Merlin's Home!

Thanks for your kind thoughts, Elle. :-)

Merlin came home from the vets this afternoon. Had to ask my Mum and Dad to take Emily with them to fetch him, as I was out at the hospital with Grandad and Jon's old car (our "spare") is knackered, again.

Poor old Merlin has virtually all of his tummy shaved and a big long line of stitches. Added to the large shaven area on his flank from his last visit, plus half of one of his front legs shaven from the drip etc - he looks in a very sorry state, bless him. His film star looks may take a while to return ;-)

The really good news, though, is that he seems to be a lot better than he looks. He's very alert and active and was clearly delighted to be home, purring away at everyone and being licked by the other cats (well, except Romeo who's keeping a cautionary distance and has only got as far as sniffing Merlin's foot, lol). Merlin will be on a special prescription diet for the next fortnight and for the next few days he's only allowed a teaspoonful at a time, but he's eagerly eating it and he's been washing himself a lot too. He has to go back to have his stitches out on the 29th and isn't allowed out until then - which will be fun, trying to keep him in and allow the other three out!! He's also not allowed any "treats" for a while, so we'll have to save the ones in his cat stocking until the New Year. By which time we should finally know what's wrong with him and what can be done.

Emily's soooo pleased to have him home and has been writing him poems and drawing get well cards for him all afternoon :-)

In other news - Grandad's visit to the renal clinic was good news in that they don't really think there's anything wrong with his kidneys apart from old age. He had one blood test a while ago that showed a spike of something or other which is why he was referred, but more recent tests show everything back to a normal level. He's got an appointment for a kidney ultrasound on the day after Emily's birthday anyway, just to make absolutely sure.

Emily and I thoroughly enjoyed watching Hogfather over the last couple of nights. I've never ready any Terry Pratchett stuff, but I was really taken with this adaptation, so maybe we'll read some. This afternoon Emily turned some of her Barbies into Death, Death's Grandaughter, Mr Teatime and Violet the Tooth Fairy, lol. She made great costumes for them!

Meanwhile, business has been manic. We've worked our little socks off to get orders out by today, this being royal mail's last "guaranteed" (yeah, right, roll on the floor laughing hard enough to rupture something) date for Christmas delivery. Last minute orders are still coming in but it's starting to slow down now. The last parcel I was waiting for, Xmas/Birthday wise, finally turned up today so all presents apart from the handmade ones are now, well, present and accounted for. Which is a long way away from wrapped up, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Gulp. Major craft day with friends tomorrow, so Jon and I may be able to sneak some wrapping up time while the kids are busy.