Friday 17 November 2023: Another day off!

I was up early yesterday to take the dog to the vet, expecting to be in and out in a few minutes. But when I got there they said I had to leave him because the test they were doing needed some time to take effect… well, I wasn’t expecting that. I thought it was just another blood test. Very reluctantly, I left him with them. It’s not something we make a habit of and I didn’t think the dog would like it very much.

It was too far for me to go home and go out again. By the time I parked up, it would have been time to turn around and go back. So instead I went to a supermarket around the corner and had a breakfast. The plan had been to have breakfast when I got home, but now, with time to kill, I decided to live it up a bit… I had a bowl of Rice Krispies with milk and a pot of tea. I know how to live! I also caught up on social media on my phone while I was there.

The day before, a spot on the dog’s shoulder had popped and bled a lot. I cleaned it, disinfected it, dried it and put antiseptic cream on, snipping away some of the fur to make the process easier. When we got to the vet, his car harness had started to rub at it and the vet told me off, saying he needed something smaller, and he removed the harness. This vet’s always telling me off…

I didn’t have an ordinary collar or a harness with thinner straps, so I went into the pet superstore to buy the dog a new one. Only I didn’t have him with me and I didn’t know his measurements. Because he’s a sausage dog, his back is longer than usual and he usually has to be with us when we buy anything like that. So I got him a collar instead, and a treat for being brave and staying at the vet’s on his own.

When I got back to the surgery, Rufus was ready to come home. He was quiet and subdued and I thought he’d had a sedative. But he hadn’t. Clearly, sitting in a cage without one of us close by didn’t exactly cheer him. I tried the collar on and it was huge, so the veterinary nurse/practice manager tried to help me tighten it. We didn’t make it much tighter, and it would still go over his head if he pulled.

As I was only taking him across the road to the car, I decided to just take it slowly. We made it back to the car safely, and when we were home he was a bit brighter, so I gave him one of his treats. That worked.

Then I sat with him until he cheered up a lot more, reading, writing, doing writing exercises, sharing the gig list, watching social media. And I didn’t make it back to my desk. I had an inadvertent day off! Ah well. Such is one of the many joys of working for oneself. And I probably got more writing done than I would sat at my desk.

The reading list landed for a study along workshop I hope to join in with in January, so I went to have a look at those, and I also had a look to see what other courses I already have access to that might be useful to watch before this one starts. The study along is for science fiction mysteries, and I found lectures and classes for both science fiction and mysteries. I won’t have time to look at them all and read six books, but I might squeeze in a couple.

We’ve been asked not to discuss the reading list with anyone before, during or after the workshop. And we’ve also been asked not to critique them. I don’t know why this is because if I’ve spent good money on a book, read it, and formulated an opinion, if I think it’s a good read, I might want to recommend it to others.

I also found a Teach Yourself… book on writing science fiction and fantasy in my Kindle library, so I started to read it. This is one of the best books in this series, I think, even though I don’t write a lot of either. It makes me think I can and the author promises that by the end of the book we might have half a dozen completed stories.

So I started a new notebook and did one of the exercises, which turned out to be the first complete short story, or flash fiction. I wrote 150 words in 5 minutes, but I think I’d also like to carry on with it. I did that before, with another exercise from one of these books, and it sat and percolated for many months. Then it became The Most Scariest Night of the Year, which also became my first attempt at a horror story.

When the dog went out for his last visit to the garden for the night, there was a hedgehog sat at the bottom of the bird table. It was only a baby so it was slow to roll into a ball. Rufus carefully went up to it and sniffed at it, but as soon as I said to leave it, he did and came back in. I then spent the next five or ten minutes giving the little thing mealworms. At first it just sat on them. But when I went in, it started to munch.

The vet rang this morning to let us know that Rufus doesn’t have cushings but that he’s still worried about the dog’s liver. The ultrasound guy (or gal) would be in the surgery next Friday and he’d (the vet) like to have a look at the dog’s belly if he can. Unfortunately, we’re already both tied up next Friday and the vet doesn’t know when the ultrasound person will be there again. So we’re going to start off with a different liver medication and see how he goes.

If we’re worried, or if his liver still continues to elevate (or whatever it is it does), then we’ll find out when the ultrasound person will be there again and make the decision then. Rufus doesn’t have to be knocked out for this, he just has to have his belly shaved. But it means an early finish today to go and collect his medication. I’ll do a meal plan and shopping list too and we’ll do the shopping while we’re out.

The poet is back from his business trip today and we don’t have anything planned for the weekend. After getting stuck on the M25 for three hours, though, and taking another three hours to get home, he understandably doesn’t want to do anything at the weekend either. That’s why we want to get the shopping out of the way today to free us up to do whatever we want, or don’t want.

Have a great weekend!