We're Off!

The Housekeeper's are off on holiday this afternoon, heading out of the UK (civil servant strike at the channel tunnel permitting) and are off through France, heading for the Black Forest in Germany for a week in Ralph!, who is The Housekeeper's MGB Roadster. Ralph is older than The Housekeeper! There's actually another 10 cars going on the trip too so we shall be in good company for the week.

The Housekeeper's took Amber to the vets this morning for her check up and he is very very pleased with her progress. He is however concerned that Amber might be stressed about The Housekeepers being away and so has suggested that her collar remain in place until they return. Its upsetting for us but we know its the best solution, really.

The Four Abyssinians are being left at home in the very capable hands of The Housekeeper's parents whilst they are away so you can be sure that there will be plenty of Abyssinian antics to fill you in on when we return.

Everyone has been "helping" with the packing (not that you can fit much in the boot of an MG) and Jasper has been doing his best to go on a road trip too.

We look forward to catching up with you on our return. We've had so little time in the last couple of weeks to visit everyones blogs and we hope that everything will be ok with you all whilst we are away.

Scorchio!

It's been one incredibly hot day, here in the UK, the hottest The Four Abysinians have known and none of them have coped very well.

Both Jasper and Dino looked very miserable today. Jasper was found belly up in his hammock, whereas Dino was just flopping anywhere and everywhere at any given opportunity. Amber, is of course, still under the influence of a collar which can't be much fun in this heat, but it was Crystal who fared the worst.

The Housekeeper turned on the ceiling fan in the conservatory to gave the cats some moving air but forgot that Crystal can't stand the damm thing, so she came into the house to find the boys laying under it, getting their fur ruffled and the muffled wail of the Crystal girl who had taken refuge under the settee in the front room and stayed there most of the day.

Amber's ear, now looks amazing. The Housekeeper let he have a short supervised collar break yesterday in the bathroom and helped Amber have a good spruce up as her head is getting very matted from the cream and drops. As a thank you, Amber slept on the Housekeeper's chest, ALL NIGHT, last night. A wonderful thing. In the nicest possible way, The Housekeeper is hoping that the same won't happen tonight as it is 24 degrees still and very sticky

The Check Up ...

... from the neck up!

The Housekeeper took Amber back to the vets this morning. The Housekeeper was second in line to be seen and was greeted cheerfully by the vet with "so how's my OTHER problem patient, then?!" Oh Dear!

He is very pleased with the way Amber's ear is starting to heal now, so pleased in fact, that he is going to let her wear her fashion accessory for another whole week AND she has another week of anti-robe antibiotic capsules to take.

So it's back we go again, next Thursday morning for another check up.

Everyone else in the Abyssinian household is fine and still being good and very protective of Amber, most of the time, although The Housekeeper did catch Dino "spook" her earlier when she couldn't see him walking up to her. Poor little mite leapt a foot in the air and landed with a very unceremonious clatter on the floor.

The Housekeeper is still cashing in on the lovely Amber cuddles, especially at 6am, in bed under the duvet, when Mr Housekeeper has left for work early and The Housekeeper has had to wake up to wake Amber up so that they can give her, her morning pill before he sets off for the day.

Does anyone have any tips on giving a cat a pill on your own, without help? The Housekeeper has seen the poem/saga of "giving a cat a pill" online several times and it definitely applies in this house. How anyone who lives on their own manages with tablets, we dread to think!

Comforting Cuddles

Its been a long week full of lots of cuddles.

Amber is very miserable still and hanging her head a lot when she is wearing the collar, partly weight and partly low self esteem, we guess.

Its been amazing watching her fathom out how best to get the collar around the dried food bowl and water bowl to eat with it on. The Housekeepers are so relieved that she can eat with it on that we they have cut her "collar" breaks to one a day at the moment. This gives her long enough for a good wash, give her neck a break from the collar and to feed freely.

Unfortunately when she does scratch off her scabs, it results in her shaking her head and a bloody spray across whatever is closest. Luckily,  its only been the inside of a laundry bag, commandeered cat tunnel that has borne the brunt of the mess when she scratches and then shakes her head. The Housekeeper is still very concerned that it is taking so long this time for the wound to heal and start to repair.

Whilst The Housekeeper does not want an unhappy, subdued Abyssinian on her hands for very long, she has very much enjoyed the cuddles from Amber, both sitting in the chair after her collar breaks and also at night. Last night, The Housekeeper dozed off to sleep with Jasper behind her head on the pillow and Amber in her arms with The Housekeepers dressing gown cuddled round her and small soft Amber purrs to lull The Housekeeper to sleep. It's not all bad!

Loooong Day

Amber has been very out of sorts. Completely understandable of course but she just doesn't seem to have any Abyssinian fight in her since her collar was put on. Poor little girl.

She slept in the middle of the bed between The Housekeepers last night and didn't move, all night.

Today she has been very subdued. The Housekeeper gave her three collar breaks of about an hour to give her time to have a wash and have some food and a drink. She has been contained in the conservatory with food and water and then removing the collar, as The Housekeeper knew full well that if she gave her the run of the house without the collar on, that she would disappear behind a bed and stay there! She has been sticking to the one room pretty much anyway, with the exception of litter tray visits as its obviously more comfortable to stay in one place and not get caught on anything.

She has also been as good as gold about The Housekeeper putting her collar back on each time and hasn't struggled once today. She lays across The Housekeeper's knees whilst it is retied. Giving tablets has also been far easier as she cannot swing her head away and spit out the pill with the collar on. Tonight, The Housekeeper has seen her drink water from her bowl with the collar on, which is good as The Housekeeper was worried about her getting dehydrated with limited collar-free time.

The other Abyssinians Have been looking out for her too. The Housekeeper isn't sure whether it was Dino who climbed onto the chair with Amber, or the other way round, but they seem to be quite companionable together.

The picture above shows what Amber's ear looks like today, the following picture was taken in August 2010 and this is what we are trying to avoid happening with the collar in place as it seems to spread and turn very sore, very quickly once she scratches it...... It's heartbreaking.

Collared

The Housekeeper took Amber to the vets this morning for a check up. Sadly, her ear isn't any better. It hasn't dried up as quickly as previous occasions, she is still scratching it and still looks very, very sore.

So, as promised, the vet has now fitted Amber with a collar. He hasn't started on any further treatment at the moment to stop the patches reoccuring, as he wants to get her ear looking less sore and give the skin chance to heal. Sounds sensible, however this does mean yet another consultation fee each time we visit.

The Housekeeper made a point of taking Amber out of her box and holding on to her for a while to have a cuddle and try to settle her down a little, but inevitably, she wriggled free and shot off round the house at an alarming pace, before settling herself in the conservatory.

The other Abyssinians are wary, and Jasper had the hugest fox brush tail That The Housekeeper has ever seen when Amber went running round the house with the collar on. The four of them are now all in the conservatory as The Housekeeper is writing this. They are all chirping to each other, deep in Abyssinian conversation, from which The Housekeeper is excluded. Jasper seems to be leading the conversation.

The Housekeeper has shut all unnecessary doors to rooms, to reduce the running space.

So now we continue the regime of two anti-robe capsules a day as well as cream twice a day and taking the collar off for eating and drinking. It's going to be a long week ahead. Thankfully Mr Housekeeper is home from Germany this evening from a work trip and will be able to help.

Amber has been collared before. An hour after she was home from being spayed, she had pulled all her stitches out and The Housekeeper's had a 40 minute journey to an out of hours emergency vet to get her re-stitched and collared. She spent much of the first day tracking backwards, to it will be interesting to be how she gets on and how long it takes her, or the other Abyssinians, to try to get it off her.

The Housekeeper is feeling very sorry for her. Poor girl.

Payback Purrotest

The Housekeeper has been mopping up!

She doesn't know who is to blame for this misdemeanour, however in hindsight it's a miracle that it hasn't happened sooner.....

The source of the water which is now creeping across the conservatory floor, is the bubble tube which you can see in the corner of the room. It has an electric pump which blasts bubbles up through the tube through a film of different coloured lights giving an ambient effect in the room at dusk - or - IT DID!

The Housekeeper was very, very confused for a few minutes as to why there was SO much water everywhere, but the tube was still upright and hadn't been knocked over. It was only when she started mopping up and was moving things that she realised what had happened.

Someone has chewed holes in the plastic pipe which runs from the bubble tube to the pump.

With sarcastic THANKS to The Katnip Lounge who suggested in a comment yesterday, that the Four Abyssinians should stage a purrotest due to both Housekeeper's going AWOL over the last few days.

Time Out

The Housekeeper has been away over the weekend to a family wedding in North Wales and left Mr Housekeeper in charge for three days. Mr Housekeeper still has his sanity! Just!

He, very bravely, decided to try to pill Amber on his own on Saturday. He succeeded, but only after she has accidentally sunk her teeth into him, as she turned to squirm out of his arms and the pill was spat out. Oops. Don't think he'll be trying that one again.

Amber is now doing her level best to avoid the humans at all costs but didn't reckon on The Housekeeper shutting herself and Amber in the conservatory and waiting for Amber to be within reach to pick her up and get a tablet down her. Her ear has now scabbed over, so isn't red raw any more but is still quite nasty looking.

The boys have been making up for lost cuddles with The Housekeeper, however being a self-confessed teapot, she wasn't very happy this afternoon when both boys decided to help themselves to her mug of tea!!!!

Mr Housekeeper is now off to Germany for the rest of the week, so The Housekeeper is looking forward to the extra cuddles but not to Crystal's miserable cat face whilst her "daddy" is missing.

The Quick Brown Fox

Amber is as wily as a fox, especially when it comes to the day after a vet visit and the necessary administration of tablets.

She came up to bed last night, once The Housekeeper was settled and had a really lovely "cuddle", standing on The Housekeeper to be stroked and have headbutts. She even came at first call for breakfast this morning.

Yet - as soon as The Housekeepers were are anywhere NEAR each other, and there was the vague hint that she might be picked up for a quick popping of pills, hey presto, NO AMBER! Boy, can she move! As soon as Mr Housekeeper had left the house this morning and Amber was winding round The Housekeeper's legs, knowing full well that The Housekeeper wouldn't be likely to attempt solo pill popping! Little Minx!

Whilst these are tablets which The Housekeeper could mix into food, it's a little bit difficult to sort of the logistics to feed Amber separately from those boys so Amber has a stay of pill execution until Mr Housekeeper returns!

Weary Thursday

It's been a few days since we have posted. The Housekeeper has had a lurgy. Some sort of flu-virus we think but it grounded her for a couple of days and she has struggled to get through the days, keeping pace with the sales packing, let alone think about blogging.

She's still very weary and has a huge backlog of work to do as she is now knee deep sourcing and adapting costumes for a Eurovision Song Contest spoof show called Eurovisual 2 and has 130 costumes to prepare for 23 people, so we apologise that she is a little preoccupied.

The Four Abyssinians have been keeping up the "lick and cuddle" rotor to ensure she is looked after

Amber's ear took another turn for the worse yesterday. The heat had obviously been getting to her and she had been scratching her ear so much that she had made it bleed, so The Housekeeper took her to the vets this afternoon for another course of anti robe tablets and an anti-inflammatory injection to get it under control, and then its back to the vets next Thursday so see what else we can do to help the poor little girl.

Sorrel Sunday

Sorrel Sunday was brought to you today by Dino

Pictures taken 30th May 2011

Fawn Friday

Balloons

When The Housekeeper went to the Oscars ceremony recently, The Housekeeper's friend Becky brought home two gold helium balloons with her as she was staying for the night. Very shortly after they arrived through the door, the boys had chomped through the curly ribbon and bitten off the weights so they were put into the conservatory overnight to save any choking issues from chewing curly ribbon.

Neither Crystal, Amber or Dino has really taken much notice of the balloons but Jasper has LOVED them. Mr Housekeeper taught him to hold on to the ribbon and we has watched, laughing, as Jasper walks round the conservatory with the ribbon in his mouth, balloon in tow.

He also talks to them when they are up in the ceiling, willing them to come back down, and wails when he has let go and the balloon has floated away again.

Jasper soon worked out that he could get closer to the balloons by climbing the clothes airer when it was up. The Housekeeper doesn't think that the clothes airer will stand up to much more of being launched onto by a rather solid fawn Abyssinian who still seems to have room to grow further into his paws!

Clothes Airer Surfing 2

Jasper's been at it again. This time however it wasnt just for the sake of climbing the clothes airer, he was trying to reach the curly ribbon on the end of some helium balloons!

The Housekeeper wonders if Jasper will ever grow out of airer surfing and is resigned to having to buy a new clothes airer at some point as this one is now slightly bent due to a certain fawn Abyssinian's weight.

This is a four tier airer which is approx 6 foot high and Jasper was above head height in these pictures.

AND

Just to prove that The Housekeepers do use the camera for something other that cat photographs, here's a picture of the sky, looking up the road from the house last night!

The Neighbours

The Housekeeper has been babysitting for the last week to "the boys next door" whilst their "parents" are in France for a family celebration, so she thought that she would introduce you to them both. Not that either of them were incredibly happy about having their picture taken.

You can tell that they are not quite the exhibitionists that our Four Abyssinians are, can't you!

This is Tyler - otherwise known as Wiggy

And this is Jack!

Wiggy has been coming round each day to visit The Housekeeper for some company whilst she has been tidying up in the garden after work each day. The Four Abyssinian's arn't too happy about Wiggy being in the garden though!