one that we hadn’t seen. Immediately, she diagnosed poor minx with having a female indolent ulcer,  but what did that mean?

Answer: A shed loads of drugs to stuff down her neck, and a lot more Benny Hill.

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Minx jinx #2

She was diagnosed with lice.

Nice.

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Minx jinx #1

Very cute in full health

What to do with the cat was a pressing issue, in the back of our minds and not something we wanted to face. We’d inherited her from our neighbours who’d left who’d inherited her from the previous people who’d lived in our flat who’d inherited her from the previous owner and original person who started the whole mess in the first place, the poor animal passed from pillar to post – though lovely how everyone’s tried to look after her. We considered bringing her to the UK but between needing to get her micro-chipped and inoculated against rabies (both not available in Seychelles necessitating them being sent from the UK), plus not knowing where we’d be living and likely to have to rent, it made no sense. Not helping our cause was some problem with her fur, it was falling out and she had scabs – could hardly advertise her in the paper ‘please have our lovely cute scabby cat, go on go on go on’. So we took her to the vet.

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Packing boxes

is tedious.

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