Jasmine

Sweet young Jasmine. Retired racer through injury, she was sidelined and not much of a prospect. Now, we have her and love her to bits...
Full of life, mischief and love. She is enjoying life, being in her 'forever home', getting fussed over, very much spoilt.
She is quite different to our RosieG, she barks, especially at the telly if there are dog noises... She plays with toys and loves her ball. She also eats very well. We are so pleased she's eating well. She was so scrawny and in poor condition when we first homed her.
Unlike Rosie, she's not a fan of dentistix, she does like pigs ears though (yuck!)...
Same breed but such different, individual characters.
Jasmine is such a tale wagger, it's more like a 360° rotation at 100 mph... So cute but so dangerous.. She has a little of her tail missing, right at the tip! I am sure it must have been a traumatic amputation: we had the bloodbath the other night. It was like a scene from a thriller where the killer has knifed someone to death and there has been a struggle!! A 'massacre' at home... It wasn't but it could have been. There was blood everywhere.
The splatter was a fine bloody spray in our bedroom, the hall, stairs and landing, dinning room and upstairs bathroom. Who knows what she had hit but it was very evident.
To complicate things a bit more, we had a house viewing the next day (we are selling our place) so we had to plan something.... Julie had to work so she thought it best to clean when she was back home.
I thought I'd save us time by cleaning the blood where I could get to it : mirrors, furnishings, doors, walls...and dab the marks off.
Big mistake!
The dabbing on the walls was 'inefficient' so rubbing was required and it worked, on the white walls. The walls in the hall, stairs and landing are blue and the rubbing caused more of a problem, the paint rubbed off... Revealing the undercoat so desperate measures were needed, I'll use the spare paint left over from painting that area a couple of years ago, no problem.
I looked for a tester pot in the shed and found it, dabbed all over the areas affected and hey presto, done!
Wrong.....the walls were now like a blue leopard print!
I thought the paint was the right shade but was just taking a little longer to dry when in fact it was around 5 tones darker!
Panic ensued, I had a couple of hours to fix this, I am not driving so I hobbled with my walking stick, down to the DIY store, found the tester pots and then, more anxiety: 'which one is the correct shade? what if its not? I can't afford to waste any more time or energy running back and forth so I bought 4 shades of blue.
Problem solved? I wasn't going to get away with it as easily as that!
They were all a tad darker or lighter but not the same, the leopard print was now more interesting as the lighter shades differentiated the darker spots to make it, well, damned obvious something was wrong!!
Panic
I was broken at this point and Julie cane home.
You can imagine what she said and how she felt, well not as bad as I did.
We went of hunting for different shades of blue. A hue that was now no longer available!
Thankfully, Keiron and Aga came round. They said not to panic, took a couple of photos of the walls with the camera on the phone, went down to Homebase and half an hour later, a perfect match, good enough for the house viewing.

So what happened to the culprit, Jasmine, not me...?
Well she had foam pipe lagging and a dressing applied to her tail which was successful in protecting and healing her tail.
We now try not to get her too excited or at least, steer her from any obstructions when she is in full helicopter mode!!

Goodbye RosieG

We rescued Rosie six years ago. She was an ex-racer and now needed a forever home, to be loved, spoilt, pampered and cared for. We gave her this home and an extended family that welcomed her and loved her as much as we did.
She was a character and her warm loving nature meant she was a joy to see, interacting with our grandchildren.
We had so many adventures to have but alas this was not to be.

On Monday, she sustained a fracture to her leg that was spontaneous... Not a good sign and our worst fears were realised when the vet confirmed it was osteosarcoma 😔

She was a star and deserved a long and happy retirement but it was cruely cut short yesterday. She had fought her last fight and passed away peacefully being held by my wife Julie and my mother in law Claire. I could not face saying goodbye... I have my memories and the pain of seeing her take her last breath was too much for me.

It was ironic because Julie and Claire had brought her home originally... And now they had set her free 😭

As much as we loved her, we could not see her suffer.
She needed a release and she is now chasing and playing in heaven...

Goodbye my sweet Rosie... We will always love you and we are enriched by your grace, beauty and unconditional love. ♥️💕

Catch up at High tea.

It was such a brilliant catch up with good friends / colleagues yesterday.

Catriona was chauffer for me, picking me up from home and then Penny and driving us to a posh tearoom in a boutique hotel near Ongar... Due to PMI (Poor Memory Issues) I cannot tell you the name of the place but it was extremely chilled and very posh!
We were shown into a large conservatory, sitting at a table which was set with emaculate precision.
The cutlery sat welcoming and clean, awaiting the food to be served.
I noticed and older colleague of ours sat to my left and I turned, smiled and briefly chatted with her, Janet.
Janet was a health visitor who'd worked in the same offices as we had about 5 years + ago. She'd retired and asked "have you retired now?"... I wonder if the walking stick and my gait prompted her question or do I look really old anyway?
No need to answer this one, I know!!!

After a catch up, we had our tea served... Tea with scones, cakes and sandwiches (with the crust cut off), served in a timely manner and with a smile.

I hadn't seen Julia, Penny or Catriona for many months so there was a lot to catch up on.
We have worked together for many years and have been good friends, all of us are specialist nurses in different disciplines but all forward thinking.
We have always done what is best for our patients and colleagues and I was very proud to be their manager for a few years too.

Two main reasons for our meeting: I had retired and now Penny was retiring.
It was like we'd only seen each other the day before... Lots of chat, laughs and memories shared.

Tea was great, lots of choices of tea, I went for the ceylon (Sri Lanka) tea... Strong and full bodied. All poured through a tea strainer as the tea was loose leaf tea.. Catriona!
She kept on forgetting about this, in all fairness, she is the younger one out of us all and usually never drinks hot beverages of any sort!

The sad fact about our meeting is that two of us, by today, will have retired.

Penny has always been the consummate professional. Caring, unpreterbed and calming, in all the years I've known her, I'd say I've only seen her angry once and that was only angry with a tiny 'a'...
She has done so much for her service, single handedly being a force for effective cardiac rehab in West Essex. I have a lot of praise and respect for Penny. She will be missed but she has given many, many years service to others and now it's time for herself, family and especially her grandson. Good luck Penny 😉👍.

We chatted for ages, sharing photos of our children and grandchildren with anecdotes to boot... Sharing tales of our ailments and how different the patient experience is.
It is such a shame that we shared poor parent experience when receiving care!

Time passing quickly and soon the previously bright conservatory becoming darker as dusk set in. It was a good 3 hours gone quickly though there was nearly a year to catch up on.

It was time to say goodbye and although our daily interactions will never be the same, our respect and  can I say love, for our colleagues and friends, will always be there.

There were a few cakes left over so I was obliged to take them home for our grandchildren to polish off... Boy did they enjoy them! Especially as Daisy wasn't feeling well so the cakes were very much a Medicinal must.!

Till the next time
Cheers....